In an internal letter recently sent to employees through video, Wei Zhejia, president of TSMC, rarely mentioned that employees should take more vacations and spend more time with their families, which caused heated discussion.
Many people interpreted that TSMC rarely encourages employees to take more vacations, highlighting a strong signal that the semiconductor economy may fall into recession!
rare! President Wei Zhejia encourages employees to take more vacations, but TSMC is not good either?
TSMC President Wei Zhejia attended the 2022 Taiwan Technology Forum
rare! TSMC President Wei Zhejia encourages employees to take more vacations. The semiconductor industry is in a bad mood, and TSMC is not good either? After the media learned that TSMC suddenly proposed to let employees take more vacation information, they couldn't help but issue such thrilling statements.
On October 24, an internal letter from TSMC President Wei Zhejia not only thanked the employees for their hard work in the past three years to help the company create a peak during the epidemic; it is even more rare to mention that semiconductor is gradually entering the peak period to return to normal, and encourage colleagues to seize this period, take more vacations, and go out with their families more.
According to reports, Wei Zhejia's internal letter was published in video. He first mentioned that TSMC's performance in the third quarter of this year once again broke records, with many indicators hitting new highs. Wei Zhejia hopes to continue to grow next year, but the topic changes. Wei Zhejia said that with the end of the epidemic, the market demand for remote and technological products has decreased, bringing about the global consumer electronics to destocking , which also shows that semiconductors are gradually returning to normal from their peak.
Wei Zhejia encouraged TSMC employees to take more vacations, but he also mentioned that it does not include 3 nanometers, which are about to be mass-produced and R&D processes related to below 3 nanometers. Judging from the staff composition of TSMC, there shouldn't be too many of these people. At the 2022 Taiwan Technology Forum held at the end of August this year, Wei Zhejia revealed in his speech that TSMC's 3 nanometers have entered the mass production stage this year, and the other 2 nanometers will be mass-produced in 2025.
TSMC President Wei Zhejia
In addition to the internal letter to employees this time, TSMC President Wei Zhejia pledged 1,600 TSMC stocks, which also attracted market attention.
According to public information, if the 1,600 TSMC stocks pledged by Wei Zhejia on October 17 are calculated based on the stock price of New Taiwan dollars 397.5 yuan that day, the market value will be approximately NT$640 million. Recently, TSMC's stock price has been sluggish, and President Wei Zhejia has pledged stocks instead. Many people speculate that, as common sense, major shareholders usually have a demand for capital to pledge stocks.
As for the hotly discussed market, TSMC rarely encourages employees to take more vacations, TSMC responded that during internal communication, the president mentioned that the digital transformation has accelerated due to the epidemic and the market 5G and AI demand have driven TSMC's performance growth. He especially thanks his colleagues for their hard work in the past three years. At present, life has gradually become normalized, so he encourages colleagues to get along with their families and continue to work hard after taking a vacation and charging.
TSMC also emphasized that the trend of electronicization in this world will not change. The most important thing for TSMC is leading technology, excellent manufacturing and customer trust, and encourages colleagues not to be complacent and continue to grow with the world.
TSMC responded that although the wind was light and the cloud was light, the market interpreted it one after another. TSMC rarely encouraged employees to take more vacations, highlighting the signal of a recession in semiconductor economy. Many people are worried that the semiconductor industry is undergoing a drastic reversal, and even the leading giant TSMC has been hit?
semiconductor chip
Since the second half of 2022, the semiconductor industry has felt a little chill. In addition to the major environmental changes in the Federal Reserve's interest rate hike, the Ukrainian crisis, and the United States suppressing China's semiconductor industry chain, some terminal demand is weak and inventory is rising, which is also an inconvenient reality. The industry has slowed down.
's operating environment is obviously inferior to the first half of the year. In the second half of the year and even next year, the entire semiconductor industry may also face the challenge of changing structural demand for semiconductors, even if most people are still optimistic about the medium- and long-term trends of the semiconductor industry.
Some people predict that the economic performance of memory manufacturing, integrated circuit design, semiconductor packaging and testing will show a cooling trend. It is expected that the annual growth rate of semiconductor output value in Taiwan will also slow down from 19.7% in 2022 to single digits.
From a global perspective, as the economic momentum slows down, the semiconductor industry may enter a correction stage. Of course, the increase in the penetration rate of emerging technologies for , such as server , big data centers, 5G and even 6G era, electric vehicles, smart industry, Internet of Things, quantum technology, etc., will also bring new opportunities to semiconductors, but these are more medium- and long-term visions than short-term factors.
More importantly, China's semiconductor industry's global share in mature processes is very likely to increase rapidly. Once breakthroughs and progress are made in advanced processes, it will face considerable challenges for competitors in Taiwan, South Korea, the United States, including TSMC.
In short, TSMC President Wei Zhejia asked employees to take more vacations, just to send a strong signal. Throughout history, everything must be opened. As the world's leader in advanced semiconductor processes, TSMC has strong corporate resilience; but the future world also provides new opportunities for major global competitors including mainland China. It remains to be seen who is responsible for the ups and downs. TSMC, which has been named "sacred mountain", is not indestructible.
Moore's Law is dead? Breaking through the bottleneck of advanced processes is a concern TSMC's future
Intel CEO Pat Kissinger (Pat Gelsinger)
and TSMC President Wei Zhejia encouraged employees to take more vacations, which caused heated discussions in the market. Another semiconductor industry information corresponding to it is the recent rumor that Intel will lay off thousands of employees.
Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger reportedly warned that layoffs will arrive in the short term and more details will be released on November 1. Pat Kissinger also spoke to employees through video. He said: "These are difficult decisions, but our costs are too high, and the profits of are too low, and we must take action to solve these problems."
In early October, foreign media reported that Intel plans to lay off thousands of employees due to slowing demand for personal computers (PCs). According to its financial report data, Intel, a global technology giant headquartered in Santa Clara, California, has hired a total of 113,700 employees worldwide.
responds to the deteriorating PC market to reduce spending and improve financial situation, which is the reason Intel will lay off employees. Pat Kissinger is Intel's eighth CEO. He returned after leaving Intel for 10 years and replaced former CEO Bob Swan, who left just one year in January 2021.
At the beginning of his tenure, Pat Kissinger was also ambitious and vowed to reshape Intel.
3 Samsung Electronics Vice President Lee Jae-yong
Time passes quickly. October 25th is the second anniversary of the late Samsung Group Chairman Lee Kun-hee , which also indicates that Samsung "post-Lee Kun-hee era" has been two full years.
former president Lee Kun-hee was hospitalized in Samsung Seoul Hospital in May 2014 due to acute myocardial infarction. His condition worsened 6 years and 5 months later. He died on October 25, 2020 at the age of 78. This year, Samsung Group has officially announced that it will not hold public memorial activities. On the first anniversary of Lee Kun-hee's death last year, its heir Lee Jae-yong said that he would create a new Samsung with a modest attitude.
Samsung Electronics Vice President Lee Jae-yong visited Europe last month. When he returned, he stated in an interview at Gimpo Airport that the company's development is more important than his takeover of the president. Samsung Electronics is the world's number one leader in chip foundry and is also its most important competitor for TSMC. Previously, Samsung Electronics reported that it surpassed TSMC in advanced production processes. President Wei Zhejia once publicly condemned his opponents: "New technologies are not only good-looking and well-known, but also practical."
Samsung Electronics was the first to achieve mass production in July this year in 3-nanometer process chips. For TSMC, it is undoubtedly "a storm is coming and the wind is full of the building", and TSMC's mass production time will be delayed until the fourth quarter of this year. South Korean media even said that Samsung will be able to stabilize its position first and share the market share space of advanced processes. Of course, TSMC's competitors are not only Samsung, Intel, , Qualcomm , but also South Korea's SK Hynix , etc.
Huida CEO Huang Renxun
Huida CEO Huang Renxun, known as the "Godfather of AI", Huida (NVIDIA) has advantages in architecture drawing processors, graphics cards, etc. In recent years, due to the "sparing" of artificial intelligence chips, Huida's market value exceeded TSMC last year.
But recently, what Huang Renxun often said is that semiconductor inventory is "high pressure". Due to the weakening of the game industry, Huida's revenue has been greatly affected.
Huang Renxun was founder of Huida. In 1995, when he was 32 years old, he wrote to TSMC founder Zhang Zhongmou , asking him if he was willing to produce chip for Huida, a newly established IC design company. Later, Zhang Zhongmou called him and the first chip produced for NVIDIA was TSMC.
In the advanced chip production process, Huang Renxun once publicly stated that Moore's Law is dead; however, Intel CEO Pat Kissinger does not agree with it. He believes that Moore's Law is alive and well (living well).
TSMC founder Zhang Zhongmou
TSMC was founded in 1987. It is the first to create a professional integrated circuit manufacturing business model and has always been the world's largest manufacturing service company for semiconductor bulk circuit foundry. For many years, many people have called TSMC a "protecting the Taiwan Strait" and are proud of holding TSMC stocks. However, since the beginning of this year, TSMC's stock has fallen sharply, and many people are trapped "buy on the top of the mountain" and are suffering.
In the past, people were worried that there were many challenges such as Moore's Law, reducing the size of transistors and increasing the number of transistors on the head of the semiconductor industry. However, over the years, under the continuous progress of TSMC and Samsung, companies such as TSMC have been constantly moving forward in the dark tunnel and have achieved great success.
includes a large number of applications such as smart phones, smart cars, smart manufacturing, etc., especially the evolution of big data computing technology, which has given chip manufacturers, including TSMC, excellent opportunities; at the same time, it has also prompted them to continue to challenge the technology bottleneck again and again.
When Dutch lithography machine manufacturer ASML is also working to manufacture 2nm and 1nm extreme ultraviolet light (EUV) equipment, the US company Zyvex has made breakthroughs in advanced manufacturing. It is reported that the American company announced that it has successfully built a 0.7-nanometer microfilm system to be used in quantum computer , but the disadvantage of this technology is that it has low output. There are different opinions in the industry whether Moore's Law is alive or dead, but one thing is certain, Moore's Law is slowing down.
Moore's law approaches the physical limit of silicon materials, but the world has an endless desire for computing, which is a contradiction in itself and is also related to the future of TSMC's sustainable development in semiconductor technology.Of course, there are also scientific and technological personnel developing new materials, hoping to improve the use of electronics technology and promote semiconductors to move towards more advanced processes, but how to help the semiconductor industry break through the limits of Moore's Law cannot be achieved overnight.
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