TSMC Responds to Allegations of Patent Infringement by GlobalFoundries

[btarunr]

TSMC is in the process of reviewing the complaints filed by GlobalFoundries on August 26, but is confident that GlobalFoundries' allegations are baseless. As a leading innovator, TSMC invests billions of dollars each year to independently develop its world-class, leading-edge semiconductor manufacturing technologies. As a result, TSMC has established one of the largest semiconductor portfolios with more than 37,000 patents worldwide and a top 10 ranking for US patent grants for 3 consecutive years since 2016. We are disappointed to see a foundry peer resort to meritless lawsuits instead of competing in the marketplace with technology. TSMC is proud of its technology leadership, manufacturing excellence, and unwavering commitment to customers. We will fight vigorously, using any and all options, to protect our proprietary technologies.

TSMC pioneered the pure-play foundry business model when it was founded in 1987, and has been the world's largest dedicated semiconductor foundry ever since. The company supports a thriving ecosystem of global customers and partners with the industry's leading process technology and portfolio of design enablement solutions to unleash innovation for the global semiconductor industry.

TSMC serves its customers with annual capacity of about 12 million 12-inch equivalent wafers in 2019 from fabs in Taiwan, the United States, and China, and provides the broadest range of technologies from 0.5 micron plus all the way to foundry's most advanced processes, which is 7-nanometer today. TSMC is the first foundry to provide 7-nanometer production capabilities, and is headquartered in Hsinchu, Taiwan.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[RichF]

Dueling press releases.

Anyone care to examine all 37,000 patents and post the results here?

 

[Mephis]

Dueling press releases.

Anyone care to examine all 37,000 patents and post the results here?

I will, but I'm going to need $12.1 million to get started. : )

 

[Vya Domus]

Honestly GloFo sudden cease of their 7nm node was very strange.

 

[Chomiq]

Honestly GloFo sudden cease of their 7nm node was very strange.

From what I recall they had problems with getting the process into full production and a month or so before they halted 7nm development TSMC signed the deal for 7nm Vega manufacture.

 

[xkm1948]

How about a counter sue? I wouldn’t mind seeing GloFo burned to the ashes

 

[ProPain]

GLOBALFOUNDRIES is AMD's child .... what do you expect ?!

Jun 13, 2017 : GLOBALFOUNDRIES on Track to Deliver Leading-Performance 7nm FinFET Technology

>>> https://www.globalfoundries.com/new...ver-leading-performance-7nm-finfet-technology

 

[Frick]

GLOBALFOUNDRIES is AMD's child .... what do you expect ?!

Jun 13, 2017 : GLOBALFOUNDRIES on Track to Deliver Leading-Performance 7nm FinFET Technology

>>> https://www.globalfoundries.com/new...ver-leading-performance-7nm-finfet-technology

I've no idea what this is about.

How about a counter sue? I wouldn’t mind seeing GloFo burned to the ashes

Naah, they're relevant, for now anyway. Some stuff isn't worth shrinking much, and this market is by its nature rather exclusive and more or less impossible to break into at this point, so my feel is that any competition is good competition. The foundries would just change hands, true, but there probably aren't many buyers.

 

[xkm1948]

I've no idea what this is about.



Naah, they're relevant, for now anyway. Some stuff isn't worth shrinking much, and this market is by its nature rather exclusive and more or less impossible to break into at this point, so my feel is that any competition is good competition. The foundries would just change hands, true, but there probably aren't many buyers.

Oh i am pretty sure China would want to take over that. They have be trying forever to get into that sweet sweet marketshare.

 

[Bones]

GLOBALFOUNDRIES is AMD's child .... what do you expect ?!

Awwww...... C'mon - GlobalFloundries is better than that even if it is AMD's child.

 

[lexluthermiester]

...

I love how these shadow accounts, most created years ago with less than 25 posts, keep popping up to troll everyone. My bet is that it's the same person, or group of persons, doing it.

Honestly GloFo sudden cease of their 7nm node was very strange.

Agreed, that was strange..

