As a world-renowned chip foundry giant, TSMC has always performed well in the semiconductor field, both in terms of advanced process technology and production capacity, it is the world's leading level, and even Samsung's market share in the chip foundry field is only about half of TSMC.
Previously, under the attraction of subsidies of up to 52 billion US dollars, TSMC Chairman Liu Deyin chose to build a factory in the United States despite public opinion. However, judging from the current news, TSMC has basically given up building factories in the United States and put advanced processes locally, just recently Taiwanese media reported news about the location of TSMC's 1nm wafer factory.
After entering January 2024, TSMC has come out with the news that TSMC's current chairman Liu Deyin will retire in 2024 and be replaced by the current president Wei Zhejia. TSMC did not explain why it changed its chairman, but many industry insiders speculated that it was related to TSMC's construction of a factory in the United States.
After the United States used subsidies to attract TSMC to build factories, it revised the subsidy rules, resulting in TSMC not being able to get subsidies and only being able to build factories at its own expense. It is worth noting that some industry insiders have previously said that TSMC needs tens of billions of dollars in subsidies to build factories in the United States to be profitable. This also means that TSMC, which has not received subsidies, will basically lose money in the US factory.
What is even more unexpected is that TSMC will also expand the investment of $12 billion determined at the beginning to $40 billion, and add a 3nm process chip foundry on the basis of the original 4nm process chip foundry. Not only that, TSMC has also migrated equipment and technical personnel from many local factories to American factories.
After realizing the problems in the U.S. market, TSMC also began to choose to turn, preparing to build a number of mature process chip factories in Japan, and placing advanced 2nm and 1nm process factories locally.
According to recent reports by Taiwanese media, TSMC has officially announced that it will select the location of the 1nm process wafer factory in Chiayi Science Park. At present, TSMC has applied for 100 hectares of land and will invest trillions of Taiwan dollars to build this factory.
Previously, TSMC had announced that it would place a large number of 3nm process chip factories and 2nm process factories locally, and now the same is true for 1nm process. It is enough to see that TSMC is ready to put the advanced process in the country, which also means that TSMC will basically not continue to expand the production capacity of the advanced process in the United States.
In terms of mature processes, TSMC is also paying more and more attention, but it does not have the idea of putting it in the United States. Judging from the previously revealed news, TSMC's first wafer factory in Japan has been put into construction, and it will continue to add 1 to 2 wafer fabs. At the same time, TSMC is also preparing to expand the production capacity of the Nanjing factory.
In fact, the reason why TSMC puts the mature process in Japan is very simple, Japan is still relatively good in the industrial chain of semiconductor equipment and semiconductor materials, and there are enough technical talents to support it, and at the same time, Japan is really taking out the money to subsidize TSMC's factory construction.
Unlike the United States, Japan's factory construction subsidies are given as they say, not only without the slightest hesitation, but also without "playing petty" like the United States. As for the expansion of the production capacity of the Nanjing factory, it is mainly because the demand for mature processes in the Chinese market is not low, and the profitability of TSMC's Nanjing factory has been growing.
There is no doubt that TSMC is ready to "pivot" next, placing advanced processes in China and mature processes in Japan or other regions. As for the U.S. factory, TSMC has repeatedly reported that it is going to delay the construction of the factory, and it basically intends to shift its focus. This basically means that the goal of the United States has not been achieved, and the United States attracted TSMC and Samsung to build factories in the United States in order to promote the development of the local industrial chain.
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