The United States has drawn Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan to form a four-way alliance of chips, intending to contain China’s semiconductor chip development without leakage, but can it prevent China from becoming an economic and technological power?
Samsung and TSMC announced at the same time that they will start mass production of 3nm chips in the second half of this year. The world’s two largest chip manufacturers, in addition to striving for the sales of mature chips that are most in demand in the global market, are also striving to strengthen the competition for advanced manufacturing processes. Neither Korea nor Taiwan wants to lose the Chinese market. In particular, Taiwan’s chip exports to the mainland account for more than 40% of its total exports, and “going to the mainland market” will suffer huge losses.
The “Chip Quartet Alliance” will exclude China from the global semiconductor supply chain, and the alliance is expected to be officially formed as soon as August. Companies participating in the alliance include Intel, Applied Materials, Micron, Broadcom, and Qualcomm in the United States; Samsung and SK Hynix in South Korea; Toshiba, Renesas, Tokyo Electronics in Japan, and TSMC, MediaTek and ASE in Taiwan. The above companies are almost involved in the upstream, mid-stream and downstream industrial chains of the global semiconductor industry.
At present, Taiwan is in the most embarrassing situation. The United States does not trust Taiwanese companies such as TSMC. The reason is not that the two sides of the strait are connected by blood, but the United States is too dependent on Taiwan’s chip manufacturing. Commerce Minister Raimondo has warned more than once that if Taiwan’s The supply of chips is disrupted, and the United States may immediately fall into a deep recession. You must know that the mainland and Taiwan are separated by water, and the nearest distance is more than 100 kilometers. The idea of the United States is to move all major factories such as TSMC away from the mainland. If it is not possible to go to the United States, it would be better to set up factories in Southeast Asia or India. As for whether this is suitable for Taiwanese companies The commercial interests of the United States are not the concern of the United States. In this case, TSMC’s mood is very complicated. Judging from the trend, the United States even intentionally tends to help Samsung to replace the importance of TSMC. TSMC etc. are victims no matter how loyal you are to the US. According to Trendforce statistics, in the first quarter of 2022, TSMC accounted for 53.6% of the global foundry field, followed by Samsung with 16.3%.
The upcoming “Chip Act” in the United States is a must-answer question, and semiconductor companies receiving government subsidies will not be allowed to build new factories in China for 10 years. However, the window for curbing Chinese chip manufacturing has closed. The Global Times said: “China’s SMIC has made an important technological breakthrough. The single chip shipped to the American bitcoin mining company MinerVa already has 7nm-level technical capabilities. SMIC’s technology is slowly catching up with TSMC and Samsung. , is rapidly approaching the status of the world’s third largest wafer foundry.”
China will never sit still. “According to the statistics of the International Semiconductor Industry Association, China’s fab construction speed is the highest in the world, and it is expected that 31 large-scale fabs will be built by the end of 2024, surpassing the 19 scheduled to be put into operation in Taiwan, China and the 12 expected in the United States during the same period. “
Taiwan’s “Economic Daily” said that a large part of the mainland’s fab construction plans use mature processes to produce chips, including power chips commonly used in vehicles, smartphones and other electronic products. In contrast, several other large semiconductor players in the world are obsessed with investing in advanced process fabs.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the largest demand in the global chip market is for mature process chips, which are used in the widest range of industrial technology products. This move may give China the right to speak in the market of mature process chips, and may eventually allow more buyers to rely on China. Continental chips.
Taiwan commentator Tang Xianglong analyzed that the mainland’s semiconductor technology has not reached the cutting-edge, but the mature process has caught up. In the next few years, the international semiconductor industry will encounter the “massacre” of the mainland’s production capacity. To put it bluntly, all members of the Chip Quartet Alliance will be victims. When China’s dragon-slaying knife is raised, TSMC will not be able to recognize relatives and relatives when it arrives. It can only accept fate.
