Foreign media: 48 billion yuan is TSMC's last "carnival"

TSMC is the most advanced manufacturer of chip manufacturing technology in the world, and many manufacturers hand over chip orders to TSMC.

data shows that TSMC produces 63% of the world's EUV wafers, and has won more than 50% of chip foundry orders. Manufacturers such as Apple , Huawei and other manufacturers have given almost all orders to TSMC. After the

chip and other rules were revised, Liu Deyin publicly stated that the lost Huawei orders would not affect TSMC's revenue. In the following time, TSMC's revenue hit new highs one after another.

Today, TSMC officially announced the latest revenue data. In October, the consolidated revenue was about NT$210.266 billion , about 48 billion yuan, increased by 1.0% month-on-month, and increased by 56.3% year-on-year.

In the first 10 months of this year, TSMC's cumulative revenue was about 421.8 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 44.0%. After the data of

was released, some foreign media said that this will be the last carnival of TSMC, because before that, many actions of TSMC have basically confirmed that it will be difficult to maintain rapid growth in the future.

First, TSMC cuts capital expenditures.

TSMC's capital in 2022 was originally set to be as high as US$44 billion, but TSMC has cut capital expenditure twice in a row, each time it was US$4 billion, and now it has dropped to US$36 billion.

TSMC's continuous reduction of capital expenditure is rare. The key point is that TSMC also said that this is due to the uncertain prospects of the semiconductor industry.

Of course, not only is TSMC cutting capital expenditures, but manufacturers such as Intel have also cut capital expenditures, which further shows that the future of the semiconductor industry is uncertain. Because

cuts capital expenditure, it is equivalent to announcing that the speed of construction and expansion of factories has slowed down, and it will even affect the progress of chip research and development.

Second, the chip with advanced technology has overcapacity.

TSMC can achieve rapid growth and win more than 50% of the world's wafer foundry orders, mainly chip orders that rely on advanced technology. According to

data, only 7nm and 5nm processes contributed more than 50% of the revenue. The key point is that almost all US chip orders such as , Qualcomm, and Apple are advanced processes, and these orders contributed 60% of TSMC's revenue.

Today, due to the decline in sales of mobile phones, PCs and other equipment, coupled with the reduction of domestic manufacturers' dependence on imported chips, leading to overcapacity of chips with advanced technology.

reported that because of excess capacity, TSMC has begun to encourage employees to take more vacations and shut down some EUV lithography machines.

There is even news that the capacity utilization rate of TSMC's 7nm process has dropped to about 50%, chip giants such as Qualcomm and AMD have cut orders, and TSMC has also cut orders for some supply chains.

third, Zhang Zhongmou once again issued a warning.

The United States has revised the rules again. If chip companies such as TSMC want to obtain more subsidies, they must meet relevant conditions such as building factories, and even need to build more factories in the United States.

But the founder of TSMC made it clear that TSMC will fail to build a factory in the United States. Subsequently, the chairman of Power Semiconductor also expressed a similar view.

As a result, TSMC is still expanding the scale of its factory in the United States. Not only has the 5nm chip factory with a monthly production capacity of 20,000 chips increased to 22,000 chips per month, but it also plans to invest billions of dollars to build high-end wafers next to the factory. factory.

Finally, TSMC's 3nm process is relatively backward.

TSMC's rapid growth relies on advanced technology, but in the 3nm process, TSMC has fallen behind.

Because Samsung has started mass production of 3nm chips, there is no accurate news from TSMC. In addition, the 3nm chip of Samsung's GAA process is expected to be mass-produced in 2023, with a 21% increase in performance and a 45% reduction in power consumption.

In contrast, TSMC's 3nm chips still use traditional FinFETsThe process, whether in terms of performance and power consumption, is not as good as the Samsung GAA process, and TSMC said that the GAA process will not be adopted until 2025. The key to

is that TSMC said that the High NA EUV lithography machine for the 2024 annual meeting, but ASML said that the lithography machine will be delivered at some point in 2023, which means that TSMC will also lose its advantage in advanced.

It is precisely because of these points that foreign media said that this will be the last carnival of TSMC. What do you think about this.