Three years ago, TSMC was in full swing. It holds half of the chip foundry market, and has a number of chip manufacturers such as Apple , Huawei , Qualcomm , and Qualcomm . It also coincides with the global chip shortage environment. Almost everyone is optimistic about TSMC's future development prospects.
But unexpectedly, it moved with the wind. After the US revised the rules, TSMC decisively gave up Huawei, the second largest customer after Apple. In response to this, Liu Deyin also stated that losing Huawei orders will not affect TSMC, and other customers will quickly fill the empty production capacity.
In addition, TSMC knew that the cost of expensive artificial materials and other materials in the United States was not suitable for the development of the foundry industry, but was still invited to the United States to invest $12 billion to build a 5nm wafer factory to help the United States boost the local chip industry.
It is not difficult to see from this that TSMC Liu Deyin regards Apple, Qualcomm, Nvidia and other American chips as the biggest "funding owners". Perhaps it is precisely this reason that he despises Chinese companies such as Huawei, claiming that the mainland market accounts for only about 10% of TSMC's business, and even publicly clamors that no one can control TSMC with force.
But now it seems that the result is just the opposite. Not only did US chips not become a helper for TSMC to move forward, but instead tore off the "fig leaf" at a critical moment and put the blame on TSMC.
According to media reports, Apple has officially rejected TSMC's plan to raise prices in 2023. You should know that as TSMC's largest customer, Apple has always enjoyed VIP treatment. This time, TSMC's price increase to other customers is between 10% and 20%, while Apple only rose by 4%, which can be said to be full of sincerity.
But even so, Cook still doesn't buy it. In this regard, TSMC is probably also confused. It has been a good partner for so many years, and the boat of friendship can be overturned at any time. Moreover, in TSMC's view, this price increase is not unreasonable, after all, the costs of manual materials and other materials in the chip foundry industry have been rising. What TSMC did not expect was that Apple's "demolition" was just the beginning, and Nvidia, a big customer, also began to "get up" and said that if TSMC insisted on raising its price, it would terminate its cooperation. Even customers such as Qualcomm, , Intel, , seem to be "not interested in the big deal" and have begun to complain about TSMC's price increase this time.
It is obvious that the butterfly effect has appeared, which is undoubtedly the situation that TSMC is most worried about! If you compromise with Apple and NVIDIA, then other Meichi customers will rush to give up the revenue caused by price increases. Once you lose your voice, the matter will be big, and there will definitely be more unreasonable demands in the future.
The question is, can TSMC save the situation? I'm afraid it's not easy. There are two reasons.
First of all, after the termination of the OEM service for Huawei HiSilicon, although Apple and other US companies made up the vacant part of the production capacity for TSMC, this also led to almost all US companies in the field of advanced processes, and their dependence on US chips has increased significantly.
Since 2022, advanced processes have begun to experience overcapacity. In addition, Qualcomm has been in ruins, and TSMC only relies on Apple. According to public information, Apple generated 26% of revenue for TSMC in 2021, which is far beyond the reach of other customers.
If TSMC does not bow its head, Apple will be forced to turn to the Samsung camp. At that time, the throne of "the number one foundry" will change hands, and this result is unbearable for TSMC.
Perhaps this is the confidence of Apple's tough attitude. Without the checks and balances of Huawei's orders, the bargaining power came to Apple, and TSMC could not afford to offend it.
Secondly, behind US chip manufacturers such as Apple and Nvidia is the United States. Although TSMC is servile to the United States, the latter obviously does not regard it as its own person.
Since TSMC finalized the construction of a factory in the United States, it has been targeted everywhere. Not only was the chip confidential data requested, but Intel also "robbed" the priority purchase rights of EUV lithography machines. Even the US previously promised subsidy has shrunk significantly to 4 billion. What’s more important is that the $4 billion factory subsidy is not easy to obtain. According to the chip bill formulated by the United States, manufacturers that receive subsidies cannot expand production capacity and build new advanced processes in the mainland market within ten years. On the other hand, Korean companies such as Samsung, SK Hynix were allowed to introduce EUV lithography machines in Chinese branches.
The US clearly wants to "short" TSMC. Some people even suspect that TSMC's price increase was blocked because some people made trouble and instigated Meixin to do it intentionally.
is precisely because of this, some foreign media said that TSMC's general trend is over! However, in the view of many industry insiders, if TSMC can wake up in time, increase cooperation with the mainland market, and gradually reduce its dependence on US technology, it may be able to re-establish a backbone. But how to make a choice depends on itself.
