Taiwan semiconductor digest: week 38
There have been mixed signals from the global technology market this past week, with the likes of Larry Ellison and Elon Musk pleading with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang for more GPUs to run their AI superclusters while Apple launched its AI-ready iPhone 16 to a collective global yawn. Even as enterprise AI server demand runs as hot as a nuclear reactor, interest in consumer AI smartphones and notebooks is barely lukewarm. Judging by the lackluster Q4 forecasts from Taiwan laptop manufacturers, the much-heralded AI PC revolution is postponed until at least 2025.
Last week Taiwan’s semiconductor industry players announced their August results. TSMC’s revenue reached US$7.8billion in August, up 33% YoY, but 2% lower than in July. For the year-to-date, the company’s 2024 revenue is up 31% compared to the same period last year fueled by strong growth in demand for AI platforms from Nvidia, AMD, Qualcomm, MediaTek, Apple, and Intel. Even if Apple new A18 processor volumes disappoint, TSMC should be able to make any slack from its other customers.
Even though it has long since fallen behind TSMC, UMC still continues to plug away at more mature segments such as autos and consumer electronics. The company’s August revenue came in at US$642million, an increase of 9% year-on-year, but a decrease of 1% compared to July. For the year to date until August, the company’s 2024 revenue is up 3%.
Vanguard International Semiconductor (VIS), a Taiwan contract chipmaker focused on making power management chips and driver ICs for displays, reported August revenue of US$49.8million, up 3.3% YoY and up 2.1% sequentially. Its year-to-date revenue is up 10.9% in comparison to the same period last year.
VIS also announced that it is teaming up with Episil Technologies to construct an 8-inch fab to produce silicon carbide (SiC) chips used in EVs and other devices. As part of the agreement, VIS will obtain a 13% stake in Episil by purchasing 50 million shares for US$77.1 million. Episil is expected to use the capital injection to fund the construction of the new fab, which is expected to enter volume production in the second half of 2026.
