Although Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company's
(TSMC) 28nm foundry capacity is reportedly not enough to
deal with the high demand, industry insiders expect the
shortage to relax at the end of the third quarter.
TSMC's yield rates of its 28nm process are slowly
improving, according to a Digitimes.com report from
Taiwan. However, the foundry is conservative about
expanding 28nm foundry capacity in order to maintain
gross margins, partly accounting for the capacity
shortage.
Qualcomm, AMD and Nvidia are TSMC's main clients for the
new 28nm chips.
AMD was the first to come up with its 28nm Radeon HD 7970
GPU earlier this year, but has actually shipped a
relatively small volume of the GPU due to TSMC's short
capacity.
In view of the shortage, Qualcomm also reportedly
shifted some orders to United Microelectronics, in order
to meet its clients' demand for microprocessors used in
for smartphones and tablet PCs.
Nvidia 28nm GeForce GTX 680 GPU finally reached the
market in late March, also hit by TSMC's low foundry
capacity.
TSMC plans to construct the 5th-phase expansion of Fab 14
next week. The new 12-inch fab is expected to contribute
to the company's foundry capacity.