Passed them to the Chinese 

A former TSMC engineer has been charged with stealing secrets from the pure play foundry and giving them to the China-based Shanghai Huali Microelectronics (HLMC).

The way to hop over the Great Wall

Qualcomm is preparing to produce its own custom chips for the Chinese market in a move to get around its problems with manufacturers and the government.

Falling capacity

Foundry UMC is expecting its shipments to fall by five percent in the fourth quarter of 2015, as a result of ongoing inventory adjustments within the industry supply chain.

Size matters

Foundries are asking LCD driver clients to upgrade to 12-inch process to provide a stable supply for analogue ICs, fingerprint sensors, MCUs, mixed-signal ICs, car-use chips, MEMS and other niche-market products.

Six percent growth in a flat market

The overall semiconductor market is going to be flat or slightly down this year, but the foundry market is forecast to grow 6.1 per cent.

GlobalFoundaries now a significant force

GlobalFoundries has signed off on the purchase of IBM's chip business making it one of chip industries key players and actually filling its bank acount.

Needs of the many

Cirrus Logic has shifted its orders back to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) after a high provide move to Vanguard International Semiconductor (VIS).

Anti-trust

The largest manufacturers of the machinery used to make semiconductors, Applied Materials and Tokyo Electron of Japan, have dumped a merger plans.

Breaking ground in June

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) will break ground for a new fab at its 12-inch wafer plant in central Taiwan in June.

12 inch wafers

Powerchip is to set up a joint-venture fab in the capital city of China's Anhui Province with the Hefei city government the big idea is to build 12-inch wafers and provide foundry services mainly for driver ICs.