Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. said recently that while net sales for August were down year over year, they climbed sequentially 11.2 percent to (23.2 billion new Taiwanese dollars).

Year over year, August sales were down 1 percent. Revenues for January through August 2005 were (158.2 billion NT), also down year over year by 6.4 percent.

"Due to continued demand recovery from our customers, wafer shipments for August 2005 increased over July 2005," Lora Ho, TSM

C VP and CFO, said in a statement. "Due to a better-than-expected recovery of customer demand as well as a more favorable NT/U.S. dollar exchange rate, we have full confidence that we shall meet our third quarter guidance."

While TSMC''s monthly revenues have been down year over year since last February, at the same time, on a sequential basis, revenues have increased every month since.

Rival UMC is seeing a similar phenomenon; year over year sales have been down but August marked the fourth straight month that revenues improved on a sequential basis for the No. 2 foundry.