TSMC wants to expand production in Nanjing, but the United States has issued rules to restrict the export of chips to China. TSMC said it will not be affected by the United States and will continue to follow its plans.
TSMC will build a factory in Nanjing
In April this year, TSMC decided to invest 2.887 billion yuan to expand the factory in Nanjing. As soon as the news of came out, it caused heated discussions. TSMC's plan to expand production in Nanjing is not as simple as the surface. will not be to help China improve the current situation of lack of 28nm chips, but to occupy China's 28nm chip market. If really wants to help China and increase chip production, then why not choose to improve the current situation of 7nm chip shortage? SMIC has already occupied a large market in domestic 28nm chip manufacturing, which may affect SMIC's position.
What is even more worrying is that if TSMC chooses to win the love of enterprises at a low price after producing chips in Nanjing, and then gains the Chinese market, then for my country, this is still very unfavorable to the development of mainland companies, especially after TSMC occupying the market, it is possible to transfer the production line abroad.
The United States restricts exports to China 28nm
Just as people are waiting for domestic approval of TSMC's Nanjing production expansion, The United States announced that it will no longer export 28nm processes to China, and the wafer fabs in it cannot export equipment to China. Among them, naturally includes TSMC, so this indirectly shows that TSMC's plan to expand Nanjing is probably impossible.
What the United States said is joyful and worrying. On the one hand, the United States does this undoubtedly limit the development of China's chip industry. On the other hand, it also prevents TSMC from coming to Nanjing to build a factory and will not have an impact on domestic chip companies.
For TSMC, most of its orders come from Huawei and Apple . I thought that the restrictions on the semiconductor industry by the United States would inevitably affect TSMC, but TSMC's total revenue in the second quarter exceeded 86 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 19.8%. TSMC said that its revenue will continue to grow and officially announced that the plan to build a factory in Nanjing will continue.
SMIC has begun to focus on
Faced with the global chip shortage, major chip manufacturers have begun to expand production, and SMIC has invested 65.3 billion yuan in the 28nm process. TSMC said that after the confirmation of production expansion in Nanjing, SMIC felt the crisis. After it had just announced the expansion of the chip capacity of 28nm, TSMC also announced that its intention was conceivable.
If you want to help China reduce the current situation of chip shortage, why TSMC does not choose to produce higher-end chips in China also shows that TSMC's purpose of expanding its 28nm supply chain in China is not simple. However, after TSMC announced that Nanjing would expand production of 28nm chips, it has not officially started to be put into production until now.
Although the plan to produce 28nm chips in the Nanjing factory has been finalized, it should not have any impact on SMIC.
Because SMIC has invested huge investment in production, it has been able to achieve a monthly output of 100,000 pieces, while TSMC has only achieved a monthly output of 40,000 pieces after the expansion. may be because TSMC has not invested a lot in Nanjing's production. At the same time, SMIC's chip production capacity expansion was originally earlier than TSMC's , so SMIC still occupies a large position in the domestic market.
Secondly, SMIC's production capacity expansion will inevitably make most domestic companies choose it. The reason for is that Huawei had a bad experience before and after, so most manufacturers will avoid to prevent similar situations.
Moreover, SMIC's 28nm chip technology is not much different from TSMC. What's more, SMIC has a lot of orders, and everyone is old customers. If you choose TSMC easily and the previous Huawei incident occurs again, wouldn't it have an adverse impact on your development in China?
Finally, domestic lithography machine is expected to be launched on at the latest at the beginning of next year. In this way, SMIC can form its own complete supply chain without relying on other countries. Moreover, most of the domestic products of are good quality and low-cost, and for companies, the cost is far lower than that of TSMC.
Conclusion
People’s opinion, TSMC’s motivation for coming to Nanjing to build a factory is not pure, but domestic leading companies are not so easily replaced. Therefore, China must speed up its development in the chip industry and strive to avoid giving other countries an opportunity to take advantage of it.
