That's for sure. Semiconductors from Europe and the USA will be more expensive

Although there are at least several different large companies on the semiconductor production market, there is only one king. Of course I'm talking about TSMC. It is the services of the Taiwanese that are used by such technological giants as AMD, Apple, NVIDIA, Intel Whether Qualcomm. Reason? The latest lithographs and the highest processing capacity.

Companies must take into account even 20-30% higher prices

This has forced a radical change in TSMC's strategy in recent years. So far, chip production took place only in Taiwan, but foreign expansion began. As a result, new production plants are currently being built, including: In United States, Germany Whether Japan.

However, TSMC's CEO, CC Weisaid during the company's financial results meeting that “if customers want their systems to be manufactured in specific FABs, they must take into account higher prices”. This is all due to the higher costs encountered with foreign production.

This is not a false statement, as the Taiwanese giant has complained about it many times in the past. For example TSMC had to delay the construction of a plant in Arizona (USA) due to problems with installing EUV tools and strikes and negotiations with trade unions.

The Taiwanese pass on the costs to customers because they have no intention of lowering their gross margin target of 53%. Currently, it is not known how much more expensive production outside Taiwan will be. However, there were earlier reports that TSMC N5 and N4 production nodes in the US are expected to be 20-30% more expensive.

Certainly, for many customers, the most important factor will be the price, not the place of production, and they will stay with FAB in Taiwan. However, in the case of government institutions, military equipment and countries with strong economic patriotism (USA, Japan) subsidies for semiconductors produced “domestically” are not a problem.