Price War Looming for Mature Fab Nodes in Taiwan

[TheLostSwede]

The smaller foundries in Taiwan—at least compared to TSMC—UMC, PSMC and VIS to name the bigger players, but also other less well known foundries that produce chips on mature nodes, are getting ready for what looks like a price war. In all fairness, all of these companies have hiked their prices multiple times over the past couple of years, so it might just be a return to more normal pricing for these nodes that we're looking at. According to UDN media in Taiwan, the smaller foundries are offering discounts that range between 10 and 20 percent for new orders placed with them.

This is largely due to underutilised production lines for some nodes and the companies are trying to increase the utilisation rate of these nodes. The article mentions that the foundries with 8-inch wafer lines are those hardest hit, especially as they've produced more specialised ICs, such as fingerprint sensors, various driver ICs and power management ICs to mention a few. Some of these foundries are now running at 50 to 60 percent of their capacity, which doesn't bode well for the industry. On the other hand, 12-inch fabs aren't nearly as badly hit and might not offer as attractive discounts to potential customers. Another threat to the Taiwanese foundries is Samsung, which is reportedly also offering around a 10 percent discount on its mature nodes.



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[mb194dc]

Chip crash ball is very much rolling?

 

[Count von Schwalbe]

power management ICs

Cheaper motherboards please!

 

[trsttte]

Cheaper motherboards please!

You're thinking too small, cheaper everything! That's basic building blocks of every modern consumer electronic item out there

 

[Chaitanya]

Chip crash ball is very much rolling?

Maybe for Automative and other industrial applications.

 

[Minus Infinity]

AMD is smart not to use bleeding edge nodes like Nvidia did for Lovelace. Zen 5 will probably use N4P rather than N3E and they will save a bomb doing so. Apple can have all the N3 supply if they like, N3 is seriously overpriced and improvements it brings over N4P are much smaller than expected. Zen 5 could use N5 for IO and N4P for cpu.

 

[Count von Schwalbe]

You're thinking too small, cheaper everything! That's basic building blocks of every modern consumer electronic item out there

Oh yes, of course. It's just that mobos are fast following GPUs to become the most expensive parts of a PC.


Personally, it can't come fast enough. The industrial sector is still struggling under a major chip shortage. We got a quote on a price of equipment (that should have been 2-3 months lead time) with a lead time of ~20 months. And it was considered acceptable.

 

[dragontamer5788]

200mm Shortages May Persist For Years

Some 300mm tools are converted to 200mm; equipment prices and chip manufacturing costs are rising.

semiengineering.com

A surge in demand for chips at more mature process nodes is causing shortages for both 200mm foundry capacity and 200mm equipment, and it shows no signs of letting up. In fact, even with new capacity coming on line this year, shortages are likely to persist for years, driving up prices and forcing significant changes across the semiconductor supply chain.

Hmmm... January 2022. How things change so quickly. "Persistent 200mm shortages" (aka 8-inch wafers) has suddenly turned into price war and overcapacity this year.

 

[Space Lynx]

200mm Shortages May Persist For Years

Some 300mm tools are converted to 200mm; equipment prices and chip manufacturing costs are rising.

semiengineering.com

Hmmm... January 2022. How things change so quickly. "Persistent 200mm shortages" (aka 8-inch wafers) has suddenly turned into price war and overcapacity this year.

what sorts of items use this 200mm wafer? I am guessing cars? cause cars are still insanely expensive.

 

[Flanker]

Oh yes, of course. It's just that mobos are fast following GPUs to become the most expensive parts of a PC.


Personally, it can't come fast enough. The industrial sector is still struggling under a major chip shortage. We got a quote on a price of equipment (that should have been 2-3 months lead time) with a lead time of ~20 months. And it was considered acceptable.

Wtf lead time of 20 months is freaking gross

 

[dragontamer5788]

what sorts of items use this 200mm wafer? I am guessing cars? cause cars are still insanely expensive.

200mm wafers are the same as 8-inch wafers that are discussed in this article posted today.

I'm just noting the very confusing times we live in: 1 year ago, it looked like 8-inch wafers were skyrocketing in price. Today, their prices are collapsing.

 

[erocker]

Yes. This will be great for CEO's in their search for perpetual growth and profit! I doubt they'll pass that on to the consumer.

 

[mb194dc]

Maybe for Automative and other industrial applications.

Demand is collapsing and there's 18 months to 2 years left for it to play out imo.

For all tech hardware segments.

Just seeing the beginning with these cuts.

 

[TheLostSwede]

Wtf lead time of 20 months is freaking gross

Some parts have over a years lead time...

200mm wafers are the same as 8-inch wafers that are discussed in this article posted today.

I'm just noting the very confusing times we live in: 1 year ago, it looked like 8-inch wafers were skyrocketing in price. Today, their prices are collapsing.

Collapsing, no, but going back to previous levels at least.

 

[kondamin]

Imagine being the sucker blamed for bringing a production line back to 200 from 300 and loosing serious money on it