Since Huawei's chip business was forced to suspend, Huawei has invested tens of billions of dollars to invest in various enterprises in the chip supply chain, hoping to quickly integrate the supply chain, to achieve a breakthrough in lithography machines, and then to break the current situation in which the mainland chip industry is subject to people.
The good news that came out around January 15 is that Huawei's Hubble Investment has completed the filing of private equity fund managers, which means that Huawei can use less money to leverage more investment funds, and some people estimate that Huawei can pull hundreds of billions of fundraising and investment in the case of investing tens of billions, which will produce huge benefits for the entire chip industry chain in the mainland.
We all know that TSMC is located in the mainland of Taiwan Province, mastering the world's most advanced chip process, the United States is still out of reach, but the recent news shows that ASML has sold the most advanced lithography machine to Intel Corporation.
In order to return to the throne, Intel has made big moves during this time. First, it spent $340 million to become the first manufacturer to book the most advanced EUV lithography machine in ASML, and then released the news of building a base, targeting several other giants in the chip field.
Recently, Intel released another major news.
On January 21, Intel said it would invest $20 billion to build two chip manufacturing plants in Ohio, USA, to produce chips, and is expected to be officially put into production in 2025. In addition, Intel's CEO also said that Intel will then set up a total of 8 factories in Ohio, with an estimated investment of up to $100 billion.
Intel's expansion of the factory is a big impact on the pattern of the entire semiconductor market. Intel itself said that the large-scale expansion of the factory is to return to the former leadership position, but also wants to build its own factory, increase its own production capacity, so that the United States' heavy dependence on Asian chip companies can be alleviated.
TSMC, not only the largest Chip Factory in Asia, has also taken over Intel's 3nm chip orders. After Intel builds a factory, the production capacity will increase accordingly, and the impact on TSMC is undoubtedly the largest. At that time, Intel will not only compete with TSMC for the chip market, but also return the chip orders handed over to TSMC to their own factories.
TSMC once had Huawei, a big customer, and rode the dust in the 7nm chip order. In addition to Huawei and Apple orders, TSMC can use the orders of these two companies to achieve process improvement and balanced price increases. However, with the chip rules being revised by the United States, TSMC could no longer ship freely, and was later pressured by the United States to abandon its order with Huawei.
After cutting off cooperation with Huawei, TSMC was left with only Apple's 5nm chip. The dependence on Apple is too strong, so that TSMC is hesitant to increase prices, and production costs cannot be reduced.
In 2021, TSMC's total revenue was 363.8 billion yuan, an increase of 24.9% year-on-year, and in terms of revenue, TSMC's performance was very eye-catching. But looking closely at the gross margin and net profit margin, TSMC's data is not so good.
In 2021, TSMC's gross profit margin was 51.6% and net profit margin was 37.6%, down 1.4 and 1.1 percentage points respectively compared to 2020.
The reason for this is because TSMC relies too much on Apple, it is difficult to increase prices, and it is even more difficult to reduce costs. In order to reduce its dependence on Apple, TSMC took over Intel's 3nm chip order. Shortly thereafter, however, Intel announced that it was going to build its own factory. At this time, for TSMC, the Huawei order that was once abandoned is actually a good solution.
Recently, Zhang Zhongmou, the founder of TSMC, said publicly at an event that no enterprise in the mainland can produce chips with advanced processes. At first glance, listening to this remark, it feels like it is denying and belittling chip manufacturers in the mainland. But if you look deeper, there is a bit of "shouting" to Huawei in this statement.
At the 2021 cross-Chinese New Year's Eve, Huawei HiSilicon used a poster of "going to the core" to fully express its determination to regain the chip business and return to the chip field in 2022. In this combination, TSMC's "shouting" is more to imply that Huawei needs its own, and it also needs Huawei's orders, and the cooperation between the two can achieve a win-win situation to the greatest extent.
On the one hand, competitors are heavy punches, on the other hand, it is too dependent on Apple orders, in addition to the two-sided attack, TSMC also bears the continuous "provocation" of the United States. On the grounds of developing the chip industry chain, the United States has issued several tough requirements for chip companies such as TSMC.
The semiconductor track is already fiercely competitive, and TSMC relied on chip foundry to surpass Samsung and Intel to become the world's largest semiconductor manufacturer. Today's TSMC also has many hidden crises behind the infinite scenery.