Leading chip foundry Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (TSMC) announced that strong demand gave rise to above-guidance revenue and profit margins in the fourth quarter 2012 financial results. Chairman and CEO Morris Chang said that his company's 28nm chip shipment this year will triple that of last year, which should boost its annual increase in revenue.

TSMC achieved consolidated revenue of about $4.53 billion and net income of roughly $1.44 billion for the fourth quarter with shipments of 28nm, 40nm and 65nm wafers up 22, 22 and 19 per cent respectively. These three most advanced technologies accounted for 63 per cent of total wafer revenues.

Executives from Intel also said they expect the company to grow sales modestly in 2013 as the company benefits from blurring lines between notebook PCs and tablets and customers design products around new Intel chips. CEO Paul Otellini acknowledged that Intel's core PC processor business was hurt in 2012, when PC sales declined in large measure because consumers chose tablets instead. But Intel hopes to catch a bigger piece of the tablet wave in 2013, and the company is actively pushing its Ultrabook concept for low power, ultrathin notebook PCs.

Fourth quarter sales and profits came in as expected according to ASML Lithography. The Netherlands-based chip making equipment vendor reported net sales of about $1.36 billion. CEO Eric Meuric attributed the slow start but strong full year perspective to the need for chipmakers to invest in the 14nm/20nm foundry and logic nodes for which chip designs are in preparation and that ASML start shipping NXE:3300B EUV tools in Q2 and is targeting a total of up to 11 EUV units in 2013 representing a net sales value of about $935 million. ASML expects net sales for the first quarter of 2013 to exceed $1 billion.

By: DocMemory
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