Wireless chipmaker Qualcomm, and FPGA designers Altera and Xilinx have reduced their wafer start orders for the fourth calendar quarter of 2009 to their foundry partners, according to industry sources. Driver IC designers have also slowed their pace of increasing wafer starts at the foundry chipmakers for the year's last quarter, reflecting a seasonal slowdown.
Qualcomm is estimated to reduce its foundry orders by 10-15% sequentially for the fourth quarter, indicated the sources. Its foundry partners include Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC) and Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing.
Qualcomm's move to lower its wafer starts at the foundries may also affect backend service providers' revenue performance in the fourth quarter, the sources said. The supply chain partners include packaging and testing houses Advanced Semiconductor Engineering (ASE), Siliconware Precision Industries (SPIL) and Amkor Technology, and IC substrate maker Kinsus Interconnect Technology.
Orders from Altera for the fourth quarter will be 25-30% lower than what the FPGA client has placed with TSMC for the third quarter, the sources indicated. Xilinx has also cut its orders for UMC by 10-15% sequentially for the quarter, the sources added.
In addition, LCD driver IC design houses including Himax Technologies, Novatek Microelectronics and Raydium Semiconductor recently trimmed their orders on mature process nodes at TSMC and UMC for the fourth quarter of 2009, the sources said, adding that orders for large-size driver ICs were cut significantly.
Despite slowed orders for wireless, FPGA and panel applications for the quarter, TSMC and UMC have seen growing orders from network chip vendors Broadcom and Atheros, and GPU customers AMD and Nvidia, the sources noted.
Market watchers have estimated TSMC and UMC are likely to manage revenue increases sequentially in the fourth quarter, but the growth may decrease to only single-digits.
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