Wednesday, December 5th 2018
TSMC's 7nm Production Likely to Be Underutilized in 2019 as Smartphone Chip Demand Weakens
DigiTimes, citing a Chinese-language Commercial Times report, cites TSMC's 7 nm foundry capacity as likely being underutilized in 2019. After TSMC announced it expected cutting-edge 7 nm designs to correspond to around 20% of the company's revenues in 2019, the company will likely have to review those projections, as lower demand from smartphone chip manufacturers will likely leave TSMC with less actual output than that which it can churn out.
Due to a cutback in orders placed by Apple, HiSilicon and Qualcomm, concerns regarding TSMC's ability to be the sole 7 nm chip fabrication tech for the industry can likely be laid to rest. That the smartphone market is reaching saturation is a well-known quantity - it's becoming harder and harder to cram new technologies that justify the yearly smartphone upgrade that most companies vie for - and one of the reasons for the launch of various brand-specific smartphone subscription services. The difference isn't scandalous - TSMC will still be making use of 80-90% of its total 7nm process capacity during the first half of 2019, the report quoted industry sources as saying.
Source:
DigiTimes
Due to a cutback in orders placed by Apple, HiSilicon and Qualcomm, concerns regarding TSMC's ability to be the sole 7 nm chip fabrication tech for the industry can likely be laid to rest. That the smartphone market is reaching saturation is a well-known quantity - it's becoming harder and harder to cram new technologies that justify the yearly smartphone upgrade that most companies vie for - and one of the reasons for the launch of various brand-specific smartphone subscription services. The difference isn't scandalous - TSMC will still be making use of 80-90% of its total 7nm process capacity during the first half of 2019, the report quoted industry sources as saying.
22 Comments on TSMC's 7nm Production Likely to Be Underutilized in 2019 as Smartphone Chip Demand Weakens
2050/2060 may use 7nm first
There's only so much technology advancement that has taken place, they can't really make phones that much better. Sure, snappier CPUs or higher res screens (to me, that seem pointless on such a small area) or maybe better cameras, but all in all, nothing else has really been done to make newer phones coming out that much more appealing then the last batch.
Perhaps I'm in the minority here with my thinking because a phone usually lasts me a good 4+ years before I upgrade, so the constant releasing of new phones with heftier prices are unnecessary and mind boggling (some phones pushing $1,000+, that's just fricking nuts).
Here are my last smartphones:
Acquired in mid 2007 (give or take): LG Chocolate Touch. It lacked certain smartphone capabilities, such as full web pages on the internet and I had it for about 5 years. Towards the end the touch screen was kinda out of wack and I constantly had to calibrate it, but the phone made calls and I could text on it - I was content. I would have kept it until it completely crapped out on me, but the wife complained that her phone (same model) was pretty much worthless because it ran like molasses and couldn't be fixed.....she made us upgrade.
December of 2013: HTC DNA - had it for just shy of 4 years. In August of 2017 the mic on the phone died. I could still text/email, but I couldn't receive any calls or make any calls. After a couple of months of this I finally decided to get a new phone because I still needed a way to contact my grandpa so we could talk every few months.
October 2017: Galaxy S8 - still my current phone.
Phones costing more and more, plus nothing really "new" on them, do these companies think people are just going to keep buying the latest and most expensive piece of hardware because it's new? It doesn't surprise me that smartphone demand is starting to wane.
Another "fire / virus / alien invasion" on their factories would do.
Maybe they should have spent less money making videos mocking Fermi, hey ho.
I could understand the phone replacement every 2 years back when the galaxy 2 was the newest thing, as every 2 years phones were noticeably faster in day to day tasks and battery life was dramatically improving. But today? Screens, CPUs, memory, they are all fast enough for normal usage, and a 3 year old phone doesnt feel slow to me at all.
So this might actually comes down to the number of chiplets per wafer is so good that there is a surplus of capacity.
Also x86 CPUs are a drop in the bucket compare to the sheer number of ARM SOC for phones tablets etc made every year.
Everyone and their grandma owns some kind of ARM phone / tablet / TV box these days, not everyone owns a PC anymore.
The good thing about this is AMD should have no issues with supply and could price their products even more agressively.