"TSMC's production capacity has been put into full operation, and SMIC's turnaround is coming quickly! "！
As the world's leading semiconductor foundry company, TSMC occupies nearly 60% of the entire semiconductor foundry market, both in terms of technology and market share, far more than Samsung and Intel, especially in advanced processes In 2019, the United States will begin to comprehensively suppress Huawei to prevent TSMC from falling to the mainland, it wants to cut off Huawei's advanced technology**, and unplugging TSMC is the key. For this, the United States directly proposed one"CHIPS Act"to lure TSMC to the United States, which includes a huge subsidy of 39 billion yuan and the construction of advanced technology factories, of course, provided that TSMC does not set up advanced manufacturing plants on the mainland.
However, when TSMC spent tens of billions of yuan to build a factory in the United States, the United States directly changed its mind and demanded that TSMC hand over key customers and technical secrets, otherwise it would not be subsidized. However, some time ago, subsidies were also provided to local semiconductor manufacturers such as Intel and Abet Systems, after Biden** also provided partial subsidies to local companies to pay most of Samsung and TSMC's more than 10 billion yuan on certain issues, instructing US subsidiaries and microchip technology companies to postpone receiving subsidies.
TSMC Liu Deyin said that the application for subsidies was suspended, and mass production at the US factory was also delayed. So far, TSMC can be said to have not fully received their hearts in the matter of building a factory in the United States, and the same is true of tens of billions of investment!
However, the situation changed dramatically some time ago! The main reason why TSMC went to the United States to build a factory is that most of TSMC's major customers, especially most of the major customers' advanced processes, are in the United States, and if TSMC does not go to the United States, it may lose American customers. At that time, it was in the semiconductor recession cycle, and TSMC's business conditions did not decline, so it accepted the invitation of the United States.
However, as of the fourth quarter of 2023, TSMC unexpectedly changed the direction of the wind! In terms of advanced technology, the output of 3nm process nodes has surged, and the proportion of revenue has increased from 6% to 15%; The utilization rate of 4 5nm process technology has reached 90%, and it has reached full production in the first quarter of this year; 3nm quarterly utilization increased from 75% to 95%; 6 7nm node utilization is also 75%. Attain.
In addition, TSMC decided to organize a more advanced 2nm process at the Hsinchu Science Park in Taiwan after bidding in the United States. At present, the 2nm process in the US factory is progressing faster than the 3nm process, and TSMC is expected to start trial production of 2nm chips in the fourth quarter of 2024 and mass production in the second quarter of 2025, with Apple still being the first customer, followed by Intel, Qualcomm, NVIDIA, AMD and other US companies to follow.
So TSMC seems to have won this time, and the United States has blackmailed TSMC with both soft and hard in the United States, using huge subsidies as bait and threatening to lose American orders. However, TSMC, which has torn its face with the United States, was completely slapped in the face by the United States after American companies were still queuing up to issue orders, 2nm would be in Taiwan, and TSMC's advanced capacity utilization rate had not declined!
In addition, TSMC's 28nm production capacity has increased from 70% to more than 80%, and TSMC also plans to invest 2.8 billion yuan to expand its Nanjing factory and send more 28nm chips to Chinese mainland**. This will undoubtedly have a significant impact on SMIC's production capacity and China's chip self-sufficiency rate.
However, TSMC's contrarian growth is not optimistic. On the one hand, this may prompt SMIC to accelerate the pace of breakthroughs, but on the other hand, TSMC is now more willing to put advanced processes in Taiwan. According to the planning of China's Ministry of Communications, the Beijing-Taiwan high-speed railway is planned to be opened to traffic in 2035, and the railway construction may not be opened to traffic until a few years later.