Taiwan semiconductor digest: week 39

Richard Brown
2 min readSep 21, 2024

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Another frenetic week in the semiconductor industry capped off by rumors that Qualcomm is interested in purchasing Intel followed by the inevitable tsunami of speculation about the wisdom of such a move. Assuming that there is some truth to these reports, the biggest roadblock to an acquisition would be a regulatory one. Although US authorities might not object to the creation of a chip champion to protect national security, regulators in the EU, UK, China, and other countries are sure to look on it much more negatively. It’s not so long ago, after all, that Nvidia was unable to complete its proposed acquisition of Arm as a result of global regulatory concerns.

Intel’s strategic importance to the US government was underlined earlier in the week when the Department of Commerce announced that it has awarded the company up to US$3billion in direct funding under the CHIPS Act for the Secure Enclave program to manufacture leading edge chips for the Department of Defense. This grant is in addition to the US$20 billion funding awarded (but not yet disbursed) to Intel for the construction of new fabrication facilities in the country.

News of Qualcomm’s interest in Intel came after Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger announced that the company will establish its foundry business as a standalone subsidiary to boost its competitiveness and make it a more attractive partner to “external foundry customers and suppliers.” To show how serious it is about working with other customers, Intel announced an agreement with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to coinvest in the design and manufacture of custom semiconductor chips for AI computing in a “multiyear, multibillion-dollar framework.” The chip will be manufactured using Intel’s highly touted but still unproven 18A process. No doubt, Intel is hoping that other key semiconductor companies and cloud service providers such as Nvidia, AMD, Meta, and Google will be tempted to take a closer look at transitioning some of their platforms to 18A as well.

Meanwhile TSMC certainly isn’t resting on its laurels, with Taiwan media reports suggesting that the company’s first 2nm fab in Kaohsiung will go into operation in Q1 next year and the second in Q3. TSMC is also expected to break ground on its third 2nm fab later this month and is said to be considering two more fabs for 1.4nm in the area.

Former Bloomberg Columnist Tim Culpan has also issued a report claiming that TSMC Arizona is already manufacturing Apple’s A16 chips with its N4P process, “in small, but significant numbers” and will further ramp up volumes in the coming months. If you are looking for sharp, detailed news and analysis of the global semiconductor industry, I would recommend signing up for his new substack newsletter.

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Richard Brown

I live in Taiwan and am interested in exploring what ancient Chinese philosophy can tell us about technology and the rise of modern China.