At the quarterly reporting event, TSMC management also discussed a number of conceptual issues. The company said that in the future it expects to position itself as a provider of integrated chip manufacturing services, providing customers with not just crystals, but finished products. The factory should include not only semiconductor production, but also related things, including the preparation of lithographic masks, packaging and testing of chips.
Image source: TSMC
TSMC has been not only producing chips for some time now, but also providing services in the field of packaging complex products. And these services have proven to be especially in demand during the so-called “AI boom,” since TSMC packages and tests chips for Nvidia, which, with the help of other partners, produces computing accelerators for AI systems. Now TSMC has monopolized this type of service in the eyes of Nvidia, using the CoWoS packaging method, but at the quarterly reporting conference, TSMC CEO CC Wei made it clear that it is not only expanding its existing production capacity at an accelerated pace, but is also preparing to introduce more advanced chip packaging methods.
According to TrendForce statistics, in the first quarter of this year, TSMC controlled about 61.7% of the world market for contract chip manufacturing services in monetary terms. The chairman of the company’s board of directors insists that within the framework of the Foundry 2.0 concept, this chip manufacturer is ready to provide most of the related services, from the production of photomasks to the packaging of processed crystals in a case with their subsequent testing. As already noted, the company is actively expanding its specialized chip packaging capacities. It can produce photomasks thanks to a deal with Intel, under the terms of which it received 10% of the shares of the specialized division of this company last year, which received relative structural independence.
According to the head of TSMC, the company’s activities in line with the Foundry 2.0 concept will allow it to estimate its share of the global market for specialized services at approximately 28%. Note that this is lower than the 61.7% that the company controls in the field of silicon wafer processing, but the number of competitors is also growing as it enters the chip testing and photomask manufacturing segments. At the same time, TSMC’s management estimates the potential for revenue growth in the entire contract industry by the end of the current year at 10%, so the company’s business will also benefit from such trends. Accordingly, the company’s share of this market in its broader definition will also grow later. The entire semiconductor market this year, with the exception of the memory segment, will grow by the same 10%, according to TSMC. The company’s CFO Wendell Huang added that the decision to introduce the “Foundry 2.0” concept matured at TSMC against the backdrop of some vertically integrated chip developers entering the contract services market. This definition suggests Intel with its IDM 2.0 concept.
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Source: 3dnews.ru
