In 2021 TSMC expects to invest between $25 billion and $28 billion in capital expenditures compared with $17.2 billion last year
TSMC’s 2021 capex includes investment for construction of its new facility in Arizona eetimes.com/tsmc-to-raise-…
The company has acquired 1,100 acres of land near the city of Phoenix as part of a long-term plan to build a production site on the same scale as TSMC’s so-called “megafabs” in Taiwan that are the mainstay of the company’s production
TSMC and next-door neighbor UMC said in January that their capacity is fully loaded, and the best they can do is to reallocate production to meet demand from global automakers like Volkswagen and Toyota, just to name a few
The carmakers are forced to take a place in the queue behind bigger chip buyers like Apple and Qualcomm.
Chip shortages are likely to erase $61 billion of expected sales for automakers, while the impact to the electronics industry could be far larger, according to Bloomberg
Rival foundry United Microelectronics Corp. UMC has increased its capex budget for 2021 to $1.5 billion from $1 billion in 2020
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. TSMC said that it plans two sales of bonds that would raise about $9 billion to expand production, possibly helping to ease a critical shortage of silicon chips
In a board meeting on 9 February the world’s largest chip foundry approved the issuance of corporate bonds in Taiwan for as much as NT$120 billion (approximately $4.4 billion) . . .
. . . and agreed to provide a guarantee to subsidiary TSMC Global to issue US dollar-denominated corporate bonds for up to $4.5 billion that would fund capacity expansion as well as pollution-prevention measures
In the board meeting TSMC also approved the establishment of a wholly owned subsidiary in Japan to expand research on materials for three-dimensional chips, with a paid-in capital of up to ¥18.6 billion (approximately $186 million)
The announcement follows an unconfirmed report that TSMC plans to open its first overseas chip-packaging facility in Japan.
The company is running full tilt to meet demand that exceeds its production capacity
TSMC finds itself at the center of an increasingly geopolitical scramble to secure supplies of chips for everything from automobiles to smartphones
Government leaders from Germany to the US have recently urged Taiwan to help solve the chip shortfall
“Soaring demand from tablets, laptops and electric cars are causing some of the toughest conditions for smartphone component supply in many years,” said Neil Mawston, an analyst with Strategy Analytics
He said prices for phone parts such as chips and displays have jumped as much as +15% in the past two quarters
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1. In both 2019 and 2020 there are one-off adjustments below the Operating Profit line that do not represent regular earnings
- in 2019 there was a gain from the sale of an asset group
- in 2020 there was a revaluation of their shares in DoorDash following its IPO
2. Secondly, their Bitcoin Revenues and Costs should really be reported on a Net basis otherwise they massively distort the apparent Revenue growth and Cost structure
- SQ earns very little money on those Bitcoin Revenues
The semiconductor crunch that has battered the auto sector leaves carmakers with a stark choice: pay up, stock up or risk getting stuck on the sidelines as chipmakers focus on more lucrative business elsewhere reuters.com/article/us-aut…
Car manufacturers including Volkswagen, Ford and General Motors have cut output as the chip market was swept clean by makers of consumer electronics such as smartphones - the chip industry’s preferred customers because they buy more advanced, higher-margin chips
The semiconductor shortage - over $800 worth of silicon is packed into a modern electric vehicle - has exposed the disconnect between an auto industry spoilt by decades of just-in-time deliveries and an electronics industry supply chain it can no longer bend to its will