Digitimes reports that TSMC has been mighty generous with their spending since February, as the company spent US$590 million on new equipment. The goal is to expand the 40nm node in the company’s 12-inch facility.

Mass production of the 40nm process at Fab 12 is expected to start in 2H 2009, as the demand should pick up by that time.

This week alone TSMC announced plenty of machinery equipment purchases from various companies, and the transaction was worth about NT$7 billion (about USD206 million). The company also said that they’re going to recruit several hundreds of new engineers for the new process.

More here.

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TSMC hiring hundreds of boffins to R&D department