[Xinzhiyuan Guide] TSMC has successfully continued Moore's Law and made a major breakthrough in 2nm process research and development. It is reported that 2nm chips will undergo risk production in the first half of 2023, and mass production will begin in 2024. With continuous breakthroughs in advanced manufacturing processes, TSMC’s demand for electricity consumption will continue to rise sharply, but facing a "power shortage" situation, apart from green saving, how can TSMC "open source"?
This winter is particularly "shortage".
Recently, Hunan, Jiangxi, Zhejiang and other places have started power rationing, and the “switching power rationing” that has not been seen for many years has returned.
In 2004 and 2011, there was a large-scale "power shortage" phenomenon in China.
Lin Boqiang, dean of the China Energy Policy Research Institute of Xiamen University, pointed out in an interview with the media that from the current situation, it is only a seasonal and regional power shortage, mainly due to the "extreme cold weather With the effects of "strong economic rebound" and "tight supply of thermal coal," the nation's power supply is fully guaranteed. "You don't need to panic."
The impact of power supply on industrial and economic development is self-evident. Not only the mainland, but Taiwan Province, which is separated by water, has recently faced power shortages.
This is related to Taiwan’s largest electricity consumer "TSMC", and it is not only this year, but has a long history.
As the world’s largest chip foundry,TSMC has used its own strength to force the average electricity consumption level of the entire Taiwan region, surpassing Iceland and other countries with per capita electricity consumption.
Specifically, in 2018, Taiwan's annual electricity consumption reached 219.1 billion kWh. The registered population of Taiwan was 23.589 million (data at the end of 2018). Calculated according to this data, in 2018, Taiwan’s per capita annual power consumption has exceeded 9,288kW·h, far exceeding the top countries in terms of per capita power consumption such as Iceland (5777kW·h).
Even a few years ago, TSMC’s electricity consumption accounted for more than 5% of the island’s electricity consumption.
From the electricity consumption, we can see the unshakable status of the semiconductor industry.
As a pillar industry, Taiwan Province has spared no effort in supporting several major semiconductor industries represented by TSMC.
A typical case is the "815 Taiwan Blackout" in 2017.
At that time, large-scale unwarned power outages occurred across the island of Taiwan Province. The specific reason was accidental replacement of natural gas pipeline components.
The power outage occurred at 16:51-23:00 that night. The accident indirectly caused one death (caused by the use of candles to cause a fire) and one injured. Many businesses in the affected power supply district were suspended and road lighting Unable to operate, affecting regional expansion and densely populated western urban areas,In addition, the power outage occurred during peak commuting hours, causing inconvenience to people's lives.
But at that time, in order to protect the semiconductor industry from being affected, the local government provided all the remaining electricity that night to the semiconductor factories of the three major science parks, which caused the world’s largest chip foundry TSMC to cut out this time "Unscathed."
You should know that a power outage of an advanced semiconductor production line for a few hours may cause tens of millions of dollars in losses.
After that, the "2025 non-nuclear home plan" insisted by the chairman of the Democratic Progressive Party, Tsai Ing-wen, had to be adjusted. The referendum on "Nuclear Greening" was passed and the nuclear power power generation equipment in 2025 was abolished. The plan to stop operations has also resulted in an increase in Taiwan's nuclear energy supply in 2018 compared to 2017.
The advanced process is the most "burning", TSMC EUV lithography machine consumes 900,000 kWh a day
chip manufacturing requires more than 3,000 processes to complete. A large amount of semiconductor equipment is used, and various complex environments such as "constant temperature" and "high voltage" have been maintained. All of these require "electricity". The more advanced the "process", the more electricity is used.
Among many equipment, the power consumption of the lithography machine is particularly huge. The lithography machine exposes by light to print the precise pattern on the mask on the silicon wafer. This requires power generation for lighting, and this requires high light.
EUV lithography machine weighs 180 tons,The volume is very large and requires 0.125 million kilowatts power to maintain 250 watts of power. It is reported that TSMC only has 30 EUV lithography machines, and 30×0.125 is 37,500 kilowatts. Then, 30 EUV lithography machines consume 900,000 kilowatts a day, which is 900,000 kilowatts of electricity.
Moreover, in order to prevent the temperature from becoming too high, a huge water cooling system is required.
Moreover, the manufacturing of chips is extremely demanding on the environment. In order to maintain a suitable production environment throughout the year, TSMC has to consume a lot of electricity.
It is reported that chip manufacturing needs to maintain a constant temperature of 22 degrees all year round. Moreover, it is necessary to maintain an ultra-clean environment, which requires multi-stage filtration of water and air. In this way, a large amount of electricity is consumed unknowingly.
According to TSMC’s Corporate Social Responsibility Report, in 2019, including Taiwan factories, WaferTech, TSMC (China), TSMC (Nanjing), and Taiyu, TSMC’s global energy consumption was 14.33 billion kWh, which is less than five Years ago, it increased by 5.412 billion degrees, with an average annual growth rate of 12.5% in the past five years.
Such a huge power consumption can be imagined.
The energy structure of Taiwan Province is obviously not enough to provide sufficient electricity energy.
The above figure is a schematic diagram of the power generation structure of Taiwan Province and the proportion of renewable energy power generation types in 2019.
It can be seen that the main force is still coal and natural gas, and most of these energy sources rely on imports. Coal consumption depends entirely on imports, about 1/2 comes from Australia; most natural gas consumption depends on imports. 1/2 are from Asia Pacific. Oil supply accounts for a small proportion, and it is completely dependent on imports. Renewable energy (solar energy, wind power, etc.) accounts for a very small proportion.
The third-ranked nuclear energy is due to the Tsai Ing-wen government’s "2025 non-nuclear home plan". There will be no significant growth in the future, and it will even gradually withdraw.
With the rapid growth of Taiwan's semiconductor industry's demand for electricity, the contradiction between Taiwan's energy supply and demand, especially power supply and demand, will become increasingly prominent in the future.
TSMC’s “shortage” will continue
As early as the end of 2015, when Ma Ying-jeou visited TSMC’s Zhongke Factory, then TSMC’s chairman Zhang Zhongmou pointed out, “One of Taiwan’s biggest concerns is lack Electricity" and predicted that Taiwan may face a power curtailment crisis in 2017.
Although TSMC is also actively deploying green manufacturing and energy management and control, it has always been constrained by the local energy environment, so it may be a more suitable way to build overseas factories.
In May of this year, TSMC disclosed its intention to build a 5nm chip manufacturing plant in Phoenix, Arizona. If this investment is implemented, it will be TSMC’s first advanced manufacturing in the United States. factory. Last month, TSMC agreed to register a wholly-owned subsidiary in Arizona with a registered capital of US$3.5 billion.
and the Phoenix Government Council approved TSMC’s plan with a 9-0 vote. Construction of the factory will begin in early 2021.
Since "power shortage" has become a reality, in addition to "power saving", the more promising is "open source".
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