Chartered Expects 20% Growth in 1998

-- Semiconductor International, 11/1/1998

At its Technology Forum it held in Santa Clara, Calif., Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing (Singapore), announced that it expects silicon foundry revenue to increase by 20% in 1998. Estimates calculated the organization's revenue for 1997 at ~$405 million, which translated to a 13% increase over 1996 revenues.

Speaking at a press conference held as part of the Forum, the foundry's new president and CEO, Barry Waite, pleasantly surprised analysts and industry observers alike, with his prediction. Members of the analyst community indicated that if Chartered, which offers wafer manufaturing processes for a broad range of CMOS logic, memory and mixed-signal technologies, meets Waite's expectations, it could cause a radical reshuffling in the ranking of the other silicon foundries, which have posted pessimistic growth predictions for the current year.

Waite, a graduate from Texas Instruments and Morotola, indicated that Chartered's numbers are weak this year, but that based on business with new and existing fabless customers in the United States, an expanding presence in Europe and the beginning of a presence in Japan, he expects to bring in considerably more than 20%.

According to Waite, the organization is currently planning to bring in a new 200 mm fab on line in two years' time.

Jim Hines, analyst at Dataquest Inc. (San Jose, Calif.), indicated surprise over the growth prediction. According to Hines, 'A 20% gain could result in a significant market-share shift among the major players such as TSMC and UMC.'

Dataquest places Chartered third among these, with TSMC leading the pack. Hines also pointed out that until Chartered is able to offer customers 0.25 µm capability, it will be unable to compete in that portion of the market.