5 months ago, the Huawei Mate60 Pro mobile phone was launched, and TSMC began to get nervous!
As TSMC's second largest customer, Huawei contributed 30 billion yuan of annual revenue to TSMC at its peak, and this scale continues to grow, which is a large order volume for TSMC, so it is not so easy to give up.
This can be seen from the fact that after the US chip ban was issued, restricting TSMC from OEM to OEM Kirin chips for Huawei for a period of time, TSMC still uses idle capacity to OEM Kirin chips for Huawei. But when TSMC really cut off the supply to Huawei's chip foundry, TSMC President Liu Deyin said: The loss of Huawei's orders will not affect TSMC's revenue. Building production lines with non-American technologies is also not currently on the way.
Why Liu Deyin said this, not because Huawei's orders are not important, but because TSMC's current production line basically uses American technology, and this kind of production line using American technology is not possible.
The most fundamental reason was that under the circumstances, if Huawei did not want to give up its mobile phone business, it could only maintain its mobile phone business by purchasing 4G chips provided by Qualcomm. Qualcomm's chips are also TSMC's foundry, which means that Huawei's chips ultimately come from TSMC.
Of course, for TSMC, it is not without losses. After all, due to the problems of chips and components, the production capacity and supply of Huawei's mobile phones have been greatly reduced. But TSMC thought at the time that it was impossible for us to produce advanced chips.
Even TSMC's founder, Zhang Zhongmou, said that without TSMC's help, Chinese mainland would not be able to produce advanced chips. But judging by the results of some time ago, Huawei launched the Mate60 in August, which is a smartphone with an advanced chip developed in-house.
The MAET60 is powered by the Kirin 9000S chip, which is currently recognized as a domestically advanced chip with performance comparable to the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ and similar to the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8Gen2 with hyper-threading technology.
After the Mate60 was listed, it can be said that it has been unanimously recognized by consumers at home and abroad, and the praise rate on the e-commerce platform has reached about 98%.
So, five months after the Mate60 hit the market, TSMC started to get in a hurry. Now, TSMC has begun to take a series of measures to try to win back the Chinese market.
First of all, TSMC has slowed down the pace of the U.S. chip mass production market, and some industry experts have analyzed that mass production may continue until 2028 at the latest. By then, two or three years have passed since 2nm, more advanced wafer technology has been developed, and TSMC is no longer advanced in terms of 4nm and 3nm.
In addition, TSMC has also reduced some lithography orders. Due to the loss of Chinese customers, TSMC's capacity utilization rate has dropped to below 80%, which is basically the same as the capacity utilization rate of ** companies such as SMIC and Hua Hong Semiconductor, which had previously exceeded 90%.
Since TSMC's announcement in early January, the company has paused orders for 10 EUV lithography machines scheduled for 2024 and reduced its spending budget.
In addition to this series of initiatives, TSMC also announced in early January that it would downgrade the foundry of chips on the 7nm process and the 28nm process**. In order to cater to Apple, Qualcomm and other American chip companies jointly asked TSMC not to raise prices, TSMC did not comply.
In early January, TSMC also announced that it would replace its chairman in 2024, with current chairman Liu Deyin replacing current chairman Wei Zhejia. Foreign media believe that TSMC hopes to return to the Chinese market. After all, Liu Deyin has always considered the American market, while Wei Zhejia attaches great importance to the Chinese market.
In just one month, TSMC has announced a series of new measures, from which it is not difficult to see that TSMC has begun to panic and wants to return to the Chinese market. But the problem is that the current development of domestic chip foundries such as SMIC and Hua Hong Semiconductor, whether it is production capacity or technical process, has not made any progress, and Chinese customers have always been interested in TSMC"Don't buy it"。
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