‘Foundry’, which produces and supplies semiconductors by receiving customer’s blueprints, is called the’comprehensive art’ of the semiconductor business. Technology that adds value to customer designs is fundamental, and management’s insights and decisions that can timely make trillions of facility investments are essential. If you have a network that can attract large customers, it is a golden prize. Samsung Electronics, with 15 years of foundry business, has emerged as a strong competitor of TSMC, which has sold Korean wells for 35 years, as a result of the’three beats’ of technology, investment and network.
Samsung Electronics and TSMC in Taiwan are developing a line width of 3 nm (nanometer, 1 nm = 1 billionth of a meter) process for mass production in the second half of next year. Currently, the main processes of the two companies are 7nm and 5nm, and the narrower the line width, the smaller and higher performance semiconductors can be manufactured. The first half of this year is evaluated as a’order golden time’ that should not be missed by Samsung Electronics, considering that foundry companies have secured customers in advance and start discussing technology one or two years before product mass production.
The arrest of Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong is expected to inflict a’megaton blow’ on the Samsung foundry business. In addition to making a decision on investment, we could not expect to receive orders using Lee’s network.
Weird signs are already coming out. On the 19th, South China Morning Post (SCMP), a Hong Kong media that is considered savvy to the news from China and Taiwan, quoted a senior official at IDC, a market research firm, saying, “Not only Apple, but Qualcomm and Nvidia will be operating TSMC 3nm process in the second half of next year. Will be,” he reported. Qualcomm and Nvidia are key customers of Samsung Electronics’ Foundry Division. Samsung Electronics is in a position that’the customer’s movements are unknown and cannot be confirmed’, but in the market, the evaluation of “It doesn’t seem like an empty story” is dominant.
TSMC is the chairman of TSMC and is betting on securing 3nm customers. TSMC Chairman Mark Liu said in a recently held conference call, “We are in contact with high performance computing (HPC) companies and smartphone chip fabless (design specialists) to secure 3nm process customers.” It is also evaluated that TSMC decided to invest 30 trillion won, the largest ever, for facility investment this year, with the 3nm process in mind.
An official in the semiconductor industry said, “With Lee’s arrest, TSMC has a chance to widen the gap with Samsung.” Said.
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