| | By Mike Magee @ Tuesday, July 22, 2008 12:39 PM
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| | Taiwanese foundry TSMC now has an unassailable lead in the foundry market in both dollar sales, dollar wafer starts and capacity.
That's according to Malcolm Penn, who heads up market research firm Future Horizons.
Penn said that if TSMC was an IDM, it would be number two in the entire chip market, exceeding Samsung and challenging Intel. He said that it's almost inevitable it will move into design.
TSMC has half of the foundry market. It's big because it's invested time after time, year after year. It has a chip savvy CEO in place. There is no way in the world others can catch up with TSMC. The only way a firm could catch up is by investing billions in building fabs. TSMC can't be beaten, he said, they are the king. He said that no one can anticipate how TSMC will behave now it's king.
The firm has to offer help to its customers on design and libraries. TSMC is growing much faster than Intel, he said. X
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