CIOL: Who were the major movers and shakers (or slips) among the top 25, and what are the reasons for those, in your opinion?

Qualcomm

•  Increasing foundry orders. A Digitimes article reported that Qualcomm will increase orders by 15-20% in the September quarter in order to meet projections of strong 3G handset sales. According to the article, sources at Qualcomm suggest that wafer starts per month in the December quarter could surpass 30,000.
•  Reports strong June quarter for 2007. Qualcomm’s $2.32 billion in June quarter sales represents 19% year/year growth. Record chipset volumes of 65 million were at the high end of 62 million-65 million guidance. UMTS chipset shipments were noted to have increased by 127% year-over-year and 79% quarter-over-quarter, with the quarter-over-quarter growth rate roughly 4 times the market growth rate.
•  Chipset ASPs increased by 2% year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter, and are expected to remain stable.
  
  

CIOL: How is the situation in Asia, and how does FSA see growth of fabs going forward in India?

(Source: Strategic Marketing Assoc. Quarterly Spot Report - July)

India Fab Announcement: In the eastern Indian state of West Bengal, the technology ministry announced plans for a yet to be named fab at the India Design Center.
Details: India Design Center/Prototype / Kolkata, India
Est. Construction Date: Oct 2007
Est Volume Date: Oct 2009
Product: R&D
Capacity/Mo: 0.5k
Wafer Size: 200mm
Cost: $75M

India Fab/Possible: NeST Group/Fab 1 / Kochi, India / $1 billion for 200mm 30k flash

CHINA: Strategic Mktg Assoc expects that eight new fabs will start construction in China this year. Two started construction in the first quarter (Hua Hong NEC and ProMOS) and two more started construction in the second quarter. Grace Semiconductor, which opened its first fab in 2003, began moving equipment into the shell of Fab 2, which was built at the same time as Fab 1. The company is installing used equipment and plans to begin production in Q1 0f 2008. The company also plans to begin building a 300mm fab, perhaps as early as next year, although financing remains an issue for such a project.

Also in China, IC Spectrum began building a 200mm fab in Kunshan, about 45 kilometers east of Shanghai. Using 0.35 micron technology from Toshiba, the new foundry expects to begin volume production by the first quarter of 2009.

TSMC began production in the second phase of its 300mm Fab 14 in Tainan in the south of Taiwan. This $2.4 billion fab will start production at 65nm and move to 45nm in 2008. There are also plans for a 300mm Fab 14, Phase 3 at the same location.

CAPEX - In 2007 the companies with capital spending budgets of $1 billion or more (the Billion Dollar Club) will account for 77 percent of all capital spending (see Figure 13). Most of these companies (thirteen out of twenty) are memory companies. Nine of these companies are from Asia Pacific (South Korea, China, Taiwan and Southeast Asia) and together they plan to spend $23 billion this year, more than half of what the Billion Dollar Club has budgeted for capital spending.

 Except for companies headquartered in the US, Taiwanese companies will outspend all other regional chip companies. Taiwanese companies are currently budgeting a 46 percent increase in spending this year to $12.9 billion, and could go even higher. We list seven Taiwanese companies that each plan to spend more than $1 billion this year. TSMC leads all other Taiwanese companies this year in spending. The company plans to spend $2.7 billion this year, an increase of 10 percent from 2006. The company plans to begin 45nm production at Fab 12 in early 2008 and is ramping production at Fab 14 Phase 2 in Tainan, Taiwan.