Chapter 184 TSMC’s Unexpected Disaster
Musk praised Chen Yuanguang on Twitter and described the relationship between the two parties as close, as if he and Chen Yuanguang were going to cooperate in a series of fields.
This gave Tesla unprecedented confidence in the capital market. The stock price soared by as much as 18% overnight, while the stock prices of companies such as Apple, Nvidia, Intel and TSMC continued to plummet.
Apple's decline was limited because it had fallen too much before, while NVIDIA's 15% decline, Intel's 20% decline, and TSMC's nearly 30% decline shocked the entire capital market.
The logic is very simple. Once Musk promotes the cooperation between AMD and Liangjia Technology, AMD equipped with topological semi-metal technology will eat up all the market shares originally belonging to Nvidia and Intel.
Affected by this, TSMC's market share will also have a fatal impact.
Seeing that the winner takes all, AMD surged 30% before the market opened.
“We will actively promote cooperation with Chinese companies on emerging materials. AMD is currently conducting research on topological semimetals.
If all goes well, it is expected that within this year, AMD will The chip based on topological semi-metal will be designed and launched on the market early next year. "
The words of the AMD president have added fuel to the already hot capital market.
No one paid attention to the large amount of uncertainty in her words during the interview. Wall Street hyped up the news that AMD would cooperate with Guangjia Technology.
Not only Wall Street and American people are concerned about this, but Chinese netizens are also concerned.
"What's going on? Chinese companies haven't used topological semi-metal technology yet, so why should AMD start cooperating first?"
"Huawei's shipments are only this small. Obviously, the production of topological semi-metal chips is limited. If we continue to cooperate with AMD, will this extraordinary master wait until the end of the Year of the Monkey? Metal is banned, I look down on you!”
"Is Musk here for a visit or for alms? Why do I feel that the tweets he sent later smell like Zesheng."
The one who is most concerned about must definitely be TSMC. Once Amerikan and other technologies Companies can cooperate with China on topological semi-metal technology, which means the end for TSMC.
They will slowly and irrevocably lose all high-end markets. This will be a process, but it cannot be reversed.
Just like when Nikon was squeezed from the throne of photolithography machines.
This is absolutely unacceptable to them.
"Chinese companies will use topological semi-metals to slowly eat away at all market shares in the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain. All chip-related industrial chains will be like other industries, slowly being transferred bit by bit by China to domestic companies. ”
Today, everyone has realized that whether it is Southeast Asia, Asan or Mexico, these places have industrial potential and can bear part of the manufacturing transfer, but they cannot do what China has done. Offering such comprehensive manufacturing.
Maybe Asan can do it in the future, but they cannot compete with China in terms of efficiency, and the stability of the business environment is far less than that of China.
“No third world country can rival China in these three elements of scale, efficiency and business environment.
This is also the secret of the success of the rapid rise of China’s manufacturing industry, and If American technology companies and capital cooperate with China, they will undoubtedly continue to replicate their past success in the chip field. "TSMC has invested a total of 20 million US dollars in lobbying.
This is ten times what Huawei invested in 2019.
The lobbyists found by TSMC are quite powerful, and they can even find Charles Schumer, the third largest figure in the Donkey Party, to lobby.
“We will make a decision based on the situation. Whether to allow China’s new technologies to enter the federal government will be discussed and decided by the congressmen. I have no say.”
Schumer’s style It’s just watertight. No matter what you say, I’m just a rubber stamp, and I won’t give you a sure answer.
However, they did not think about whether China was willing to cooperate with them.
With such limited production capacity, what these companies in China lack is not demand-side orders, but production-side production capacity.
That’s why China will accept Nikon’s conditions. Domestic mobile phone manufacturers, such as Xiaomi, OV, Honor, etc., are waiting to eat up the production capacity of topological semi-metallic chips.
America’s company is not at all involved.
This is entirely a result of Amerikan's own sentimentality, thinking that as long as they agree, China will definitely cooperate with them.
Before the discussion in Washington has come to a conclusion, China has already spoken out through interviews:
"Currently considering the limited production capacity, we are organizing domestic semiconductor companies to successively promote the construction of topological semi-metal chip production lines.
It is expected that the production capacity problem will be alleviated this year.
In the short term, we We will give priority to domestic orders and will not accept chip OEM orders from foreign companies.”
To put it bluntly, this is not a factor in OEM profits.
Wouldn’t it be nice if I directly packaged and exported the finished products with topological semi-metal chips? The profits far exceed simple chip foundry.
Hua Guo’s rebuttal gave TSMC a sigh of relief.
“We still have time, time means everything.
During this period of time we have to figure out one thing, that is, the boundary of topological semi-metal as a chip substrate. How much is it?" TSMC Chairman Liu Deyin feels that they can finally breathe a sigh of relief.
"Yes, our most critical issue now is to figure out the limit of topological semi-metal.
I don't believe that this new material can allow the chip area to be stacked without restrictions." Qin Yongpei said.
He is the vice president in charge of production and R&D. He has worked at TSMC for almost 40 years. He has single-handedly taken charge of the yield improvement from 28nm to 7nm.
Even for silicon-based chips, more transistors can be accumulated on the chip by increasing the chip area, thereby increasing the chip's computing power.
Whether it is Intel or AMD, their high-end platform CPUs are larger than low-end platform CPUs. For example, AMD's thread ripper is twice the area of an ordinary CPU.
For server chips used by enterprises, the area is even larger.
