The global wafer foundry 7nm advanced process technology battle is over, not only 7nm EUV has won the first victory, 5/4nm has won AMD, Apple, Broadcom, Intel ( Intel) and others have expanded orders, and NVIDIA and Qualcomm (Qualcomm) have returned their annual masterpieces one after another, and the gap between the two sides continues to widen.
However, according to the semiconductor industry, facing Samsung Electronics’ (Samsung Electronics) 5/4nm and 3nm GAA process yield rate is low, most chip manufacturers have to tighten their cooperation with TSMC, which also makes TSMC’s 3nm process Although the original FinFET is still used, it still easily won large orders from many factories. In addition to Apple and Intel, whose progress has been delayed, Qualcomm, MediaTek, and NVIDIA have also booked production capacity for 2023 and 2024.
TSMC's process technology is advancing generation by generation, and prices continue to hit new highs
However, this dominance situation will also allow the price of each generation of wafer foundries to rise sharply without any resistance. It is understood that 3nm has already exceeded 20,000 US dollars. With the sharp increase in production costs, the chip industry is bound to pass it on to downstream customers and consumers, and the price of new terminal products will no longer go back.
Although Samsung Electronics continues to release news about its cooperation with Qualcomm and other big names, it will also be the first to enter the 3nm GAA generation at the end of June 2022. However, according to semiconductor industry sources, Samsung has been unable to solve the yield problem since the 5nm generation, and the same is true for 4nm. As a result, Qualcomm, which originally placed orders for Samsung, had to turn to TSMC for help in the face of MediaTek's pursuit. After the Snapdragon 8 Gen1 Plus, the latest flagship mobile platform Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 continues to use TSMC 4nm.
Although Qualcomm does not rule out that after entering the GAA process, the flagship masterpiece may restart Samsung and TSMC's bilateral order strategy, but the semiconductor industry believes that the cost of transferring orders is high, and it is very difficult for Samsung to increase the yield rate in the short term and catch up with TSMC. The cooperation will start one and a half years ago, and the initial investment cost is expensive, so the chances of Qualcomm fully switching to Samsung are small, or it is possible to place a symbolic order under the mutually beneficial commercial cooperation with Samsung.
It’s not just that Qualcomm is expanding its orders to TSMC, but it is fully embracing TSMC’s AMD with a process below 7nm. It has been rumored that Samsung is grabbing orders at low prices. Coupled with the consideration of risk diversification, a small number of products are considered to be cast on Samsung’s 5/3nm process. , but the latest platform has appeared, and the next-generation GPU and CPU are still all ordered by TSMC 5nm.
In addition, in addition to NVIDIA’s H100 order for TSMC’s 4nm, the RTX 40 series with the largest order also switched to 4nm. Coupled with the largest customers Apple and MediaTek, TSMC’s 5/4nm capacity utilization rate is still at full capacity. , making up for the 7nm order reduction gap.
According to the semiconductor industry, after entering the 5/4nm process generation, in addition to Samsung itself, almost all chip manufacturers including Intel have also cooperated with TSMC, and have reserved 3nm production capacity, and the N3 process will be mass-produced in the fourth quarter. The quantity is not much, because Intel revised the blueprint, so the main customer is Apple.
By 2023, N3E and other manufacturing processes will be fully scaled up, and there are not many companies that can afford the 3nm manufacturing process. All customers are embracing TSMC. In this situation, except for TSMC’s cautious promotion of advanced manufacturing processes, it will not rashly adopt "bending" In addition to the strategy of "overtaking the road", in fact, Samsung's own setbacks are also the key fuel for TSMC to dominate the advanced manufacturing process.
However, the process technology has been advancing generation by generation, and the price has continued to rise. According to the semiconductor industry, TSMC released a 90nm wafer at the end of 2004, using a 193nm immersion exposure machine with water as the medium to replace the traditional 157nm dry exposure. This machine has rewritten the specifications of exposure machines in the global semiconductor industry, and also broke through the challenge of Moore's Law. At that time, the price of 90nm process wafers was nearly 2,000 US dollars, and that of 65nm process wafers exceeded 2,000 US dollars.
