As the world's largest semiconductor foundry, TSMC has been in the industry leading position in recent years. With its absolutely leading technology, TSMC has obtained orders from major customers such as Apple , Huawei , etc., so it drove the ride-sharing all the way and left its competitors behind.
However, as the United States modified the chip rules, the situation of TSMC began to change. Originally, TSMC had two super customers, Apple and Huawei, but after the United States modified the chip rules, TSMC had only Apple, the super customer.
Now TSMC is deeply bound by Apple. Take the revenue in 2021 as an example. Apple contributed approximately RMB 90 billion to TSMC. increased by more than 20% year-on-year, and Apple contributed more than one-quarter of TSMC's annual revenue.
Demand for consumer electronics continues to decline in 2022. Companies such as Qualcomm , AMD, Nvidia and other companies have announced order cuts, but Apple is showing a positive growth trend, which means that Apple's importance to TSMC must be further improved.
Some institutions predict that Apple can bring more than NT$500 billion in revenue to TSMC in 2022, which will increase by more than 20% compared to 2021. . In this way, TSMC will be bound by Apple and will be further intensified, and the dependence on Apple will be more obvious.
So after TSMC notified customers that the wafer foundry price was raised by 6% in January 2023, Apple refused. According to previous media reports, TSMC's request to raise prices has been rejected by its biggest customer Apple.
And Apple not only rejected TSMC's demand for price increases, but also further weakened TSMC's plan, because Apple CEO Cook recently revealed that Apple is preparing to purchase chip from 2024 at a factory in Arizona, USA, and is also considering purchasing chips from Europe.
Cook said that the Arizona factory will start construction in 2024, so there is about two years left, and plans for procurement from Europe are also in an orderly manner as these plans are becoming more visible.
Industry insiders said that Apple's move is to expand Apple's chip sources to reduce its dependence on Asian production, which means that Apple will start to treat its old teammate TSMC just like the supply chain in mainland China.
TSMC also had to compromise because of Apple's decision, and even showed "concern". In order to cooperate with Apple's decision, TSMC had to increase its investment again, and recently confirmed its plan to invest in Arizona, USA.
Before announcing this factory construction plan, TSMC had invested $12 billion to build a 5nm factory in the United States, and now has once again increased its investment in building another wafer factory in Arizona, with the investment also being $12 billion.
Under Apple's deep binding, TSMC founder Zhang Zhongmou , who had repeatedly emphasized that building a factory in the United States was the wrong choice. Recently, he changed his words in a media interview. He publicly stated that will not reject the transfer of some advanced production capacity to the United States for production in the future.
It is a fact that TSMC moved its 3nm factory to the United States. Under the pressure from Apple orders and the United States, TSMC can only choose to compromise. moved its advanced factory to the United States may be the safest and safest decision for TSMC.
After all, TSMC is too dependent on US customers, especially Apple's orders account for one-quarter. If TSMC had Huawei's orders, it might not be like this today, because Huawei had previously contributed 15% of the share to TSMC.
More importantly, TSMC has not only lost Huawei orders, but also lags behind mainland companies in mature processes. Due to the years of persistence in the investment layout of advanced processes, TSMC has neglected its investment layout in mature processes.
What TSMC did not expect was that 1 new energy vehicle has risen in full swing, bringing huge opportunities to mature processes, which is even greater than that of smartphones. Because compared with new energy vehicles, mobile phones, computers and other devices use much smaller chips.
But in terms of mature technology, TSMC unfortunately missed the opportunity to make the best layout, because TSMC Chairman Liu Deyin said as early as 2020 that the market demand for mature technology chips has long been saturated, but reality has slapped the face.
The decision of mainland Chinese semiconductor company SMIC has enabled the company to achieve rapid growth when a new round of semiconductor industry is coming. TSMC cuts capital expenditures by as much as US$8 billion twice, SMIC has increased capital expenditures by 13.6 billion yuan this year.
To sum up, it is because TSMC has long insisted on pursuing technological leadership, serving American chip giants, and at the same time despising the importance of mature technology. As a result, it is deeply bound by US companies. has to passively accept the requirements of going to the United States to set up factories and place advanced technology on the territory of the United States.
So TSMC is now starting to worry. After building a 5nm factory in the United States, it is now going to build a 3nm factory in the United States. puts its technological advantages all over the United States. In the future, it is not ruled out that it will be taken into account by the United States' "take-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it
In this way, I don’t know how long it will last for TSMC’s leading advantage in the semiconductor industry. Once the United States masters the technical core, will it still care about TSMC? The conclusion is very obvious. What do you think about this? Welcome to comment, like and share.
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