Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said it was increasing its capital expenditure to about US$9 billion next year amid expectations that an improving global economy would stimulate electronics consumption and drive up chip demand.
The forecast capital spending for next year represents another record-high for the Hsinchu-based company. For this year, TSMC, the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, has budgeted US$8.3 billion for spending on new equipment.
Spending on research and development would expand to US$1.6 billion next year, up about 17 percent from US$1.37 billion this year, TSMC chairman and chief executive Morris Chang (張忠謀) said in a speech at the annual Supply Chain Management Forum in Hsinchu.
Chang said global GDP growth is forecast to improve to 2.6 percent, from this year’s estimated 2.4 percent expansion.
Benefiting from a better global economy, semiconductor revenue is expected to grow 3 percent next year, recovering from a projected 2 percent decline this year, he said.
TSMC would quicken its growth pace with revenue increasing by 15 to 20 percent year-on-year next year, from 19 percent this year, outpacing the semiconductor industry’s forecast growth of 3 percent and chip design industry’s 9 percent.
About one-third of TSMC’s revenue next year would come from 28-nanometer chips, Chang told investors in October.
His forecast largely matched Credit Suisse analyst Randy Abrams’ forecast that the company would expand its revenue by 18.72 percent to NT$654.43 billion next year from his estimate of NT$506.03 billion for this year.
Daiwa Capital Markets analyst Eric Chen (陳慧明) predicted a 12 percent annual increase next year.
“We have captured the opportunities that the third wave of killer applications [smartphones and tablets] represent to us,” Chang said, explaining why TSMC and its chip design clients were expected to recover quickly from the downturn.
He said a fundamental reason is the company’s creation of a “grand alliance,” which it has nurtured since its establishment. This alliance refers to its relationship and collaboration with materials and equipment suppliers, customers and intellectual property providers.
Qualcomm Inc and Nvidia Inc are among TSMC’s clients. The two have earlier complained that supply constraints for 28nm chips at TSMC was limiting their growth this year.
To cope with customers’ demand, TSMC would continue to ramp up 28nm production next year, Chang said, adding that he expected all lines to be running at full capacity throughout next year.
At present, TSMC can produce 68,000 12-inch wafers using 28nm process technology per month, he said.
He expected the company to fully catch up with customers’ demand this year, he added.
Commenting on the speculation that TSMC might build a plant in New York, Chang said the company was looking for a place to set up a factory.
“The US is one of the places under consideration,” Chang said. “But this has nothing to do with Apple.”
Apple Inc recently announced it was moving some production lines to the US.
POTENTIAL SETBACK: Although Chinese chip designers and foundry firms already have US EDA software, they might be unable to update those programs under new US rules The US’ latest ban on advanced electronic design automation (EDA) software exports to China might hinder Chinese chip companies from accessing advanced semiconductor technology, as they attempt to upgrade to 3-nanometer processes in the next three to five years, market researcher TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said yesterday. The US Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security on Friday announced bans on EDA tools for gate-all-around field-effect transistors (GAAFET), a new-generation semiconductor technology that US chipmaker Intel Corp and Samsung Electronics Co from South Korea are adopting to make 4-nanometer and 3-nanometer chips. The bureau in a statement said that gate-all-around field-effect transistor
WIDENING THE FIELD: Human resources managers must drop prejudices regarding gender, appearance and age to find the best candidates, Micro Technology said The job market for Taiwan’s semiconductor industry remained tight this quarter, as hiring activity slowed from a record high last quarter, a survey released yesterday by online human resource firm 104 Job Bank (104人力銀行) showed. Ongoing labor shortages have prompted local semiconductor firms to recruit more women and foreigners in Taiwan and in Southeast Asia, the job bank said. The talent gap in the first quarter reached 35,000 people per month, a surge of 39.8 percent from the same period last year, as the contactless economy and digital transformation shore up demand for semiconductors, 104 Job Bank said in its annual report
POSITIVE CULTURE: Pursuing 12-inch wafers earlier than peers helped TSMC lead the industry, said a former executive, whose main regret was working for SMIC in China Corporate culture at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is what made the chipmaker a leading player in the global industry, a former executive said in an interview with California’s Computer History Museum. “One of the really important reasons that TSMC succeeded” is the culture at the firm, where “if equipment went down at two o’clock in the morning, we just called an equipment engineer,” and the worker would not complain, said former TSMC joint chief operating officer Chiang Shan-yi (蔣尚義). “We didn’t really do anything special, anything great, but we didn’t make any major mistakes,” when compared with competitors, such
Cloud computing equipment company Wiwynn Corp (緯穎科技), which counts Meta Platforms Inc as one of its key customers, is boosting capacity expansion in Malaysia through a new investment of about NT$1.94 billion (US$64.7 million), it said yesterday in a statement filed with the Taiwan Stock Exchange. The investment, which aims to help the company with business development and strategic arrangements, would be made through subsidiary Wiwynn Technology Services Malaysia Sdn Bhd to build a new factory, Wiwynn said in the filing. The announcement came about one-and-a-half months after the company started phase II of its new server printed circuit board assembly (PCBA)
RSS