chips have been developing for decades, and the focus of the industry has undergone a large-scale shift, and global chip production capacity has basically been concentrated in Asia. From the chip production capacity statistics in 2020, it can be seen that chip production capacity in East Asia accounts for 73%.
The United States has only 12%, and Europe has only 9%. Faced with such a situation, the US has issued a chip bill, hoping to reverse the situation with large subsidies. Zhang Zhongmou once said that it would not be successful. Now that the role is beginning to show, EU can no longer sit still.
Zhang Zhongmou's two blunt statements
The US chip production capacity has dropped from 37% in 1990 to 12% now. It is obvious that chip manufacturing is also heavily dependent, which aroused their concerns. Therefore, they wanted to improve their local manufacturing capabilities and began to attract TSMC to build factories.
Zhang Zhongmou is very unhappy about building a factory in the United States. He can understand that it has never expanded production in the United States for more than 10 years. Although he had no choice but to agree to build it later, Zhang Zhongmou later publicly stated that it was a wrong decision, which was decided after retirement.
Zhang Zhongmou not only believes that it is inappropriate to go to the United States to build a factory, but also said that the United States cannot succeed in using subsidies to increase local manufacturing capacity.
Zhang Zhongmou expressed this meaning twice in public. Once, after Zhang Zhongmou gave a speech in October 2021, he bluntly stated that the supply chain of US semiconductors is incomplete and the production cost is high. It is impossible to promote the local manufacturing of semiconductor .
Another time was in April this year, Zhang Zhongmou said in an interview with the Brookings Society of US think tank that the US wants to increase domestic chip production capacity is an expensive and wasteful and futile move. The reason is that the chips manufactured by American are too expensive and lack engineers.
Zhang Zhongmou twice believed that the US's move to increase local chip production capacity will not be successful, so what exactly? The role of the
chip bill has begun to appear. The US chip bill has long been proposed and will place $52 billion to subsidize chips. However, this bill has been delayed, but they have been advancing it. Later, the bill was finally passed, which shows that it is still quite determined. Before
, when chip subsidies were delayed, Intel , TSMC, Samsung , etc. even stated that if there is no subsidy, they will consider building factories elsewhere. When the bill was passed, the most exciting ones were American companies such as Intel, , Micron and .
They acted very quickly and decided to invest in building factories in the United States. It can be seen that the role of the chip bill has begun to appear.
First Intel, which really made Zhang Zhongmou make sense. Intel actively promoted the bill so much to get subsidies, so the factory building action was the fastest. Construction started in June because the bill failed to pass, and construction started in September after the bill was passed.
The chip factory Intel plans to invest $20 billion, and is expected to receive 32% of the subsidy, or more than $10 billion.
Then another chip giant, Micron, also took action, and it was also a big deal. It plans to invest US$100 billion within 20 years, including 4 chip factories, which can be regarded as the best in the history of US semiconductors. Micron said it was implemented because of the chip bill.
The EU was the first to sit still
In addition to Intel and Micron, it is understood that the chip bill has also promoted many chip manufacturers such as GF , SK Hynix and other chip manufacturers to set up factories in the United States. In addition, TSMC and Samsung have decided to invest in and build factories before. It seems that the driving force of the chip bill is quite large.
Seeing that the US's move to improve chip manufacturing is so hot, the EU can't sit still. They had reached an agreement with the US before, which was to try to avoid a contest for chip subsidies, because the EU also wanted to introduce their chip bill.
However, what the EU did not expect was that this seemed to be suppressing their development, because the United States is still vigorously promoting it with subsidies.
So, recently the EU also quickly approved a chip subsidy, which will provide 292.5 million euros to STMicroelectronics , supporting it to build a chip factory in Italy. It is obvious that the EU's move is also to enhance Europe's chip manufacturing capabilities.
In fact, Europe's chip production capacity has also dropped a lot, currently only 9%. Therefore, the EU must take action, of course.
So, do the above actions indicate that Zhang Zhongmou miscalculated? In fact, it may not be necessary. A single chip bill and a subsidy of more than 50 billion US dollars cannot change the situation at all. These subsidies will work in the short term, and the long-term consequences will appear.
chip industry has a very high capital investment intensity. Subsidies and tax exemptions and other discounts such as have temporarily made chip manufacturers taste the sweetness, but the future costs will gradually appear, and the result is that the chip price is too high, so how can we develop in the long run?
Zhang Zhongmou has created the world's leading TSMC. For decades of experts, his vision should not be wrong. TSMC's success is also in line with the general trend. Now, the US chip bill wants to go against the trend, and I believe there will be no good results!
