The wafer foundry industry can be divided into three camps. The first camp has a sole member of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (TSMC), which has first class productivity and owns good quality fame worldwide. So it is always the first choice for many large IC design houses. Whenever the semiconductor industry suffers recession or declining market demand, large-sized IC design houses tend to order from TSMC. Therefore the more recessionary the semiconductor industry is, the more orders TSMC gets and accordingly the fewer other wafer foundry fab has.
The second camp includes United Microelectronics Company (UMC), Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC), CHARTERED and IBM. The four wafer foundry fabs are usually the second choice or alternative for large IC design houses and the first choice for medium IC design houses. When recession falls in the semiconductor industry, these four companies are apt to be firstly impacted. To avoid such impact, they all have their own major clients with strong loyalty. The major clients of UMC are Media Tek and NOVATEK, both are included in the UMC camp. Media Tek is the worldwide largest DVD player IC manufacturer with a stable capacity of 50,000 - 60,000 pieces per month. NOVATEK is the largest TFT-LCD driver IC manufacturer with a stable capacity of 30,000 pieces per month. While SMIC takes Infineon and ELPIDA as its major clients and maintains a relatively stable business relationship by offering memory foundry. CHARTERED, Infineon, Samsung and IBM have built a cross platform wafer foundry ally and the market demand is also growing steadily. IBM, however, provides CPU foundry services for game machine makers with super production capacity like Microsoft XBOX and Sony PS3.
Relying on the local industry chain, manufacturers in the third camp each have their own specialties and regional advantages. MAGNACHIP and VANGURD are both specialize in LCD driver IC foundry and meanwhile they cooperate with driver IC industry in South Korea and Taiwan. MAGNACHIP is also specialized in image sensor CMOS foundry like Dongbu Anam, which is also accomplished in automobile electronics. While HHNEC is strong in the Smart card domain, and JAZZ is sophisticated in RF IC foundry services. X-FAB is adept at mixed-signal and MEMS foundry. Episil is expert in power semiconductor components and Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation Limited (ASMC) is skilled in analog IC foundry.
The development of wafer foundry industry in China mainland is greatly hampered by IC design houses in China Mainland. Among those 500 IC design houses, only at most 50 are able to have mass productions. Over 90% of those companies are just conceptual ones relying on loans or external investments. Considering those 50 design houses are having mass productions, more than 90% of them are focus on logical IC rather than analog IC. For logical IC, wafer size and manufacturing techniques determine the production cost. 12-inch and 90nm or 65nm wafer is the lowest-cost solution for logical IC. In logical IC field, wafer foundry fabs in China mainland are all of weak competitiveness except SMIC. 45 out of 57 wafer fabs in China mainland are still manufacturing products over 0.5nm.
In China mainland, many blindly started wafer production lines focus on foundry services. As most of the investment is from loans, it is quite hard to bring any profits.
