The head of the largest contract chip manufacturer, Taiwan's TSMC company, at the industry symposium, once again identified the "ballpoints" of the semiconductor industry, which has been struggling with a deficit of components for some years now, according to C.C. Wei, the shortage of chips is now most pronounced on products in the price range of between 50 cents and 10 United States dollars.
According to the general manager of the company, the largest supplier of lithographic equipment in the form of the ASML Dutch holding system is now experiencing difficulties in obtaining $10 chips, without which it is impossible to release its multiple- and even hundreds of million-dollar lithographic scanners.
As the TSMC has come to grips with the inability to meet the demand of existing enterprises specializing in mature lithography, it is building new ones. According to C.C. Wei, this implies price increases for even simple semiconductor components produced from old processes. In the fourth quarter of this year, a new TSMC enterprise in China will begin to operate, focusing on 28-Nm products. Recall that the US authorities have limited access to subsidies for companies that are willing to expand their production capacity in China, using both 28-Nm technology and more modern ones. Since TSMC would like to receive subsidies for the construction of an advanced enterprise in Arizona, it is unlikely that it will be able to build other 28-Nm products in China in the future.
According to the TSMC chapter, cars increase the ratio of semiconductor components by 15% annually, and modern smartphones contain two or three times more power electronics than they did five years ago. C.C. Wei believes that the era of an effective global supply chain has passed, that the local production policy adopted by many countries increases the cost of products and is exacerbated by inflation.