![[반도체 슈퍼 사이클이 온다②] Foundry is in war this year](https://cdn.econovill.com/news/thumbnail/202101/515160_419189_85_v150.jpg "[반도체 슈퍼 사이클이 온다②] Foundry is in war this year")
[이코노믹리뷰=최진홍 기자] As demand and supply in the global semiconductor market collapse and demand overwhelms supply, the foundry market that actually produces semiconductors is expected to face a great boom this year. At the center of it are TSMC and Samsung Electronics, the No. 1 in the industry, which can process 7nm or less.
Two pillars
The demand-supply imbalance in the global semiconductor market is widening and the foundry market is also facing a great boom. Market research firm Trend Force said last year that the global foundry market grew by 23.8% year-on-year, and Omdia predicted that this year’s market will increase by 13.5% compared to last year.
It is not comparable to last year, but it means that the global foundry market is expected to have a’rich year’ this year.
Leading the industry is Taiwan’s TSMC, which has a market share of 50%, and Samsung Electronics, which is ranked second with a 16% market share. The two companies, which are the only companies that support 7-nano or less processes, show a more unique presence when UMC, the fourth-largest company, lost the trust of its partners after a power outage.
TSMC announced the fourth quarter of last year on the 14th (local time) and reported sales and net income of USD 36.13 billion (about 14.18 trillion KRW) and Taiwan USD 14.27 billion (about 5,592 billion KRW), respectively. Revealed.
Sales were confirmed to have risen vertically by 1.4% from the previous year and 14.0% from the same period last year. Last year overall, sales of 1.339.3 trillion Taiwan dollars (about 52,554 trillion won) and net profit of 5.17.89 billion Taiwan dollars (about 2029 trillion won), respectively, increased by 25% and 70% from the previous year.
The 5-nano process is doing well in the premium foundry market, accounting for 20% of the total volume. Following the US pressure in China last year, after breaking up with an old friend Huawei, it is running an aggressive roadmap, starting to establish a local factory by engaging in contact with US fablesses.
TSMC surprised the industry by raising its facility investment to about $28 billion this year. It is a will to secure the leadership of the foundry market through intensive investments exceeding the estimated $20 billion.
It is determined to absorb a large amount of Intel’s supply, which has given up the 7-nano process production by driving momentum. While Reuters cited multiple sources on the 12th (local time) and reported that Intel will entrust the 7-nano DG2 GPU volume to TSMC for commissioned production, the industry’s attention is focused on TSMC’s’intense move’ this year. Above all, with the outlook that Intel will not entrust consignment production to rival Samsung Electronics, a comprehensive semiconductor company, for security reasons, TSMC’s widespread movement is expected to continue.
Samsung Electronics also has a knife. With the goal of setting the No. 1 system semiconductor goal, Samsung Semiconductor Vision 2030 is actively operating the main goal of investing 133 trillion won in system semiconductors and hiring 15,000 people by 2030.
Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong visited ASML headquarters in Eindhoven, the Netherlands last October and met with CEO Peter Wennink and CTO Martin van den Brink to strengthen cooperation for the development of next-generation semiconductor technology. We also discussed options.
The first schedule this year was set as the foundry site. In fact, Vice Chairman Lee attended a ceremony for bringing in foundry production facilities at Pyeongtaek Plant 2, along with Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Kim Ki-nam and Choi Si-young, Foundry Business Manager, and reviewed the semiconductor division’s president and mid- to long-term strategies.
Pyeongtaek Plant 2 is a high-tech complex production line that produces DRAM, next-generation V-NAND, and ultra-fine foundry products. After producing memory semiconductors last year, this year, it is bringing in facilities for foundry production. After checking the EUV exclusive line, they visited the construction site of the 3rd plant in Pyeongtaek to encourage employees.
Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong said, “Let’s leap to the new Samsung in the new year of 2021. Together, we can open up the future. Let’s cooperate with Samsung Electronics, partners, academia, and research institutes to create a healthy ecosystem and create a myth in system semiconductors.” .
Meanwhile, Samsung Electronics predicted that the total facility investment in 2020 is expected to be 35.2 trillion won in 2020 through its earnings announcement for the third quarter of last year, and 289 trillion won will be invested in semiconductors.
Face to face?
It is expected that the semiconductor super cycle will begin and a battle to secure foundry supplies will take place, but there are several complex variables. In particular, the key issue is how much can be digested.
Currently, both TSMC and Samsung Electronics are operating close to 100% foundry lines. TSMC is receiving orders from various US fabless companies, mainly Intel, and Samsung Electronics mainly handles all of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888, as well as Microsoft and Nvidia. It is said that the current infrastructure is no longer capable of making it.
Normally, the foundry industry designs lines after receiving orders, and in this process, the two companies literally plan to prepare for orders poured out through storm investment, but this is also not easy.
In particular, it is said that it is more sensitive to super cycles than ever because sophisticated customized quantities such as automotive semiconductors cannot be digested in a short period of time. It is noteworthy how to draw line efficiency through’orders’ that accumulate consecutively, while the immediate volume cannot be digested even with aggressive expansion.
Eyes are also focused on the strategy of Samsung Electronics, the second place in the pursuit. This is because the possibility of power distribution is raised in a situation where power must be supplied to system semiconductor cables such as foundries and mobile APs while maintaining the No. 1 global market for memory semiconductors. While Samsung Electronics’ semiconductor investment is significantly lower than that of TSMC, it is a case in point that it must be divided into memory and system.
In addition, Samsung Electronics foundry’s concerns are deepened in that one of the reasons Intel is expected to drive most of its supply to TSMC is the possibility of a technology leak. This is why there are still claims that Samsung Electronics, a general semiconductor company, will spin off the foundry division.
The fact that TSMC is actually a state-owned company of the Taiwanese government and is protected by the strong local government, the situation of the Samsung Electronics foundry is 180 degrees different. As the judicial risk surrounding Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong, the immediate command tower, still remains, there is a prospect that it is difficult to come up with an unprecedented number of matches.
However, as TSMC has also reached its limit in volume digestion, there is a steady prospect that Samsung Electronics foundry will be able to seize opportunities while maintaining the second place strategy and turn the plate with a super-tech strategy from a long-term perspective.
This is the reason why the order before the order of Intel’s supply is eye-catching. Intel has no choice but to give TSMC a generous score, but it is said that Samsung Electronics can naturally receive enough choices from Intel while TSMC is also reaching the limit of volume digestion. Although Samsung Electronics will not be able to handle all of Intel’s stocks, it is a strategy to keep a close eye on TSMC’s situation and secure some of the stocks to get’points’ step by step. <계속>