According to Taiwanese media Economic Daily, there are noises about the slowdown in the market demand for a number of terminal electronic products, and related brands, OEMs and distributors have all started inventory adjustments, but the quotations of wafer foundries have not fallen yet, and TSMC plans to increase prices next year. The IC design industry has become a sandwich biscuit, and the "pressure cooker is about to explode".

IC designers admitted frankly that now they can only postpone all products that can be delayed as much as possible, but the increased production costs next year may no longer be reflected to customers and can only be absorbed by themselves. Considering the many external variables, now we can only hope that the currency will depreciate a little more, and make up for the shortcomings to support the performance.

After the market situation reversed, an unnamed top executive of the IC design industry believed that when the stock was out of stock, the price of the foundry had been raised several times to customers, and even if the production cost continued to rise, in order to maintain the cooperative relationship And competitiveness, probably no way to require customers to absorb. And conversely, if it is an existing product line, "customers will tell the price."

In the face of customers' subsequent requests for price reductions, IC design houses said frankly: "It's very difficult." Because after this wave of wafer foundry price increases, the quotations from the second quarter have remained at the high point in the past two years. The IC designer said, "The foundry didn't share the difficulties with me, how can I share the difficulties with the customers?"

TSMC is shouting up again, and customer increments have to increase prices

TSMC is not afraid of the noise of the semiconductor market. After Dong Zuo and Liu Deyin shouted at the shareholders' meeting last week that "the production capacity is still very full this year", it was reported in the industry that TSMC recently notified IC design customers who intend to increase the amount of wafers to make up for the inventory. This year's incremental part will be The price will be increased by 10%. If there is a new production volume beyond the basic quota next year, not only will the new quotation after the increase be applied, but the price increase will be further increased to 20%.

Regarding the rumor that "customers will increase the price of incremental film", TSMC said that it does not comment on the price issue. The legal person is optimistic. TSMC is not afraid of market noise. After the price increase of 6% for the whole series of processes next year, this year and next year, customers will start “increasing the price of film production”. It can only pay the bill, which also gives TSMC more reassurance in the market outlook.

It is understood that even if the demand for mature process chips such as driver ICs weakens at this stage, the supply gap in the automotive, server, and some power management IC markets is still not small. Many related IC design manufacturers take advantage of this wave of market prosperity. , and negotiated with TSMC to increase the amount of film production to supplement the normal inventory and meet customer needs. However, TSMC's previous price fluctuations were relatively small, and some process quotations were even lower than those of the industry. TSMC also took advantage of the trend to review the quotation strategy and make reasonable adjustments.

Some IC design executives believe that this means that the industry's demand for TSMC's production capacity is still strong next year, so that TSMC still has room to adjust its product and customer mix through quotations. At the same time, this should also be due to the fact that the quotations of other wafer foundries have risen too fiercely, leading to TSMC being the leader, the yield, delivery time and production quality are obvious to all. Next, if the tight supply and demand situation of other wafer foundries is relieved and the quotations are loosened, it will return to the higher quotation of TSMC.

It is also in the field of wafer foundry, but the price trends of various factories in the future may be different. IC design houses pointed out that the capacity constraints of some second-tier wafer foundries may start to loosen from the third quarter, and the relevant industry is currently seeking more orders from customers in the second half of the third quarter, and it is expected that the supply and demand situation in the fourth quarter will continue It is even slower, and some foundry quotations may have the opportunity to be lowered by then.

In addition, it is worth noting that in addition to the planned price increase next year, TSMC has informed some customers that they will change their payment terms. It was originally a 30-day system for monthly settlement. For example, goods delivered in June will be settled at the end of the month. On July 30 Payment must be made before the date of delivery, but starting from January next year, payment must be made within 30 days after delivery, assuming that the goods are delivered on June 1, payment will be made before July 1. For this rumor, TSMC also declined to comment.