Taipei - The Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), the world's largest contract chipmaker, saw its first-quarter profits fall 94.5 cent due to the global slump, TSMC said Thursday.

Net profits were 1.56 billion Taiwan dollars (47 million dollars), down 94.5 per cent year-on-year.

TSMC's revenues for the first three months of 2009 totalled 39.5 billion Taiwan dollars, down 54.8 per cent year-on-year.

TSMC blamed the shrunken revenues and income on the deepening global economic recession and customers' inventory adjustment, which has hurt demand for semiconductors across all applications.