Spansion outsources the production of some memories

Spansion, a joint venture between AMD and Fujitsu, has announced an agreement with the world's largest contracted semiconductor manufacturer, TSMC, to manufacture some products equipped with MirrorBit technology.

TSMC will use the technologies used in Spansion’s 110-nanometer production line to manufacture flash memories, which will also bring significant improvements to TSMC. The manufacturing giant says the collaboration between the two companies will help both parties achieve greater success in the growing flash memory market, yet AMD, for example, is only losing out in this sector for a long time.

For example, in the last quarter, the company earned $ 462 million in revenue from these products, which is 31 percent less than in the same period last year, albeit still 3 percent more profitable than the first quarter of this year. But they were still forced to make a loss of $ 90 million, up from about $ 110 million three months earlier.

TSMC is expected to start production in the second quarter of 2006, by which time Spansion Fab’s 25 plant is likely to be unable to meet demand.