Thursday, March 4th 2021
TSMC Reportedly Auctioned off "Excess Capacity" at a 15-20% Price Premium
We've all been reading multiple stories covering the current overly high demand compared to manufacturing capability for semiconductors. Some of us have actually felt this lack in supply not only in our pockets (for those who purchased above-MSRP graphics cards, CPUs or consoles). And apparently, TSMC has just made quite a deal more money out of this "extraordinary demand" than it usually does, as it's being reported the company has auctioned off "excess capacity" to an unknown third-party for 15-20% higher prices than they usually practice.
Now before we start lynching TSMC here, that can mean many things. There is a backlog of orders still to be filled for most manufacturers, that much the reports doing the rounds claim; however, the nature of semiconductor manufacturing occurs throughout many different nodes and technologies. It's more than likely that this doesn't mean that TSMC saved some wafers that could have been used for AMD's RX, Zen, or custom APUs for next-gen consoles on the side and decided to give them to another buyer. This likely means that TSMC had one or more nodes or manufacturing technologies that hadn't been pre-booked yet, and that some players might've looked at that as a solution to their semiconductor woes. And TSMC, having more than one interested party, auctioned the excess capacity. The rumor places the most likely candidates for the purchase as car manufacturers, who have also been hard by the lack of semiconductors in the market, and that's one business where it may make sense to order manufacturing on nodes other than the most cutting-edge; cars just don't need the latest, most powerful and greatest chips to run their software. But all in all, the result is this: a good day for TSMC.
Source:
via TechSpot
Now before we start lynching TSMC here, that can mean many things. There is a backlog of orders still to be filled for most manufacturers, that much the reports doing the rounds claim; however, the nature of semiconductor manufacturing occurs throughout many different nodes and technologies. It's more than likely that this doesn't mean that TSMC saved some wafers that could have been used for AMD's RX, Zen, or custom APUs for next-gen consoles on the side and decided to give them to another buyer. This likely means that TSMC had one or more nodes or manufacturing technologies that hadn't been pre-booked yet, and that some players might've looked at that as a solution to their semiconductor woes. And TSMC, having more than one interested party, auctioned the excess capacity. The rumor places the most likely candidates for the purchase as car manufacturers, who have also been hard by the lack of semiconductors in the market, and that's one business where it may make sense to order manufacturing on nodes other than the most cutting-edge; cars just don't need the latest, most powerful and greatest chips to run their software. But all in all, the result is this: a good day for TSMC.
14 Comments on TSMC Reportedly Auctioned off "Excess Capacity" at a 15-20% Price Premium
I agree with you though, there have been so many bold faced lies pushed through every media orafice the last few years, my salt reserves are running low. I've had to take claims with pepper lately, it just isnt the same.
I wouldnt put it past TSMC to have excess 7nm supply being auctioned off to make some extra dosh, but they dont specify what is being sold.
As an example..
Producer says: We can make 5 % more than expected.
Market says: We need 40 % more, at least.
See my point? Both can happen at the same time. There's nothing here that points to said excess capacity being the solution for the supply constraints.
I believe most of this has become like legos for the auto makers, the auto makers get the components from suppliers who build to their specs and then the auto maker does software customization for integration.
Intel opening fabs to AMD is not going to happen.
i.e. I did not interpret "we" to mean "AMD" as you apparently did.
I think "we" means "consumer" and it doesn't matter who designs the chips so much.
GloFo is out of pushing new tech business, just licensing whatever others did.
No way in hell AMD would share its designs with Intel (there are also other reasons not to).
Those facts have zero "I buy CPUs only from manufacturer Bla" to it, perhaps it's your bias that shows.
Mm... got it, APPLE.
Apple devices shortages are soo harsh, they even dropped price on their brand new M1 notebook. Doh.