Affected by the epidemic in 2020, the global "core shortage" tide is coming. Today, in the face of the explosive growth of market demand for consumer electronics and automobiles, as well as the demand for more chips in 5g, AI and other industries, the global wafer production capacity is becoming more and more tight, and the crisis of "lack of core" continues to spread.
Under the tide of global "core shortage" and strong market demand, semiconductor giants began a new round of large-scale expansion. However, behind the expansion, global semiconductors seem to have entered a frenzy of capital expenditure.
According to Bloomberg, in order to further ensure the chip demand of smart phones, data centers and cars, more than 700 billion US dollars will be invested in the semiconductor field in the next decade.
It has to be said that this is an extremely expensive semiconductor investment game. In this game, wafer foundries dominated by TSMC, liandian, Samsung and SMIC (57.270, 0.44, 0.77%) and IDM manufacturers such as Intel, Infineon, Bosch, Texas Instruments, SK Hynix and micron have become the main force.
"Fairy fight" in wafer foundry
TSMC's $100 billion in three years is not enough?
As the world's largest chip foundry, facing the shortage of wafer capacity and urgent demand, TSMC took the lead, not only in terms of expansion speed, but also in terms of capital expenditure: TSMC's capital expenditure in 2021 is about US $30 billion, and it will invest US $100 billion in the next three years. It should be noted that the expenditure of $100 billion includes capital expenditure of $30 billion in 2021. In other words, TSMC will invest about $70 billion in 2022 and 2023.
Semiconductor intelligence (sc-iq) estimates that TSMC's capital expenditure will reach US $35 billion in 2023, or even higher.
In terms of capital expenditure for the whole year of 2021, TSMC at the beginning of the year may not have expected that its expenditure this year could be as high as $30 billion. In January this year, TSMC announced capital expenditure of US $25 billion to US $28 billion. However, only three months later, in a teleconference in April, Huang Renzhao, chief financial officer of TSMC, said that in order to meet the growing demand for advanced and professional technology in the next few years, he decided to increase the annual capital expenditure in 2021 to about $30 billion, of which about 80% will be used for advanced process technology, including 3nm, 5nm and 7Nm. About 10% will be used for advanced packaging and mask manufacturing, and about 10% will be used for special technology.
At the same time, when answering investors' questions, Huang Renzhao also made it clear that $100 billion includes this year's capital expenditure. The three-year period of $100 billion is "21 years", "22 years" and "23 years" respectively.
The "three-year investment of $100 billion" was first mentioned at the end of March this year. A long English letter signed by Wei Zhe, President of TSMC, was circulated on the Internet. The letter mentioned that in order to deal with the capacity shortage of the whole semiconductor industry in the world, TSMC will invest $100 billion in the next three years to increase capacity and support the R & D of high-end process technology.
Photo source: Economic Daily photo source: Economic Daily
Subsequently, TSMC announced on April 1 that it would invest US $100 billion to increase production capacity in the next three years to support the manufacturing and R & D of leading technologies.
Source: TSMC announcement
The announcement knocked down the hammer of TSMC's "three-year $100 billion", but TSMC itself may not be satisfied with this amount.
Recently, Liu Deyin, chairman of TSMC, revealed in an exclusive interview with Time magazine that the cost in the United States is much higher than TSMC's expectation. For the original three-year capital expenditure plan of $100 billion, "the more you look at it, the more you feel inadequate".
Photo source: Time magazine photo source: Time magazine
Behind the amazing capital expenditure is the frequent expansion measures of TSMC, including the expansion of the Nanjing plant with a US $2.887 billion (about 18.7 billion yuan) to produce 28nm process and a monthly production capacity of 40000 wafers; The Arizona 5nm chip plant, which has started construction, is expected to cost US $12 billion,; It is confirmed that a special process wafer factory will be built in Japan to provide 22nm and 28nm process capacity. At the same time, the opening of a wafer factory in Germany is also in the preliminary stage of evaluation and consideration.
"Money sea tactics", Samsung uses money to defend the global semiconductor hegemony
Under the pressure of frequent expansion of TSMC, Samsung in South Korea obviously can't sit still.
On August 24, Samsung officially announced that it plans to invest 240 trillion won in the next three years to cultivate strategic businesses, including semiconductors, biopharmaceuticals, next-generation telecommunications and it research.
Photo source: Samsung photo source: Samsung
For the semiconductor business, Samsung plans to strengthen its global leading position in the semiconductor business by developing leading processes and preemptive investment. In terms of memory, by investing in the development of next-generation product solutions such as DRAM below 14nm and NAND flash memory above 200 layers, we have widened the cost competitiveness and technology gap, so as to consolidate Samsung's "absolute advantage".
