The global semiconductor industry has undergone great changes in recent years. The decline in market value and the plummeting revenue have become a common situation for major chip companies.
These problems have a lot to do with the chip rules in the United States. Even during this period, chip giants evaporated $240 billion due to the rules. Generally speaking, what are the situations of chip companies under US rules? Can the United States continue to develop chip globalization against the trend?
The consumer end and the supply end are inseparable. As the world's largest chip consumer country, China imports more than 300 billion US dollars of chips every year, providing huge sales to many foreign companies.
They stand on the supply side to provide a continuous stream of goods to meet the needs of customers in the consumer market. However, there are restrictions on the products shipped to consumers on the supply side, and almost all semiconductor technologies such as materials need to obtain license from the United States. Although
has opened the application for a license, there are still great variables in whether it can pass the review and obtain a shipment license.
and the range of shipments is also limited. Just like after Qualcomm obtains the license, it can only provide 4G version of the processor to specific customers, and cannot supply 5G chip. It can be seen that the United States neither wants to give up sales profits nor wants its competitors to obtain the most advanced technical support.
This kind of behavior that harms others and is unfavorable to oneself has been doing. Foreign media said that the United States suppresses China but hits global chip companies hard, resulting in the continued decline in the market value of global chip companies for some time, and has evaporated more than US$240 billion. Generally speaking, what are the situations of chip companies under US rules?
First take a look at the experience of American chip companies. Nvidia received a notice that it could not ship two high-end GPU chips at will, and Nvidia said this would result in a quarterly revenue loss of $400 million. In fact, since the second fiscal quarter, Nvidia's revenue has been in a downturn, with net profit plummeting 72%.
and AMD, Intel is also facing sales restrictions, and its market value and net profit have been affected.
Korean Samsung Electronics is also affected by US chip rules. Samsung memory chip factories located in mainland China cannot import EUV lithography machines. In addition, Samsung estimates sales of 24 trillion won (about 119.7 billion yuan) in the third quarter of this year.
In comparison, TSMC's sales revenue in the third quarter reached RMB 137.8 billion. It surpassed Samsung with a significant advantage and became the world's largest semiconductor salesman. This is the first time that TSMC has reached the top of the largest semiconductor salesman, and Samsung has fallen from the altar.
Of course, there is another side behind TSMC's glory. Many Chinese manufacturers have reduced demand, and have reduced chip purchases from American companies. Most of the United States are looking for TSMC to manufacture chips. There is no demand on the consumer side, and are there still orders on the production side?
Therefore, TSMC's 7nm process will face a decline in capacity utilization, and is expected to decline to 70% in the first half of next year. The overall capacity utilization rate will remain at 85% to 89%. The lower the utilization rate, the less people want it, and the more vacant production capacity will be.
TSMC no longer has strong production capacity, and does it still purchase a large amount of equipment from suppliers? It will definitely reduce capital expenditure. As expected, TSMC said at its third-quarter financial report that in order to cope with the difficulties brought about by the decline in demand, it decided to cut capital expenditure by US$4 billion this year.
Originally, TSMC planned to spend $40 billion in capital expenditure this year, but now it has been reduced to $36 billion. Affected by this, the stock price of ASML plummeted by 9% on October 14. TSMC is ASML's biggest customer. If TSMC does not need equipment, ASML's situation will not be good.
Not only that, under the restrictions of the rules, ASML cannot ship the EUV lithography machine freely, so in mainland China, it mainly sells DUVs and other equipment. On the one hand, ASML has lost potential sales, and on the other hand, it is always facing the challenge of declining demand brought by the semiconductor market.
Basically speaking, semiconductor giants such as Nvidia, Intel, Samsung, TSMC, and ASML are all ushering in a "cold winter". Why is this happening?
Ultimately, US rules undermine chip globalization and hinder normal trade on the sales side in the chip consumer market. When production capacity such as
and other products gradually recover without strong demand, a number of supply chain manufacturers will encounter chain reactions, just like TSMC's cuts in capital expenditures and collapses ASML's stock price.
TSMC adjusts capital expenditures is a normal measure to deal with changes in market demand. If US companies can ship normally and maintain strong supply capabilities, TSMC will take on a steady stream of orders, how can we reduce spending?
So what the United States has done has hit global chip companies hard, and the question is, can the United States continue to look back on its globalization of chips against the trend? It depends on whether the United States really cares about the sales interests of American companies.
If US companies continue to develop in accordance with the trend of US rules, if American companies, as key members of the supply side, cannot sell products smoothly, they will inevitably add "cold" to the supply chain, and how to improve market conditions. In short, the person who tied the bell must be untied, it depends on the final attitude of the United States.
written in the end
The development of the chip industry cannot be separated from globalization, and win-win results can only be achieved under the cooperation of free trade. If the sales side continues to maintain the status quo, the next development direction is to produce chips on its own in the consumer market to achieve self-sufficiency. Even after the continuous increase in production capacity, it can still turn to exports.
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