TSMC ranks first in the global foundry industry, with a market share of nearly 60%, almost more than three times that of the second place Samsung, and the market share of UMC, GF, and SMIC, which ranks third, fourth and fifth, is only in single digits.
However, TSMC has been suppressing our chip manufacturing in a "disguised" way, and instead actively supports the development of semiconductors in the United States and Japan, which is blocking our progress. A number of examples have shown that it is no wonder that Xiang Ligang has always opposed the expansion of TSMC's mainland factory.
After Huawei became a global leader in 5G, the United States imposed severe sanctions on it. Although Huawei is the second largest customer after Apple, TSMC has stopped manufacturing Kirin chips for Huawei, resulting in Huawei falling into a situation where there are no cores available.
Not only Huawei, but all Chinese companies that have been included in the "entity list" by the United States, TSMC has stopped giving foundries as required.
Fortunately, Huawei has the spirit of not admitting defeat, continuously increasing R&D investment, and carrying out independent research and development in a down-to-earth manner, finally realizing the return of self-developed Kirin chips. Otherwise, the consequences will be very serious, and it will be difficult for Huawei's mobile phone business to recover.
At that time, Liu Deyin, chairman of TSMC, downplayed the matter, saying that the relatively small share of the mainland was not very important, and the orders vacated by Huawei would be made up soon. At the same time, Liu Deyin also quickly made the decision of TSMC to build a factory in the United States.
Over the years, TSMC has insisted on keeping its advanced production capacity in the country, and basically rarely goes out to build factories, especially advanced process factories. However, at the strong invitation of the United States, TSMC decided to invest $12 billion to build a 5nm factory in the United States.
Later, it was upgraded to a 4nm factory, and it was decided to build another 3nm factory, and the investment amount was also increased to 40 billion US dollars.
For a long time, Zhang Zhongmou did not approve of building a factory in the United States, because he had failed before, and it took a long time to turn a profit in a wafer factory built in the United States many years ago. Nowadays, the United States is even more suitable for building factories because the associated costs are too high.
However, Zhang Zhongmou's attitude changed later, and he publicly stated that even if the cost of building a factory in the United States was too high, TSMC would transfer chip production capacity to the United States. He even said at the ceremony of the American factory that building a factory in the United States has realized his dream many years ago.
It can be seen from this that Liu Deyin and Zhang Zhongmou are actively helping the U.S. semiconductor industry in order to hug the thighs of the United States.
However, the reality is very cruel, the United States has never regarded them as its own, not only formulated a number of chip subsidy fence rules, making it difficult for TSMC to obtain, and subject to more restrictions, but also focused on subsidizing local wafer factories.
Recently, it was reported that the United States first gave GF a $2 billion subsidy, and also plans to give Intel a $10 billion chip subsidy.
Liu Deyin was very dissatisfied with the US side's approach, and called TSMC unacceptable, but it has inevitably fallen into the trap of the US side. Now, although TSMC has postponed the mass production time of the US factory, the project has to continue to advance.
Even so, TSMC has not repented and continues to support semiconductors from Japan, an ally of the United States. Recently, TSMC's first wafer fab in Kumamoto, Japan, was officially completed, and founder Zhang Zhongmou and chairman Liu Deyin attended the inauguration ceremony.
It is worth mentioning that Zhang Zhongmou said at the ceremony that TSMC will actively support the revival of Japan's semiconductor manufacturing industry.
You must know that the construction speed of TSMC's Kumamoto wafer factory is faster than that of the U.S. factory, which only started in April last year, completed construction in 1 year and 8 months, and will be officially mass-produced before the end of this year. It can be seen that TSMC attaches great importance to Japanese wafer fabs.
Of course, this is also because Japan** provides nearly half of the subsidies, and the key is that the subsidies are provided quickly, which is not as difficult to deliver as the subsidies from the United States. To this end, TSMC has made a decision to build a second wafer fab in Kumamoto, Japan.
And a third fab is also being planned, which will be dominated by 6nm or 7nm processes for the time being, and may be 5nm or 3nm.
Japan's semiconductor industry was very powerful in the 80s of the last century, once surpassed the United States semiconductors, and was later sanctioned by the United States to decline, but Japan's semiconductor manufacturing equipment and materials are still very strong, that is, there is a gap in chip manufacturing.
Now, Japan has received strong support from TSMC in chip manufacturing, and the chip industry may rise soon. At that time, it will be even more unfavorable for us, everyone understands Japan's tonality, and has been following the United States to implement chip restrictions.
In this regard, some foreign media directly said that TSMC has clearly stood in line, and Zhang Zhongmou publicly supported the United States in implementing chip restrictions on China, and now supports the development of the semiconductor industry in the United States and Japan, which is hindering the development of the mainland's chip industry!
Therefore, expert Xiang Ligang actively opposed the expansion of TSMC's Nanjing plant, which should be a thorough understanding of TSMC's intentions.
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