Taiwan’s silicon titan races to ready 2nm process
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s leadership is optimistic that semiconductor demand will rebound in the second half of 2023, but not before revenues slip further.
During the company’s annual shareholder’s meeting on Tuesday, CEO CC Wei warned that revenues could slip by as much as 10 percent year over year during the first half of 2023, Reuters reports. Dr Wei was more optimistic about performance for the second half of the year, and 2024.
TSMC’s wariness comes as the global semiconductor market stabilizes following years of supply chain challenges complicated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which drove a nearly insatiable demand for chips even as it became harder to move goods around the world.
Demand for chips has since eased as order backlogs were filled, demand for GPUs deflated along with enthusiasm for cryptocurrency, and consumers put away their wallets due to rising inflation and the threat of a recession.
While memory vendors predicted the changing market conditions for months, it wasn’t until April that these trends worked their way down the supply chain to TSMC, which saw its revenues slide for the first time in four years.
However, it looks like at least some of TSMC’s long term growth will come from higher prices.
