In recent years, TSMC has been leading the chip manufacturing process forward. That is to say, TSMC has surpassed Intel in chip manufacturing technology, and Intel has finally put down its shelf and began to hand over chips to TSMC for manufacturing. This is really a historical turning point.
However, the experience of Huawei tells us how the United States allows itself to lag behind in the field of technology, so we saw a later scene. The United States asked TSMC and others to hand over relevant commercial confidential documents. Finally, TSMC submitted the archives on November 5, 2021.
Therefore, it can be seen that TSMC has no choice. In fact, US Secretary of Commerce Raymondo even said: There are other tools in our toolbox that can force manufacturers to provide data.
But the United States did not stop because of this. It began to ask TSMC to build factories in the United States. According to Taiwanese media reports, TSMC even wanted to establish 4 to 5 wafer factories locally.
Recently, TSMC's 91-year-old founder Zhang Zhongmou went to the United States in person, saying that the cost of building chip factories in the United States is prohibitive, and increasing chip production in the United States is expensive, wasteful and futile.
In order to prove his point of view, Zhang Zhongmou also took the fab that TSMC had operated in Oregon, USA for 25 years as an example, pointing out that TSMC has worked hard for 25 years but has not reduced much cost. We are too naive.
It is obvious that Zhang Zhongmou is expressing that it is not realistic to build a chip factory in the United States. The implication is that he does not want to build a factory in the United States. This is the second time that Zhang Zhongmou has spoken out. This move is accused of being "pleaded" in the United States and requesting that TSMC not be allowed to build a factory in the United States.
Coincidentally, shortly after Zhang Zhongmou made his voice, Lu Xingzhi, a well-known semiconductor industry analyst, said that this was Zhang Zhongmou's request that TSMC could not build a factory in the United States.
In fact, we can see through analyzing TSMC's customers that TSMC's construction of advanced process wafer factories in the United States is indeed quite unfavorable to TSMC.
Because TSMC Liu Deyin said before that building a factory in the United States is "the political driving force of American customers". That is to say, once TSMC's advanced wafer fabs in the United States begin mass production, then TSMC's US customers will use the factory's production capacity to produce chips.
Above mentioned that TSMC's US factories are expensive and profits are meager, while TSMC's US customers account for nearly 70% of TSMC's revenue.
However, now it seems that the United States has not made concessions in TSMC's US factory construction, so building a factory in the United States has almost become a foregone conclusion.
In addition, Intel in the United States is also actively building more advanced wafer factories. The key point is that Intel has subsidies given by the United States, so it will have a more advantage in competing with TSMC.
That is to say, even if TSMC maintains the existing order volume of customers, its profit will be greatly reduced due to the high cost.
does not guarantee a certain profit, which will affect TSMC's technology research and development and capacity expansion.
In view of this, some foreign media said that TSMC is paying for the loss of Huawei and will need Huawei again.
From the perspective of TSMC's revenue when it was found for Huawei in the past, Huawei is TSMC's second stable customer, with revenue accounting for about 20%. Later, it once exceeded Apple , becoming TSMC's largest customer, with revenue accounting for nearly 30% at one time.
So if Huawei order is regained, then TSMC will keep its fundamentals.
However, we also seem to see that TSMC and Huawei are maintaining a tacit understanding, because just a while ago, TSMC just used advanced packaging technology to produce M1 Ultra for Apple. Huawei recently released the technology that uses chip stacking, and it also needs to develop multi-chip technology, which is actually advanced packaging technology.
In terms of advanced packaging technology, TSMC has completely developed its own self-developed US factories. TSMC has not brought this technology with it. Shanghai Microelectronics happened to be mass-produced by mass-produced advanced packaging lithography machine , which is at the international leading level.
So overall, TSMC also seems to be looking for ways to re-produce chips for Huawei.
In short, TSMC's future situation is not optimistic at the moment. Regaining Huawei orders will be crucial, we will wait and see.
