Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) on Friday last week posted its second-highest monthly sales for the month of October, with analysts saying that the strong showing was largely a product of solid demand for chips made by the chipmaker’s sophisticated 7-nanometer (nm) process.
Consolidated sales totaled NT$101.55 billion (US$3.3 billion), up 7 percent from the previous month and up 7.4 percent from a year earlier, the world’s largest contract chipmaker said in a statement.
That figure was only slightly lower than the monthly record of NT$103.70 billion in March.
In the first 10 months of this year, cumulative sales totaled NT$843.25 billion, up 6.2 percent from a year earlier, TSMC said.
Analysts said the increase in sales echo TSMC’s earlier forecast that solid demand for high-end smartphones would boost shipments of chips made using the 7nm process, which went into mass production in the first half of this year.
As TSMC is the sole supplier of processors for the latest iPhones, Apple Inc’s orders have driven the chipmaker’s 7nm process shipments, analysts said.
China-based HiSilicon Technologies Co (海思半導體), owned by smartphone vendor Huawei Technologies Co (華為), also placed large orders for TSMC’s 7nm process chips as the Chinese smartphone brand unveiled new models.
TSMC told investors last month that it expects 7nm chips to account for more than 20 percent of its fourth-quarter sales, up from 11 percent in the third quarter.
Sales for the fourth quarter would range from US$9.35 billion to US$9.45 billion, up about 10 percent from the third quarter, it said.
The 7nm process is expected to make up about 10 percent of TSMC’s total sales this year and top 20 percent next year on the back of increasing demand from smartphone, automotive electronics, Internet of Things and high-performance computing device suppliers, it said.
PERSISTENT RUMORS: Nvidia’s CEO said the firm is not in talks to sell AI chips to China, but he would welcome a change in US policy barring the activity Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said his company is not in discussions to sell its Blackwell artificial intelligence (AI) chips to Chinese firms, waving off speculation it is trying to engineer a return to the world’s largest semiconductor market. Huang, who arrived in Taiwan yesterday ahead of meetings with longtime partner Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), took the opportunity to clarify recent comments about the US-China AI race. The Nvidia head caused a stir in an interview this week with the Financial Times, in which he was quoted as saying “China will win” the AI race. Huang yesterday said
Nissan Motor Co has agreed to sell its global headquarters in Yokohama for ￥97 billion (US$630 million) to a group sponsored by Taiwanese autoparts maker Minth Group (敏實集團), as the struggling automaker seeks to shore up its financial position. The acquisition is led by a special purchase company managed by KJR Management Ltd, a Japanese real-estate unit of private equity giant KKR & Co, people familiar with the matter said. KJR said it would act as asset manager together with Mizuho Real Estate Management Co. Nissan is undergoing a broad cost-cutting campaign by eliminating jobs and shuttering plants as it grapples
The Chinese government has issued guidance requiring new data center projects that have received any state funds to only use domestically made artificial intelligence (AI) chips, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters. In recent weeks, Chinese regulatory authorities have ordered such data centers that are less than 30 percent complete to remove all installed foreign chips, or cancel plans to purchase them, while projects in a more advanced stage would be decided on a case-by-case basis, the sources said. The move could represent one of China’s most aggressive steps yet to eliminate foreign technology from its critical infrastructure amid a
MORE WEIGHT: The national weighting was raised in one index while holding steady in two others, while several companies rose or fell in prominence MSCI Inc, a global index provider, has raised Taiwan’s weighting in one of its major indices and left the country’s weighting unchanged in two other indices after a regular index review. In a statement released on Thursday, MSCI said it has upgraded Taiwan’s weighting in the MSCI All-Country World Index by 0.02 percentage points to 2.25 percent, while maintaining the weighting in the MSCI Emerging Markets Index, the most closely watched by foreign institutional investors, at 20.46 percent. Additionally, the index provider has left Taiwan’s weighting in the MSCI All-Country Asia ex-Japan Index unchanged at 23.15 percent. The latest index adjustments are to
RSS