Morning All,
I have been looking into how much a “volume production” order is on our semi-conductor chips.
It is amazing how hard it is to get an actual figure on it, the most common term that comes up in google when you put in the search term “volume production semi-conductor chips” is the term “mass production” so that seems very very good to me.
Then yesterday I emailed TSMC & asked them what a “volume production” order is. When I emailed I wasn’t sure if I should ask them how many chips it would be or how many wafers it would be as I was not sure how they measure the order in units, ie in chips or wafers. So I asked them about both.
I sent the following email.
Hi TSMC,
Hopeyou are well.
If acompany that you are making semiconductor chips for announces that TSMC begins"volume production" of their 28 nm chips, how much is this"volume production"?
Forexample is “volume production” 1-5 million chips, or 10-20 million chips etc? Ordo you go by wafers when you say “volume production”, therefore is it 10,000 to50,000 wafers for a “volume production” order, or is it more, or is it less etc
If youcould please give me a roundabout figure of what "volume production"is that would be much appreciated.
Thanksfor your time
Regards,
Ness
And then surprisingly quickly they got back to me this morning. TSMC said the following;
Hi Ness,
Thanks for contacting TSMC.
At TSMC, when we start volume production,it means the technology has passed customers’ qualification and we will quickly ramp up theproduction scale to support our customers’ high volume products. Due to TSMC’sbusiness scale, the production ramp up is very steep and surpass the numbers inyour question in a very short period of time.
Regards,
Investor Relations Division
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, Ltd.
I havesent them another email asking for an example of how many chips or wafersa “volume production” order would be as they said in their reply to me that mynumbers would be surpassed in a very short period of time. So to me that meansmy numbers are nowhere near the numbers of a volume production order……Really ExcitingStuff 
Doesanyone know how many 28 nm chips we will get out of 1 wafer?
Thanks
Ness
(20min delay)