The same is true for GPUs. For example, the H100 graphics card specially launched by Nvidia for AI has a chip area of up to 800 square millimeters, while ordinary GPUs only have two to three hundred.
Therefore, silicon-based chips can also stack up the chip area, but it has several problems, that is, due to heat dissipation and signal transmission speed, its area has a limit.
After exceeding the area limit, the marginal effect increases sharply, and even adding transistors will not only not increase the computing power, but will decrease it.
The other is the yield rate. As the chip area increases, the yield rate will decrease.
This is also why enterprise-level chips are more expensive. Qin Yongpei does not believe that topological semimetals have no limits.
They got the Ark 100. Its area is four times that of Qualcomm, and its heat dissipation performance is better than that of 3nm process chips. In their view, this is the advantage brought by the material.
But this does not mean that it can infinitely expand the chip area to increase computing power, because this violates the principles of physics.
So understanding the limits of topological semi-metal chips means that they can make accurate judgments on whether they can catch up in the silicon-based chip manufacturing process.
“I don’t believe it either.”
“But what if its limit area is measured in square meters?
What should we do until then? ”
If the limit of topological semimetal is square meters, this is what they are most worried about. The limit is too large, which means there is no limit.
Just like the theoretical process of silicon-based chips The limit is 1nm. When your process is still micron, you don’t have to worry about it at all, because you can’t touch that limit.
“Surrender to the Chinese, there is no other way. Let’s get into the topological semimetal bandwagon too. "Liu Deyin said with a bitter smile.
They know that it is impossible for them to surrender.
The Federation may allow it, but 4V will definitely not allow it.
Before TSMC can take a breath and be happy for a few days, news from the Federation has come. On the grounds of safety, the Federation has asked TSMC to relocate all production lines for processes below 7nm to the Federation territory.
If they are disobedient, the federation will prevent federal companies from cooperating with TSMC, including Apple, Nvidia, and Intel, which are all on the restricted list.
Because in the federal strategic plan, 4v will soon be used as a trial site, and TSMC must move out before then.
In the end, no matter whether they win or lose, they have transferred the most important asset of 4v away.
It directly gave TSMC the option of choosing one of the two. If it relocates, there will be a huge subsidy. If it doesn't move, then it will lose all orders.
“The federation is trying to force us to death!” Qin Yongpei felt like he was going crazy. “We are not allowed to do OEM work for Chinese companies, and they are not allowed to do OEM work for federal companies.
With the loss of its two largest markets, will TSMC still survive? "
Liu Deyin said: "Doesn't this leave a way?"
"This is Road? This is a dead end. I can see the consequences of moving there now. It will definitely be dismembered, and then the production lines and engineering team will be taken over by companies such as Intel, Texas Instruments, and IBM.
The consequences of our previous construction of a factory in the federal government are before our eyes. The factory we invested in cost more than 40 billion US dollars, and there has been no movement in five years. If it were 4V, it would have been in operation for two years.
Qin Yongpei doesn't believe this nonsense. After going to the Federation, they can't bear the increase in costs alone.
The cost is not only the labor cost, but also the cost in all aspects of the federation will rise.
In order to adapt to the federal environment, I don’t even know how much environmental tax I have to pay.
“We are fighting for our lives, and we are fighting for our lives. Can we resist?
Do we have room to resist? "Liu Deyin is not that angry, because he knows that anger is meaningless.
"Now it is clear that the Federation is going to force us to move there. Can we resist?
Can China resist? Is 4V qualified? Not to mention resisting, we don't even dare to come out and call out, which violates the principle of fair trade.
Lao Qin, forget it, don’t be too persistent. This is not something we can decide. Just wait for the news. There will be news in this half month. ”
The measures taken by the federal government against TSMC are far more severe than outsiders imagined, and the capital market is expected to cause a global core shortage in the short term.
Because only TSMC and Samsung can manufacture 3nm. Intel's 3nm was still in labor and died before it was born.
Although 4V media tried every means to create an atmosphere that this was a good thing, the islanders did not believe it at all.
Because anyone with a brain knows that this is not a good thing.
TSMC is almost the only industry in 4v that deserves the attention of both sides. Its existence can reduce the risk of war to a certain extent.
After it was moved, the ballast stone was gone and the ship was in danger of capsizing at any time.
Chinese netizens are enjoying the show and ridiculing them online:
"Sure enough, dogs and friends are different. The federal attitude towards ASML is to seduce and try every means to buy you with money.< br>
I will give you billions if you come, but I will boss you around. If you don’t come, I will die.
So being a dog will not end well.”
"TSMC seems to have lost its sacred mountain to protect the island, and the frogs on the island are wailing."
"Where's ***? Come to Keiichi Hui quickly, the frog will starve to death if it doesn't work."
The funniest thing is that 4v public opinion was in an uproar, but the characters on the stage either didn't say a word, or He said that a lot of people were talking about him, but no one dared to stand up and say that the Federation was wrong. The smell of decay was almost going to make people faint.
But the relevant parties in China stood up and exported.
Onlookers can’t figure out who is the manager of 4v.
The previous lobbying money from TSMC has not been spent, so it has expedited an additional US$50 million to try to persuade the federal government not to allow them to relocate.
It's a pity that this is all useless efforts. At present, the Federation has personally ended up and has used all kinds of methods. How could it not take action against you, TSMC?
The emergence of Ark has accelerated the federal government’s move to relocate TSMC.
For discerning people, the relocation of TSMC means that the risk of war in the entire sea area has greatly increased.
(End of this chapter)