Despite having seen a 12.5% drop in sales to June (CI No 3,450), Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd plans to increase its production capacity – while reducing its spending on plants. Taiwan Semi is confident it will see an overall increase in sales over last year, reports the Nikkei Microdevices publication. While it will reduce investments in its plants from its current $1.3bn-$1.4bn, to $900m this year, it plans to increase production capacity by 25%, and is plowing ahead with plans to open new plants across Asia. The company is soon to commence construction of a plant, called Fab 7 which, upon completion, will make 300mm wafers. It plans to start installing equipment in the fourth quarter of next year and will start mass production in 2001. There are also plans to change production runs in the company’s existing plants. An existing plant is also to start fabricating 300mm wafers. The company that claims to be the world’s largest foundry manufacturer, has been suffering from the Asian economic crash and a decline in chip demand.
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