 

[eidairaman1]

I love how these shadow accounts, most created years ago with less than 25 posts, keep popping up to troll everyone. My bet is that it's the same person, or group of persons, doing it.


Agreed, that was strange..

It should be investigated for spamming the forums with libel. Report it next time.

 

[LemmingOverlord]

Honestly GloFo sudden cease of their 7nm node was very strange.

Well, they were clear about it at the time. They were facing financial issues (the process itself they had licensed from Samsung), and required a hefty investment in manufacturing, like billions-large. TSMC and Samsung had their nodes on track and GloFo's wasn't quite as good, that was all. On account of this, I'm sure it would've been crazy to try and secure customers on an unrealistic go-to-market deadline, so they cut their losses and stuck with 12FDX and 12LP.

The original communiqué was here
In Anandtech's take on the matter, explained here, they go as far as guesstimating the cost of the 7nm capacity for GloFo.

I know it's real easy to cry foul, but in this case it seems that GloFo, who really has *never* been on the bleeding edge, just called in a beancounter CEO to cut investment and squeeze every drop out of the existing infrastructure.

 

[seronx]

-> Section 337, Tariff Act of 1930, Investigations of Unfair Practices in Import Trade <-

*Under section 337, the USITC determines whether there is unfair competition in the importation of products into, or their subsequent sale in, the United States. Section 337 declares the infringement of a U.S. patent, copyright, registered trademark, or mask work to be an unlawful practice in import trade. Section 337 also declares unlawful other unfair methods of competition and unfair acts in the importation and subsequent sale of products in the United States, the threat or effect of which is to destroy or substantially injure a domestic industry, prevent the establishment of such an industry, or restrain or monopolize trade and commerce in the United States.

*If the accused imports are determined to infringe a valid and enforceable U.S. patent, copyright, registered trademark, or mask work, the USITC may issue orders excluding the products from entry into the United States and/or directing the violating parties to cease and desist from certain actions. Where such infringement is shown, injury need not be shown to establish a violation of section 337. In cases involving other unfair methods of competition or unfair acts, if the USITC finds that the importation of the accused articles substantially injures or threatens to substantially injure an industry, prevents the establishment of such an industry, or restrains or monopolizes trade and commerce in the United States, it may also issue exclusion and/or cease and desist orders.

Seems to not really matter since TSMC has a hefty majority of foundry business under it.

While UMC has been getting instable profits and they haven't been successful with 14nm;

Relative to UMC($1B CapEx/2019) and GloFo($1.4B CapEx/2019), TSMC(>$10B CapEx) is making massive net profit relative to both.

GlobalFoundries has accused TSMC of both infringement and unfair acts, btw.

Related to UMC, the 14nm could be related as well: "We also joined International Business Machines Corporation, or IBM chip alliance, for advanced process development. With IBM’s know-how and support, we aim to continue to improve our internally developed 14nm FinFET technology, so as to offer a 14nm competitive low-power enhanced technology for mobile computing and communication products." -- Dated: Apr 25, 2019

--> "Established over a decade ago, the IBM alliance allows the partners to leverage our combined expertise and collaborative research and innovative technology development to address the demanding needs for advanced semiconductor applications," said Gary Patton, VP, IBM Semiconductor Research & Development. "UMC is a strong addition to the alliance." Dated: Jun 14th, 2013

Just so you know the odd behavior => 14nm accounted for 2% of 4Q17 revenue for UMC and it grew to 5% for 3Q18. Then, boom it crashed for some reason.

Meanwhile at TSMC, unlike everyone else, everything is dandy, so many customers... many many customers.
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16FFC+ : +10% perf @ constant power, +20% power @ constant perf over 16FFC
12FFC+ : +7% perf @ constant power, +15% power @ constant perf over 12FFC
NTO’s for these nodes will be accepted in 3Q’19. <-- Tom Dillinger*04-30-2019

12FFC will ramp to over 50% of 16FFC by end of 2019 (I think that this meant 12FFC will be over half the combined 16/12FFC volume). -- Paul McLellan*16 May 2018
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