In early 2023, the Financial Times assures that TSMC representatives will travel to Germany to discuss with suppliers in order to consider the construction of a factory. More specifically, it is in the city of Dresden what the meeting would take place. The capital of Saxony is home to more than five hundred thousand inhabitants to date and there are already other industries such as the automobile with Volkswagen AG, but also, precisely, the manufacture of microelectronics. Among its representatives on site: Infineon Technologies, Silicon Saxony and GlobalFoundries. The latter provides semiconductors to Broadcom, AMD and Qualcomm, which already equips millions of smartphones running under Android.
The news, which has not yet been made official, is part of a context of relatively sustainable growth for the metropolis. We do not yet know what the amount of TSMC’s investment might be on the spot, but the founder is known to inject fabulous capital internationally when opportunities arise. In Arizona, especially.
Nothing for iPhones?
According to the source, TSMC intends, if a contract is actually signed, to set up a factory in Dresden for chips engraved with a precision of twenty-two or twenty-eight nanometers. By way of comparison, you should know that mobiles today are more oriented towards processes between five and three nanometers. In short, it is probably not in Germany that the iPhone processors will be finalized.
No, for the Apple silicon program, it will therefore surely continue to turn to Asia. With, as always, an assembly within the final hull by Foxconn (Hon Hai).
Rather for the competition!
In fact, the Financial Times rather seems to hypothesize a customer such as Sony. The printed circuits that TSMC would plan to engrave in Dresden correspond more to parts that manufacturers such as Sony. The Japanese is known for his digital cameras, but also for his smartphones. Among these, we can notably cite the recent Xperia 5 IV.
the Xperia 5 IV © Sony
The value proposition of the standard bearer, sold from 1,049 euros per unit, displays a compact format despite a 6.1-inch screen (yes, it’s weird to say it, but we are in 2022). The Xperia 5 IV’s photo capabilities have been praised by critics, our colleagues from Presse-citron.net evoking the case of a wide-angle “pleasant to use” and with “an impressive dive“in addition to a”reproduction of natural colors“.
And on the chip side, since that’s what interests us today, the Xperia 5 IV capitalizes on a Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 engraved in four nanometers…
By: Keleops AG