In 2008, the 40nm process increased slightly to around US$2,600. In 2014, the 28nm process exceeded US$3,000. The price of 10nm increased significantly, and each 12-inch wafer came to around US$6,000. So far, 28 Nanometers are sufficient for most products, but process technology must continue to advance in order to cope with high-end to mid-range mobile products, consumer applications, AI, Netcom, 5G, and high-performance computing products such as CPUs and GPUs.
After entering the 7nm generation, the quotation per wafer has doubled to nearly US$10,000, and the price of 5nm has exceeded US$16,000. This does not include another 6% price increase in 2023.
The semiconductor industry said that the high foundry price of 5/4nm, and the quotation of 3nm even reached 20,000 US dollars, which will make the cost of chip manufacturers quite high, which will be passed on to downstream customers. The quotations will be higher than when the old products were launched in the same period.
In fact, the official price of the RTX 4090 launched by NVIDIA in the fourth quarter is 5-10% higher than that of the 3090 graphics card released in the same period of 2020. The market has a lot of doubts about NVIDIA's strategy of going against the trend with full inventory in the upstream and downstream of the supply chain and weak demand.
NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang said bluntly that although performance improvements are limited, the increase in new products is reasonable, because the price of 12-inch wafer foundries has risen sharply compared to the past, not just a little more expensive.
It is worth noting that although the price of the iPhone 14 series, which has greatly increased in cost, has not soared, the semiconductor industry expects that the A17 chip that Apple will use in the iPhone 15 series in 2023 will use TSMC's expensive N3E process, and the quotation for each chip will increase significantly. The cost of other components is also rising, and under the pressure of global inflation, the iPhone 15 series is bound to increase, and the increase will be quite impressive.
However, according to the semiconductor industry, facing Samsung Electronics’ (Samsung Electronics) 5/4nm and 3nm GAA process yield rate is low, most chip manufacturers have to tighten their cooperation with TSMC, which also makes TSMC’s 3nm process Although the original FinFET is still used, it still easily won large orders from many factories. In addition to Apple and Intel, whose progress has been delayed, Qualcomm, MediaTek, and NVIDIA have also booked production capacity for 2023 and 2024.
TSMC's process technology is advancing generation by generation, and prices continue to hit new highs
However, this dominance situation will also allow the price of each generation of wafer foundries to rise sharply without any resistance. It is understood that 3nm has already exceeded 20,000 US dollars. With the sharp increase in production costs, the chip industry is bound to pass it on to downstream customers and consumers, and the price of new terminal products will no longer go back.
Although Samsung Electronics continues to release news about its cooperation with Qualcomm and other big names, it will also be the first to enter the 3nm GAA generation at the end of June 2022. However, according to semiconductor industry sources, Samsung has been unable to solve the yield problem since the 5nm generation, and the same is true for 4nm. As a result, Qualcomm, which originally placed orders for Samsung, had to turn to TSMC for help in the face of MediaTek's pursuit. After the Snapdragon 8 Gen1 Plus, the latest flagship mobile platform Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 continues to use TSMC 4nm.
Although Qualcomm does not rule out that after entering the GAA process, the flagship masterpiece may restart Samsung and TSMC's bilateral order strategy, but the semiconductor industry believes that the cost of transferring orders is high, and it is very difficult for Samsung to increase the yield rate in the short term and catch up with TSMC. The cooperation will start one and a half years ago, and the initial investment cost is expensive, so the chances of Qualcomm fully switching to Samsung are small, or it is possible to place a symbolic order under the mutually beneficial commercial cooperation with Samsung.
