Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) , the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, yesterday said a surge in artificial intelligence (AI) server demand would fuel global semiconductor revenue growth this year at an annual rate of about 10 percent, excluding the memorychip sector.
“We are seeing very strong AI server demand. We are looking at a yearly growth rate of 2.5 times higher than last year,” TSMC deputy cochief operating officer Cliff Hou (侯永清) said during an annual technology symposium in Hsinchu.
The industry’s growth would also be aided by a mild recovery in smartphone and PC demand, both estimated to increase shipments by 1 to 3 percent this year from last year, shrugging off the prolonged inventory-driven slump, he said.
Photo: Grace Hung, Taipei Times
Automotive chip shipments are to dip as much as 11 percent annually this year, Hou said.
Internet of Things shipments are to decelerate to between 7 percent and 9 percent this year, compared with 20 percent a year in the past, he said.
For the foundry sector, where TSMC commands about 60 percent market share, the growth would be even faster at an annual pace of between 15 percent and 20 percent by revenue, Hou said.
TSMC would outgrow its peers, with a growth target of low-to-mid 20 percent annually this year, company CEO C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors last month.
The chipmaker supplies a majority of AI chips used in servers and data centers, including those from Nvidia Corp and AMD Inc, utilizing its advanced 4-nanometer process technology.
TSMC said the AI boom could be attributed to the evolution of advanced semiconductor technologies, given the ever-growing demand for computing power.
The steep curve of surging AI computing power demand felt like the rally of Nvidia’s stock price lately, TSMC deputy cochief operating officer Kevin Zhang (張曉強) said during the technology symposium yesterday.
Nvidia is TSMC’s most important customer in the high-performance-computing (HPC) area, Zhang said.
The computing power of Nvidia’s new Blackwell graphics processing unit (GPU) for servers, made on TSMC’s 4-nanometer technology, has soared 1,000 times compared with Nvidia’s previous GPU made on 7-nanometer technology four or five years ago, Zhang said.
Fast-growing demand for HPC and mobile devices also prompted TSMC to triple its advanced 3-nanometer technology capacity this year, Y. K. Hwang (黃遠國), a senior director in charge of TSMC’s first 3-nanometer manufacturing fab, Fab18 B, said during the symposium.
During the period of 2020 to this year, TSMC is to expand advanced capacity by an annual compound growth rate of 25 percent, including 3-nanometer, 5-nanometer and 7-nanometer chips, Hwang said.
TSMC is also stepping up new fab constructions to catch up with customers’ rising demand.
This year, the chipmaker plans to build seven factories, including three wafer manufacturing fabs, two chip packaging plants in Taiwan and two wafer manufacturing fabs overseas, Hwang said.
TSMC built three fabs last year, four fabs in 2022, and two fabs a year on average from 2017 to 2019, he said.
The company also plans to expand chip-on-wafer-on-substrate capacity at an annual compound growth rate of 60 percent through 2026, in order to cope with high demand for HPC and AI applications, Hwang said.
PATENTS: MediaTek Inc said it would not comment on ongoing legal cases, but does not expect the legal action by Huawei to affect its business operations Smartphone integrated chips designer MediaTek Inc (聯發科) on Friday said that a lawsuit filed by Chinese smartphone brand Huawei Technologies Co (華為) over alleged patent infringements would have little impact on its operations. In an announcement posted on the Taiwan Stock Exchange, MediaTek said that it would not comment on an ongoing legal case. However, the company said that Huawei’s legal action would have little impact on its operations. MediaTek’s statement came after China-based PRIP Research said on Thursday that Huawei filed a lawsuit with a Chinese district court claiming that MediaTek infringed on its patents. The infringement mentioned in the lawsuit likely involved
Taipei is today suspending work, classes and its US$2.4 trillion stock market as Typhoon Gaemi approaches Taiwan with strong winds and heavy rain. The nation is not conducting securities, currency or fixed income trading, statements from its stock and currency exchanges said. Authorities had yesterday issued a warning that the storm could affect people on land and canceled some ship crossings and domestic flights. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) expects its local chipmaking fabs to maintain normal production, the company said in an e-mailed statement. The main chipmaker for Apple Inc and Nvidia Corp said it has activated routine typhoon alert
GROWTH: TSMC increased its projected revenue growth for this year to more than 25 percent, citing stronger-than-expected demand for AI devices and smartphones The Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (TIER, 台灣經濟研究院) yesterday raised its forecast for Taiwan’s GDP growth this year from 3.29 percent to 3.85 percent, as exports and private investment recovered faster than it predicted three months ago. The Taipei-based think tank also expects that Taiwan would see a 8.19 percent increase in exports this year, better than the 7.55 percent it projected in April, as US technology giants spent more money on artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure and development. “There will be more AI servers going forward, but it remains to be seen if the momentum would extend to personal computers, smartphones and
Catastrophic computer outages caused by a software update from one company have once again exposed the dangers of global technological dependence on a handful of players, experts said on Friday. A flawed update sent out by the little-known security firm CrowdStrike Holdings Inc brought airlines, TV stations and myriad other aspects of daily life to a standstill. The outages affected companies or individuals that use CrowdStrike on the Microsoft Inc’s Windows platform. When they applied the update, the incompatible software crashed computers into a frozen state known as the “blue screen of death.” “Today CrowdStrike has become a household name, but not in