In addition, for system semiconductor fields such as wafer foundry, Samsung said it plans to ensure the competitiveness of innovative products through cutting-edge technology development and investment, so as to lay the foundation for leaping to the first in the world. For example, develop new technologies such as GAA, apply new structures, and mass produce wafers of 3nm and below as soon as possible.
Although Samsung did not disclose how much money it would invest in each field, as Samsung's flagship business, in order to maintain and strengthen its absolute leadership in the global semiconductor industry, the amount of investment will only increase unabated.
According to Yonhap, Pak Yu AK, an analyst at kiwoom securities, said that the total capital expenditure of Samsung's chip business is expected to reach 110-120 trillion won in the next three years. The remaining funds may be used for R & D activities and M & A transactions of senior nodes.
It is worth mentioning that as early as may this year, Samsung announced that in order to accelerate the research of cutting-edge semiconductor technology and the construction of new production facilities, it plans to increase the investment scale in system semiconductor and OEM to 171 trillion won by 2030. This is 38 trillion won more than the 133 trillion won announced in April 2019. Samsung said that this will help to achieve the goal of becoming a world leader in logic chips by 2030.
Under the huge capital expenditure, Samsung is also full of confidence in capacity improvement.
According to Nikkei, on October 28, at the earnings conference call, Han Seung hoon, a Samsung executive, said that he planned to expand the production capacity by about three times by 2026, so as to meet the needs of customers as much as possible by expanding the production capacity of pingze and considering establishing a new factory in the United States.
85% is used for 12 inches, and the expenditure of liandian will reach US $2.3 billion this year
As one of the three largest generation factories in Taiwan, liandian also increased its investment this year. Capital expenditure in 2021 will increase from $1.5 billion at the beginning of the year to $2.3 billion, a significant increase of 1.3 times over last year. Of this, 15% is for 8-inch capacity and 85% is for 12 inch capacity.
In addition to announcing an increase in capital expenditure, liandian also announced that it would expand the production capacity of Nanke Fab 12a P6 plant, with a 28nm process and a monthly production capacity of 27500 pieces. The expanded production capacity is expected to be put into operation in the second quarter of 2023, with a total investment of NT $100 billion. Surprisingly, liandian said that its investment in Nanke will reach NT $150 billion in the next three years.
Liandian is also determined to increase capital and expand production. In July this year, the board of directors of UMC approved a capital expenditure budget of NT $31.895 billion to expand production capacity. Liandian said that this year's capital expenditure will remain at the level of US $2.3 billion, and most of the capital expenditure for the expansion of Nanke plant will fall in the next year and the next year.
In addition, it was also reported that liandian planned to build a 12 inch new plant in Singapore. However, in this regard, liandian said that it did not comment on market speculation, but continued to evaluate the production expansion plan and held an open attitude.
Brave into U.S. stocks, lattice core will spend $6 billion to expand production in the future
For lattice core, it seems necessary to expand production. Recently, Godson CEO Caulfield said that the wafers have been sold out until the end of 2023, and the supply may be in short supply in the next 5 to 10 years.
In order to solve the problem of chip shortage, in June this year, lattice core announced that it would spend $6 billion to expand the production capacity of its factories in Singapore, Germany and the United States. According to its disclosure, it will invest more than US $4 billion in Singapore and US $1 billion in other countries in the next two years.
In addition, in March this year, lattice core also announced that it would invest US $1.4 billion this year to help three wafer factories in the United States, Singapore and Germany, and help the above factories increase the chip capacity of 12 nm to 90 nm in 2022.
It is worth mentioning that at present, lattice core has applied for listing on NASDAQ with the code of "GFS". If the IPO goes well, lattice core may usher in a new round of expansion.
SMIC expanded twice this year, exceeding US $11.2 billion, keeping up with the "trend"
While the major foreign giants are investing in increasing capital and expanding production, SMIC has also accelerated the pace of expansion.
Since the announcement of expansion in the second half of 2020, SMIC has officially announced the expansion of 28nm chip production line twice this year. According to the author's understanding, the cumulative investment of SMIC's two new production lines is about US $11.22 billion.
On the evening of March 17, SMIC announced that the company and the Shenzhen government (through Shenzhen heavy investment group) (including) planned to set up a wafer factory by means of proposed investment, focusing on the production of integrated circuits of 28nm and above and providing technical services, in order to achieve the final production capacity of about 40000 12 inch wafers per month. Production is expected to start in 2022, and the new investment of the project is estimated to be US $2.35 billion.
