While major industries around the world are facing a chip shortage, the demand for the entire chip industry is also steadily rising, and most companies in the semiconductor industry have also ushered in their own performance highlights.
The chip industry brings new opportunities
As a giant reporting on the antimony industry, Intel is powerless to alleviate the current shortage. Intel’s new CEO Pat Gelsinger said in an interview earlier that Intel is stepping up the transformation of the company’s factories to increase production capacity to meet customer needs.
In the foreseeable few months later, these measures will only ease the situation. It will take several years for Intel to meet the current needs of all walks of life.
The above remarks are Intel's pessimistic predictions for the entire chip industry not long ago. The lack of core has affected many industries and companies, but for Intel, it does not seem to have any major negative effects.
At the Evolve Summit hosted by CNBC on Wednesday, June 16, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger expressed his optimism about the prospects of the entire semiconductor industry from the perspective of chip manufacturers. Precisely because of the different starting point, it is very different from the previous remarks.
Intel CEO said that the current semiconductor market is in a period of rapid expansion. With the popularization of intelligence and digitization, it is difficult for almost all industries to leave semiconductors. For the semiconductor industry, the next few decades will still be a very Good opportunity.
When the world is experiencing a severe chip shortage, it is a good opportunity for participants in the chip industry.
Giants have expanded production
Terminal demand continues to drive, and semiconductor wafer and packaging and testing capacity continues to be tight. Semiconductor giants with expansion capacity have announced new expansion plans.
As early as March of this year, Intel announced that it would spend 20 billion US dollars to build two new chip factories in Arizona. The new factories will mainly focus on the foundry business and manufacture ARM technology chips for other manufacturers, directly placing competition with TSMC and Samsung. On the countertop.
TSMC announced that it will build six chip manufacturing plants in the United States in the next 10 to 15 years. Construction of the first chip manufacturing plant in the entire expansion plan started on June 2, 2021, and it is expected that the plant will be put into production in 2024. To this end, TSMC will spend 12 billion US dollars.
TSMC’s current plant construction plan is in the high-speed implementation stage of development. TSMC’s CEO previously stated that TSMC’s total investment in the next three years will reach 100 billion U.S. dollars (equivalent to approximately 637.96 billion yuan). This year's capital expenditure has also been raised from the 25-28 billion US dollars previously announced to 30 billion US dollars, an increase of 74% compared with last year.
Yonhap News Agency previously reported that the South Korean government has approved the 120 trillion won (approximately US$106 billion) investment plan of SK Hynix, the country’s second largest chip maker. The company plans to build a new semiconductor factory park to alleviate the supply shortage in the global chip market.
SEMI (International Semiconductor Industry Association) previous report showed that the global semiconductor industry is expected to set a new high for wafer equipment spending for three consecutive years.
Chip manufacturers record high performance
According to data from the research company TrendForce, the total revenue of the world's top 10 chip manufacturing companies in the first quarter reached 22.75 billion U.S. dollars, a record high in revenue.
With the rising demand, manufacturers are stepping up the procurement of related chips. Although the industry is facing the dilemma of core shortage, it is a rare and good situation for chip suppliers.
TrendForce data shows that TSMC, the world's largest foundry company, had revenues of US$12.9 billion (approximately RMB 82 billion) in the first quarter, an increase of 2% over the same period last year. In the first quarter, about 57% of global chip foundry revenue came from TSMC. As wafer prices continue to rise and demand continues, it is expected that the total quarterly revenue of the top 10 foundries in the second quarter will reach a new high again.
For Samsung, due to a one-month power outage caused by a snowstorm on Line S2 in Austin, Texas, its revenue in the first quarter was US$4.11 billion, a decrease of 2% year-on-year. However, Samsung still insists on the strategy of increasing investment. Recently, Samsung Electronics announced that In May 2021, the company's investment in semiconductors has increased to 151 billion US dollars, an increase of 29% over the previous commitment. As production resumes, Samsung's foundry revenue is expected to rise in the second quarter.
In addition, SMIC’s revenue in the first quarter from mainland China reached US$1.1 billion, an increase of 12% year-on-year, and Hua Hong Semiconductor, another chip foundry company, had revenue of US$300 million in the first quarter, an increase of 9% year-on-year.
