Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

CTOnews.com, November 22, according to the Electronic Times, TSMC beat Samsung Electronics in 7nm and 5/4nm battles, and due to the low yield of Samsung 5/4nm and 3nm GAA, most semiconductor companies had to strengthen their cooperation with TSMC. In the end, TSMC 3nm is still full of orders even if it uses the original FinFET technology.

It is said that, in addition to Apple and the delayed Intel, Qualcomm, MediaTek and Nvidia and other manufacturers have booked TSMC's capacity in 2023 and 2024, TSMC contract prices continue to hit new highs, and eventually the 3nm broke through the high price of $20,000 (12-inch wafers), which also led to a sharp rise in downstream costs. Apple iPhone 15 and other products are expected to transfer this cost to end consumers, customers, and the increase will be quite obvious. I'm afraid a lot of new products can't go back to the era of low prices.

Semiconductor industry insiders revealed that Samsung has been unable to solve the problem of yield since the 5nm generation, causing Qualcomm, which was originally ordered by Samsung, to turn to TSMC for help, while their latest Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 still uses TSMC 4nm technology.

He believes that the cost of Qualcomm transfer orders is high, and it is very difficult for Samsung to increase the yield in the short term, while advanced processes have to start working together a year and a half ago, so even placing an order for Samsung is a little bit symbolic.

In addition, Nvidia in addition to the H100 order TSMC 4nm, the largest order size of the RTX 40 series also turned to TSMC 4nm, coupled with the largest customers Apple and MediaTek, TSMC 5max 4nm capacity utilization is still fully loaded, which also makes up for the 7nm order gap.

Semiconductor industry insiders said that after entering the 5/4nm generation, in addition to Samsung itself, chip companies, including Intel, have cooperated with TSMC, and Intel has booked 3nm capacity in large quantities, but there is not much N3 capacity for mass production in the fourth quarter of this year, and Intel happens to be postponed due to the revision of the roadmap, so the main customer of the 3nm process is Apple.

It is said that TSMC N3E and other processes will be fully capacity in 2023, but so far there are not many customers who can afford to use 3nm and urgently need it.

According to the Electronic Times, TSMC released a quotation of about US $2000 for 90nm chips in 2004, but by 2016, 10nm had risen to US $6000. After entering the generation of 7nm and 5nm manufacturing, TSMC has directly exceeded 10,000 US dollars, of which 5nm is as high as 16000 US dollars, and this figure has not yet taken into account TSMC's 6 per cent increase in 2023.

It is said that the RTX 4090 GPU just launched by NVIDIA has increased by 510% compared with the 3090 released in the same period in 2020, while the initial offer price of RTX 4080 has increased by 2030% compared with the RTX 3080 launched in the same period in 2020, so the strategy of NVIDIA's hard rally against the trend has been questioned.

CTOnews.com learned that Huang Renxun said bluntly that although the efficiency promotion is limited, the price increase of the new product is reasonable because the 12-inch wafer foundry quotation is much higher than in the past, which is not just a little bit more expensive at all.

According to the latest report from market research firm Strategy Analytics, TSMC's contract manufacturing revenue exceeded US $20 billion in the third quarter of 2022, more than all other manufacturers (including Samsung) combined. In addition, Buffett also built a position in TSMC in the third quarter, with a market value of $4.1 billion.

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