It’s not just that Qualcomm is expanding its orders to TSMC, but it is fully embracing TSMC’s AMD with a process below 7nm. It has been rumored that Samsung is grabbing orders at low prices. Coupled with the consideration of risk diversification, a small number of products are considered to be cast on Samsung’s 5/3nm process. , but the latest platform has appeared, and the next-generation GPU and CPU are still all ordered by TSMC 5nm.
In addition, in addition to NVIDIA’s H100 order for TSMC’s 4nm, the RTX 40 series with the largest order also switched to 4nm. Coupled with the largest customers Apple and MediaTek, TSMC’s 5/4nm capacity utilization rate is still at full capacity. , making up for the 7nm order reduction gap.
According to the semiconductor industry, after entering the 5/4nm process generation, in addition to Samsung itself, almost all chip manufacturers including Intel have also cooperated with TSMC, and have reserved 3nm production capacity, and the N3 process will be mass-produced in the fourth quarter. The quantity is not much, because Intel revised the blueprint, so the main customer is Apple.
By 2023, N3E and other manufacturing processes will be fully scaled up, and there are not many companies that can afford the 3nm manufacturing process. All customers are embracing TSMC. In this situation, except for TSMC’s cautious promotion of advanced manufacturing processes, it will not rashly adopt "bending" In addition to the strategy of "overtaking the road", in fact, Samsung's own setbacks are also the key fuel for TSMC to dominate the advanced manufacturing process.
However, the process technology has been advancing generation by generation, and the price has continued to rise. According to the semiconductor industry, TSMC released a 90nm wafer at the end of 2004, using a 193nm immersion exposure machine with water as the medium to replace the traditional 157nm dry exposure. This machine has rewritten the specifications of exposure machines in the global semiconductor industry, and also broke through the challenge of Moore's Law. At that time, the price of 90nm process wafers was nearly 2,000 US dollars, and that of 65nm process wafers exceeded 2,000 US dollars.
In 2008, the 40nm process increased slightly to around US$2,600. In 2014, the 28nm process exceeded US$3,000. The price of 10nm increased significantly, and each 12-inch wafer came to around US$6,000. So far, 28 Nanometers are sufficient for most products, but process technology must continue to advance in order to cope with high-end to mid-range mobile products, consumer applications, AI, Netcom, 5G, and high-performance computing products such as CPUs and GPUs.
After entering the 7nm generation, the quotation per wafer has doubled to nearly US$10,000, and the price of 5nm has exceeded US$16,000. This does not include another 6% price increase in 2023.
The semiconductor industry said that the high foundry price of 5/4nm, and the quotation of 3nm even reached 20,000 US dollars, which will make the cost of chip manufacturers quite high, which will be passed on to downstream customers. The quotations will be higher than when the old products were launched in the same period.
In fact, the official price of the RTX 4090 launched by NVIDIA in the fourth quarter is 5-10% higher than that of the 3090 graphics card released in the same period of 2020. The market has a lot of doubts about NVIDIA's strategy of going against the trend with full inventory in the upstream and downstream of the supply chain and weak demand.
NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang said bluntly that although performance improvements are limited, the increase in new products is reasonable, because the price of 12-inch wafer foundries has risen sharply compared to the past, not just a little more expensive.
It is worth noting that although the price of the iPhone 14 series, which has greatly increased in cost, has not soared, the semiconductor industry expects that the A17 chip that Apple will use in the iPhone 15 series in 2023 will use TSMC's expensive N3E process, and the quotation for each chip will increase significantly. The cost of other components is also rising, and under the pressure of global inflation, the iPhone 15 series is bound to increase, and the increase will be quite impressive.
台積電3奈米代工價突破2萬美元 iPhone 15、GPU漲價有感
全球晶圓代工7奈米先進製程技術大戰高下立判，不僅7奈米EUV取得首勝，5/4奈米在超微(AMD)、蘋果(Apple)、博通(Broadcom)、英特爾(Intel)等擴大下單，以及NVIDIA...
www.digitimes.com.tw
