Recently, TSMC has also been pushed to the forefront. Taiwan Island is the world's largest high-end chip production cluster. The mainland China region on the other side of the strait is the world's largest chip consumption market.
In theory, for advanced process chips, manufactured on the island of Taiwan and sold in mainland China, it should be a good economic cycle. But with the United States intervening, things began to violate the rules of market economy . According to Straits Guide, the United States is transferring TSMC's advanced chip manufacturing capabilities, a move that is reducing Taiwan's position in the semiconductor industry, while the Taiwan authorities have done nothing. There are two main reasons and three consequences for the transfer of TSMC's advanced process to the United States.
Reason 1: The United States has mastered the upstream manufacturers of semiconductor equipment and raw materials around the world, and is the country with the most patents for semiconductor in the world. For the sake of its own strategic security, the United States must obtain the wafer manufacturing capabilities in its local area. Intel alone obviously cannot meet the needs and eliminate risks, so TSMC has become the best choice in the United States.
TSMC has its own core technology, but it also relies on supply from upstream global manufacturers. The suppliers come from the United States, Japan, Europe and mainland China, so behind the operations of TSMC's wafer factory is a complex global supply chain system. Recently, the chairman of TSMC said, "Warning cannot control TSMC", which is not a clamor, but a reasonable and well-founded sentence.
Reason 2: The United States has seen the future new energy vehicle strategy. The total volume of North American automobile market is not small. In the future, new energy vehicles will develop greatly. Coupled with the development of the consumer electronics industry, the demand for high-end chips in the United States will soar, which is also a good thing for TSMC. At the same time, the United States will provide subsidies for TSMC to build factories.
However, TSMC's construction of a factory in the United States will also bring bad consequences for TSMC itself.
Consequence 1: Talent loss, TSMC is also known as the "sacred mountain". It has a very strong siphon for young talents on Taiwan Island. TSMC engineers are also one of the favorite professions of mother-in-law on Taiwan Island. TSMC has been able to break through from 130nm to its current 3nm node in the past 20 years, which is closely related to high-end talents. However, TSMC was not like this at all when he came to the United States. First, he built a factory in the United States. TSMC sent some senior engineers, and managers from the island to the United States. In order to cope with the advanced process technology, these talents must be the elite among the elites, which is tantamount to the loss of talents for factories on the island. In addition, there are world-class companies such as Google , Amazon , Microsoft , Apple , and in the chip field, there are also giant companies such as Intel. The talent attractiveness is no less than TSMC. The talent mobility trained by TSMC in the United States must be higher than that in Taiwan Island, which is equivalent to training talents for the US chip manufacturing industry.
Consequence 2: The rise in chip prices meets the United States' chip strategic security, but considering the consumption level of people's livelihood, it is completely different. The United States' water and electricity are expensive, and labor is even more expensive. Moreover, the process technology is currently set at 5nm, and 3nm will be mass-produced in the future. The cost of wafer manufacturing in the United States ranges from 30% to 70% higher than that in the island. The rise in chip prices will definitely affect the price of consumer digital terminal products, causing global consumers to pay.
Consequence 3: Missing the mainland Chinese market, mainland China is the world's largest consumer market, and its scale is about US$150 billion. In 10 years, it may rise to a scale of 1 trillion. TSMC has now been restricted by the United States, and it is difficult to open a high-end chip factory in mainland China. On the other hand, Korean companies are embracing the mainland Chinese market. Samsung has invested a super semiconductor factory of about US$30 billion in Xi'an, mainly producing memory chip . In the future, as long as the US policy is relaxed, it will be much more convenient to introduce high-end processes than TSMC.
