[By NBC-1TV H. J Yook]Pacific Biosciences of California, Inc., (Nasdaq:PACB), provider of the PacBio® RS High Resolution Genetic Analyzer, today recognized TSMC, the world‘s largest and premier dedicated semiconductor foundry as its ’Supplier of the Year' for 2012. TSMC is on the leading edge of semiconductor wafer processing and has been a trusted collaborator of Pacific Biosciences, manufacturing the key component of its proprietary SMRT® Cells for DNA sequencing on the PacBio RS system.

“TSMC was selected as a premier supplier of Pacific Biosciences because of their extensive engineering experience, technological insight and exceptional level of service,” said Michael Hunkapiller, Ph.D., President and Chief Executive Officer of Pacific Biosciences. “In 2012, their joint engineering efforts along with their commercial flexibility resulted in significant performance and yield improvements of our SMRT Cells. With TSMC's continued support, we have just launched the SMRT Cell V3, which provides equivalent sequencing performance with less library input required.”