In August, SMIC announced again that it had signed a cooperation framework agreement with the Management Committee of Lingang New Area of China (Shanghai) pilot free trade zone and intended to jointly establish a joint venture in Shanghai Lingang (14.270, 0.01, 0.07%) pilot free trade zone to plan and build a 12 inch wafer foundry production line with a capacity of 100000 pieces / month, Focus on IC wafer foundry and technical services providing technology nodes of 28 nm and above.
The planned investment of the project is about US $8.87 billion, and the registered capital of the joint venture is proposed to be US $5.5 billion.
The two expansion shows that SMIC is determined to comprehensively layout the chip OEM market.
Game of IDM giants
Although the growth momentum of IDM factory may not be as strong as that of OEM factory, the action range of large factories such as Intel and Ti can not be underestimated.
With the expansion of the three continents of the United States, Europe and Asia, Intel's capital expenditure this year may be up to $20 billion
Although Intel lags behind TSMC in the most advanced production technology, it follows closely in terms of capital expenditure and expansion speed.
Intel itself expects capital expenditure to be $19 billion to $20 billion this year. Much higher than the $14.59 billion expected by analysts surveyed by FactSet.
In addition, under the leadership of newly appointed CEO pat Gelsinger, Intel's expansion is also in progress. First, in March this year, Intel announced that it would invest US $20 billion in Arizona to build two new wafer factories. Secondly, in September, Intel said that it might invest up to 80 billion euros in Europe in the next 10 years to improve the chip production capacity in the region, and would open semiconductor factories for carmakers in Ireland.
At present, two chip factories in Arizona have started construction on September 24 and are expected to be fully put into operation in 2024. The new wafer factory will produce Intel's most advanced process technology, including Intel 20A's ribbonfet and powervia innovative technology.
In addition to these two big deals, in May, Intel also announced that it would invest US $3.5 billion to equip factories in New Mexico with advanced semiconductor packaging technology, including Intel's breakthrough 3D Packaging Technology foveros, which is expected to start construction by the end of 2021. In the same month, Intel said it would invest another $600 million in Israel to expand its R & D and confirmed that it would spend $10 billion on building a new chip factory.
The investment will increase by 50% next year, and Infineon will actively expand its production
Facing the "core shortage", Infineon said on October 5 that it plans to increase its investment by 50% next year, hoping to benefit from soaring demand and global semiconductor supply shortage. Meanwhile, Infineon also pointed out that it will invest about 2.4 billion euros ($2.8 billion) in 2022, higher than about 1.6 billion euros this year.
According to evertiq's report in March, Gregor rodeh ü ser, the company's spokesman, has proposed to expand Dresden's existing production capacity at a price of about 1.1 billion euros in the next five years. It is reported that Infineon also said that it would continue to become a strategic partner of Malaysia to accelerate the development of the electrical and electronic industry, especially in the fields of packaging, testing integrated circuits and wafer processing.
It should be noted that on September 17, Infineon announced that its 300 mm thin wafer power semiconductor chip factory in filach, Austria, was officially put into operation, with a total investment of 1.6 billion euros,
There were 1 billion euros before and 400 million euros after. Bosch fired one shot after another
In June, Bosch fired the first shot to expand semiconductor production capacity in Europe, and the opening ceremony of Dresden's 12 inch new factory was held. It is reported that the plant was built by Bosch at a cost of 1 billion euros (about US $1.2 billion) to meet the market needs of Internet of things and transportation applications. At the same time, the new plant is also regarded as the largest single investment in Bosch's history, and it is planned to eventually recruit 700 employees. Bosch said that the new plant will first produce chips for electric tools and will not start producing automotive chips until September.
On October 29, Bosch again announced that it would invest another 400 million euros ($467 million) in chip production in Germany and Malaysia next year to alleviate the global chip shortage. Among them, the largest part of the budget will be used to expand the business of wafer manufacturing plants in Dresden and Reutlingen, Germany, and semiconductor component plants in Penang, Malaysia.
In addition, the company said in the statement that it would invest about 50 million euros in the Reutlingen factory near Stuttgart to produce 200mm wafers. The company also produces auto parts and factory automation systems. Meanwhile, Bosch will also build semiconductor testing facilities in Penang, Malaysia, but did not disclose the specific investment amount.
More than acquisitions, Texas Instruments built a new plant with $29.4 billion
In August this year, Texas Instruments announced that it would consider building a new plant in Sherman or Singapore. The plant would be built in four stages with an estimated investment of US $29.4 billion. According to the American Texas media Herald democra in October, Texas Instruments has submitted property to the local Sherman independent school district