Pure-play foundry Tower Semiconductor Ltd. announced Q2 revenues of $33.7 million, an increase of 161 percent over the $12.9 million reported in Q2 2003 and 24 percent over revenues of $27.2 million in Q1.

The loss in the quarter narrowed to $36.5 million from Q1's loss of $38.5 million, but grew higher than Q2 2003’s net loss of $16.8 million.

Revenues for the six months ended June 30 were $60.9 million, an increase of 139 percent over revenues of $25.5 million for the same period last year, with a loss of $75 million, compared with a loss of $31.2 million in the first six months of 2003.

Tower said the Q2 and first half losses reflect the high investment made in its Fab 2 and its resulting depreciation, and that it is on course toward a more positive position by the end of the year. The Migdal Haemek, Israel-based company expects Q3 revenues to be in the range of $35 million and $38 million.

“I am very pleased that we were able to achieve our performance goals this quarter for both Fab 1 and Fab 2. Fab 1 is profitable, and its utilization continues to increase. Fab 2 is still expected to reach 14,000 installed capacity by year-end and we continue to experience higher demand than our current installed capacity from virtually all markets, especially for consumer devices, which results in strong revenue growth,” said Carmel Vernia, chairman and CEO at Tower, in a statement.

Further, Vernia commented, “Progress was also made in our specialized technologies, with the receipt of our first customer commitment for 0.18-micron embedded flash. Additionally, we shipped first product samples of 0.18-micron CMOS image sensors to two customers and started development work for the RFID tag market, combining our know how and expertise in two of our specialized areas -- embedded NVM and mixed signal technologies. We have also continued to execute per plan on our 0.13-micron technology transfer and infrastructure activities.”

By: DocMemory
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