After the past two years of the epidemic, I feel that the whole world has completely changed.
At present, all of us are facing an increasingly serious economic situation of inflation . As the epidemic is raging, people's work income has become no longer stable, and the cost of living maintenance has increased significantly. For enterprises, in the face of the increase in prices of various upstream raw materials and the surge in operating costs of ensuring the company, they are constantly increasing the prices of their own products and ultimately passing them on to ordinary consumers.
htmlOn May 16, according to the " Economic Daily ", TSMC, the world's largest chip wafer foundry leader, plans to announce a 6% price increase again, and will be implemented from January 2023. It has just been a few months since TSMC announced its first price increase at the beginning of this year, and it has ushered in a second price increase, which has caused panic in the industry.
foundry price increase will directly affect the final chip price
As we all know, in the era of globalization, chips are indispensable core components in many consumer electronic products . Generally, first the chip IC design is completed by Qualcomm , Apple , Huawei and other companies, and then handed over to TSMC and Samsung and other foundry to produce finished products.
With the birth and maturity of advanced processes such as 7nm, 5nm, 4nm and 3nm next year, TSMC and Samsung occupy an unparalleled monopoly position in the global chip foundry industry, among which TSMC is significantly better than Samsung. Even in the face of factory price increases, terminal customers have no other choice. What adds fuel to the fire is that after TSMC, Samsung wafer foundry may also rise by 15% to 20%. Once the foundry raises the price, it will directly affect the final cost and selling price of the chip, and then guide it to consumers through adjustments and changes in terminal products.
For example, it was previously revealed that it is precisely because of chip price increases and supply shortages, Apple's plans to continue to be equipped with last year's A15 processor in the iPhone 14 series in the second half of this year. Only the more expensive iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max will launch the A16 chip first. This is the first time in the history of iPhone that has "different chips in the same series", and its actual performance will inevitably be large.
is not just a mobile phone, but the impact of the automotive industry has long occurred
. Due to the current low consumer enthusiasm for users in the global smartphone terminal market, and the fierce competition among manufacturers, the impact of upstream chip price increases is probably not so obvious. But for the smart car industry that is rapidly erupting, chip shortages and cost price increases may bring fatal results.
An intelligent electric car needs to be equipped with more than dozens of different chips, such as the cockpit part needs to be equipped with Qualcomm's most advanced 7nm Snapdragon 8155 chip, and the automatic assisted driving platform needs to use multiple advanced process chips, in addition to power management, MCU microcontroller, etc. It can be said that with this round of TSMC's price increase in all chip foundries of advanced and mature processes, it will greatly test the inventory supply and cost control capabilities of automobile manufacturers.
In general, due to factors such as geopolitical emergencies, the continued impact of the new crown epidemic, and unconventional repeated orders and stocking of industrial customers, the price increase of OEMs and other OEMs seems to be "taking advantage of the fire", but in fact they are forced to do so. But no matter what, the cost of these changes will eventually be borne by ordinary consumers, including the extended product delivery cycle and frequent increase in car prices that we have suffered.
