Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, yesterday reported a second straight month of revenue growth to NT$176.54 billion (US$5.75 billion) last month, its best result since February.
Last month’s revenue expanded 19.4 percent from NT$147.9 billion in April, but was down 4.94 percent from NT$185.71 billion in May last year.
TSMC reported first-quarter revenue of NT$833.07 billion, down 1.9 percent from NT$849.34 billion in the same period last year.
Photo: Cheng I-hwa, Bloomberg
TSMC has said that it expects a drop of about 10 percent in revenue in the first half of this year from the same period last year, compared with an earlier estimate of a mid-to-high single-digit percentage fall.
The company attributed the changed outlook to longer-than-expected inventory digestion in its supply chains that is likely to extend into the third quarter.
It made NT$1.025 trillion in the first half of last year.
TSMC said it expects second-half revenue to be higher than the first half, benefiting from new product launches by customers.
There has been a pickup in demand, especially for generative artificial intelligence (AI) chips, propelling demand for high-end chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) technology, TSMC said on Tuesday.
That reinforced the company’s expectations that this quarter would be the bottom for its business.
TSMC on Thursday launched a new advanced packaging fab to support the next generation of chips for high-performance computing, AI, mobile applications and other products.
The new fab at the Jhunan Science Park (竹南科學園區) in Miaoli County is the chipmaker’s largest advanced chip packaging fab.
The fab would add capacity flexibility for its advanced packaging and silicon stacking technologies, such as small outline integrated circuits, integrated fan-out (InFO) and CoWoS, while improving advanced testing, production yield and efficiency, TSMC said.
Meanwhile, United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電), the world’s No. 3 contract chipmaker, reported a third consecutive month of revenue growth last month.
Revenue rose 1.7 percent to NT$18.78 billion from NT$18.46 billion in April, although it declined 23.14 percent from NT$24.43 billion in the same month last year.
In the first five months of this year, UMC revenue fell 17.35 percent to NT$91.45 billion from NT$110.66 billion in the same period last year.
The company said it has not seen strong signs of a significant recovery in the second half, which is usually the peak season for the electronics industry.
Gudeng Precision Industrial Co (家登精密), a key supplier of extreme ultraviolet (EUV) pods to TSMC, yesterday said revenue expanded 22.09 percent annually to NT$2.09 billion in the first five months, bucking the semiconductor industry’s downtrend.
Gudeng said its factory is fully utilized this quarter, thanks to robust demand.
Separately, Gudeng has lost a patent infringement lawsuit against bigger rival Entegris Inc.
Gudgeng in November 2021 filed a case accusing Entegris of illegally using its patents for its EUV and front-opening unified pod (FOUP)-related technologies.
Entegris, a supplier of advanced materials and process solutions for the semiconductor and other high-tech industries, said that the Intellectual Property and Commercial Court ruled in its favor.
The ruling reaffirms Entegris’ unwavering commitment to identifying and safeguarding valid third-party intellectual property rights, and it remains steadfast in protecting these rights whenever the need arises, Entegris said in a statement.
Nvidia Corp’s demand for advanced packaging from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) remains strong though the kind of technology it needs is changing, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said yesterday, after he was asked whether the company was cutting orders. Nvidia’s most advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chip, Blackwell, consists of multiple chips glued together using a complex chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) advanced packaging technology offered by TSMC, Nvidia’s main contract chipmaker. “As we move into Blackwell, we will use largely CoWoS-L. Of course, we’re still manufacturing Hopper, and Hopper will use CowoS-S. We will also transition the CoWoS-S capacity to CoWos-L,” Huang said
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) is expected to miss the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump on Monday, bucking a trend among high-profile US technology leaders. Huang is visiting East Asia this week, as he typically does around the time of the Lunar New Year, a person familiar with the situation said. He has never previously attended a US presidential inauguration, said the person, who asked not to be identified, because the plans have not been announced. That makes Nvidia an exception among the most valuable technology companies, most of which are sending cofounders or CEOs to the event. That includes
INDUSTRY LEADER: TSMC aims to continue outperforming the industry’s growth and makes 2025 another strong growth year, chairman and CEO C.C. Wei says Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), a major chip supplier to Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc, yesterday said it aims to grow revenue by about 25 percent this year, driven by robust demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips. That means TSMC would continue to outpace the foundry industry’s 10 percent annual growth this year based on the chipmaker’s estimate. The chipmaker expects revenue from AI-related chips to double this year, extending a three-fold increase last year. The growth would quicken over the next five years at a compound annual growth rate of 45 percent, fueled by strong demand for the high-performance computing
TARIFF TRADE-OFF: Machinery exports to China dropped after Beijing ended its tariff reductions in June, while potential new tariffs fueled ‘front-loaded’ orders to the US The nation’s machinery exports to the US amounted to US$7.19 billion last year, surpassing the US$6.86 billion to China to become the largest export destination for the local machinery industry, the Taiwan Association of Machinery Industry (TAMI, 台灣機械公會) said in a report on Jan. 10. It came as some manufacturers brought forward or “front-loaded” US-bound shipments as required by customers ahead of potential tariffs imposed by the new US administration, the association said. During his campaign, US president-elect Donald Trump threatened tariffs of as high as 60 percent on Chinese goods and 10 percent to 20 percent on imports from other countries.
RSS