The largest supplier of computer chips, Taiwanese company TSMC, plans to spend a record $44 billion on expanding production capacity in 2022.
Company representatives spoke about this at a quarterly conference, during which they summed up 2021 and shared investment plans.
TSMC's revenue in the fourth quarter of 2021 amounted to $15.7 billion, which is 24.1% more than in the same period of 2020. Half of the amount earned was brought by advanced 7nm and 5nm processes. Net profit increased by 16.4%, to $6.01 billion
The automotive sector showed the largest growth by category (+51%), although fixed assets continue to come from the production of chips for smartphones and high-performance systems (HPC). The latter category includes all types of processors – from NVIDIA graphics to Apple M1. TSMC separately noted the ARM direction, stating that the market is no longer dominated by one architecture (x86), and competition contributes to better integration with software.
At the same time, in 2022 the company plans to increase its capital investments to $44 billion, which is almost one and a half times more than in 2021 ($30 billion). Approximately 80% of the declared amount TSMC will allocate to advanced process technologies (7nm, 5nm, 3nm and 2nm), 10% to assembly and packaging technologies such as CoWoS, SoIC and InFO, and 10% to CMOS image sensors and radio frequency RF.
According to the Taiwanese company's forecasts, the semiconductor industry will grow by 9% in 2022. At the same time, demand will remain high. TSMC has already received $6.7 billion in advance payments from customers.
As a reminder, it was previously reported that Samsung Electronics wants to build chip factories in Taylor (Texas, USA) – investments in production and equipment will amount to $17 billion. Initially, locations in Arizona, New York, and Florida were considered, but the company chose Texas because of tax breaks and stable sources of electricity.
