August 18, 2008 – Taiwan foundry TSMC says its board of directors has approved a number of proposals, including new capex expenditures and a stock buyback program.

The repurchase plan involves no more than 283M shares, valued at US ~$542M, to be bought from the open market from now through mid-October, the sole purpose of which is to partially remove dilution from profit sharing, according to a company spokesperson in a PR statement. The deal is separate from Philips’ sale of its remaining stake in the foundry.

TSMC also has approved spending nearly $690M to expand 45nm and 40nm manufacturing at its 300mm fabs, and another $107M to purchase 200mm equipment to upgrade some of its 0.18μm logic processes to 0.11&m;m CMOS image sensor, 0.11μm logic, 0.13μm high-voltage, and 0.18μm RF. Also, a portion of 0.35μm logic process capacity will be upgraded to MEMS.