HSINCHU, Taiwan -- Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. today announced delivery of its first 300-mm wafers with fully processed ICs to an unidentified foundry customer. The shipment of 300-mm wafers comes one month after TSMC announced it had begun processing 12-inch diameter substrates in the company's 300-mm pilot line, located in Tainan (see Sept. 16 story).
"Yield of the first 300-mm customer wafers exceeded our expectation," said N.S. Tsai, senior director of TSMC's 300-mm line. "The results are exciting and most encouraging, and we are now more confident than ever about meeting the future challenges of 300-mm manufacturing."
To increase the odds of success in its initial 300-mm lots, TSMC decided to use a mature 0.18-micron process technology to fabricate the first customer designs on the larger diameter wafers. The company is now constructing two 300-mm volume production facilities--Fab 14 in Tainan (near the pilot line, which is housed in Fab 6), and Fab 12, located near TSMC's headquarters in Hsinchu. Fab 12 is scheduled to start production in the fourth quarter of 2001, while Fab 14 is slated to begin manufacturing in early 2002.
