As the world's largest chip foundry, TSMC's market share has reached about 53%. In other words, TSMC alone has more orders than other foundries combined, which is enough See its position in the global chip market.
However, the United States has continued to modify chip rules in recent years, which not only prevents TSMC from shipping freely, but also forces it to make many decisions that are not conducive to its own development, such as building factories in the United States. This threatens TSMC to a large extent. It’s time for TSMC to have the right to speak in the industry.
The reason why this situation occurs is because TSMC’s production lines use many key beauty technologies, so that people have to bow their heads under the eaves. For example, although the EUV lithography machine that is necessary to manufacture high-end chips is purchased from the Netherlands, the core light source system of the equipment comes from the US semiconductor market.
You must know that the reason why TSMC can stand out in the foundry field is due to its unremitting research and development efforts on cutting-edge manufacturing technology. On the other hand, it has a good cooperative relationship with ASML and has always enjoyed the priority of advanced lithography equipment. Procurement rights.
But the current situation is that under the control of US capital, ASML has handed over the priority purchase rights of EUV lithography machines to local US foundry companies last year. Without sufficient equipment support, TSMC has a leading advantage in the foundry field. It will inevitably be cannibalized step by step by US companies. In addition, after decades of continuous iteration of traditional chip manufacturing process technology, the 3nm node has approached Moore's Law . If you want to continue to improve performance, you need to innovate in technology.
In view of these reasons, TSMC recently officially announced a major news that it will join the UCle Alliance to develop "small chip" technology with industry giants such as Microsoft, Qualcomm, AMD, and plans to formulate an interconnection standard for this , to create a new chip ecosystem.
The so-called "small chip" uses advanced packaging technology to combine a single core with independent performance and a system-level chip. To put it simply, while the system-level chip manufacturing process remains unchanged, through the supplement of "small chips", its performance upper limit is improved to achieve stronger computing power. This is equivalent to indirectly realizing the continuation of Moore's Law.
On the surface, the purpose of establishing the "Small Chip Alliance" between TSMC and many industry giants is to deal with the upcoming technological bottleneck. However, once the alliance succeeds, the United States' plan to control the global high-precision chip industry chain will cause direct impact.
It is precisely for this reason that the outside world thinks that TSMC’s official announcement is equivalent to a showdown.
As we all know, due to the power of the United States, TSMC not only participated in various sanctions imposed by the United States on other regions, but was also invited to build factories in the United States regardless of the cost, and even handed over confidential chip data such as inventory, orders, and sales records. . Obviously, the United States is determined to control the global high-end industrial chain and transfer TSMC's core technology.
Although Zhang Zhongmou said that the United States does not have the strength and conditions, if TSMC continues to compete in traditional chip processes based on a large number of American technologies, sooner or later it will fall into an irreversible disadvantage. But if the innovative technology of "small chips" can succeed, then in the new market system, everyone will be on the same starting line and have the opportunity to reduce dependence on American technology in the process of future development.
This is the main reason why TSMC, a pure foundry company, will vigorously promote the development of small chip technology. Of course, this is also a situation that Dutch Lithography ASML is more worried about.
The reason is very simple. Although ASML has withdrawn its priority purchase rights for TSMC equipment, the global market environment of core shortage is still an indisputable fact, which means that the market demand for lithography equipment will still increase. To this end, ASML has invested heavily in expanding production capacity and developing new EUVs.
With the continuous development and improvement of "small chip technology", once it is implemented and a market system is formed, foundry companies' dependence on cutting-edge lithography equipment will be significantly reduced.
Compared with EUV lithography machines, which are traditional cutting-edge chip manufacturing equipment, "small chip technology" can theoretically achieve greater performance and yield improvements at lower costs and fewer resources. If it is feasible, how can OEMs continue to spend high prices and take detours to purchase EUV equipment in large quantities? This will directly affect ASML's revenue and future development.
However, it is still unclear to what extent small chip technology can develop in the future. But for ASML, the market pressure it faces is obviously more than that. In the case that it cannot freely ship EUV, the Chinese market has increased its research and development efforts on lithography technology.
On March 7, the lithography machine exposure system production base project built by Beijing Guowang Optics ushered in new progress and officially entered the research and development, design, and mass production stages. This means that in the near future, a large number of technically controllable lithography machines will be launched in the domestic market. Moreover, with this technology accumulation and market system, the research and development of high-end domestic photolithography machines will also be a matter of course.
As the world's largest consumer market for semiconductor chips, my country's average annual imports in recent years have exceeded US$350 billion, which is definitely a tempting "cheese" for any company.
Whether it is the lithography giant ASML or the foundry giant TSMC, if you want to continue to consolidate your market position, the best choice is to rely on the mainland market and develop closer cooperation. It is by no means following the footsteps of the United States. Cut off our supply. Otherwise, once we complete the domestic replacement, they may really have no chance.
