After the chip ban was implemented, the global chip famine broke out so quietly, and everything came so quickly that all companies were unexpected. Under such circumstances, as the world's largest chip foundry, the task of increasing chip production capacity naturally falls on TSMC.

Advantages of TSMC

TSMC holds the most advanced technological advantages and has the largest number of lithography machines in the world, and because it holds more than 50% of the world's chip orders, it is understandable that the problem of solving the chip famine falls on TSMC.

But even if TSMC is the largest chip foundry, its production capacity is limited, so in order to meet customer needs as much as possible and satisfy customers, TSMC agreed to build a factory in the United States. This is also the most important reason why TSMC can still achieve a year-on-year revenue growth of 25.2% after losing Huawei, its second largest customer. Although TSMC lost Huawei, the market share vacated by Huawei was soon occupied by other mobile phone manufacturers. After all, it is the world's largest chip foundry. How could TSMC be worried because there are no customers?

In addition, just in time for Apple's release of the iPhone 12, Apple swept almost all of TSMC's 5-nanometer production capacity, so TSMC was able to achieve positive revenue growth.

Unexpectedly, the world's largest chip foundry has also been stuck in the neck. Although TSMC decided to build a factory in the United States, in the face of the earthquake in Japan, snowstorms in the United States and other problems, TSMC was somewhat helpless.

Got stuck in the neck again?

Then TSMC was stuck in the neck. As the world's largest chip foundry, due to the urgent water situation in Taiwan, TSMC was stuck in the neck because of the many water problems, and was ordered to reduce water consumption by 7%. .

It took only a few months for the incident to happen, and now TSMC and another chip giant, UMC, have been stuck in the neck again. Because of the lack of water and electricity, TSMC, UMC and other energy manufacturers are required to transfer production capacity or suspend some production lines. According to relevant media reports, due to the shortage of local water and electricity supply, Taiwan's Xinda Power Plant No. 1 experienced two large-scale power outages within five days, resulting in power cuts for 20 million users in Taiwan. Electricity has risen sharply. Recently, due to the severe epidemic, everyone is working from home, so electricity consumption has risen sharply.

Under such circumstances, TSMC and UMC have become the target of public criticism, and are required to transfer production capacity or suspend production lines to solve the problem of insufficient power supply. In addition, on the issue of water resources, TSMC is still facing the situation of being stuck.

In fact, the problem of water taste that broke out in February has not been solved by TSMC for a long time. This has led to major wafer foundries including TSMC and UMC taking emergency water supply measures.

Giants such as TSMC's joint stores have been stuck in the neck one after another, which is of course not a good situation for the development direction of global chips. As the world's largest chip foundry, TSMC's market share in the foundry market exceeds 50%, while UMC's market share is nearly 10%, and the two together have almost reached 70%. If two manufacturers' production lines are suspended, the problem of global chip starvation will continue to increase

Internal and external troubles

In fact, the current TSMC can be said to be very difficult. Not only are they faced with being stuck on the issue of water resources and electricity resources, but they are also facing constant sniping from Samsung. Now that Samsung, ASML and IBM have jointly challenged TSMC's position as the first brother in the world, it is really hard to say whether TSMC can keep its position as the first brother despite internal and external troubles.

The only certainty is that if TSMC cannot solve the problem of water and electricity resources, not only will the global chip famine continue to intensify, but the position of its largest chip foundry will also be lost.