Foundry revenues head for a cliff as wafer demand dries up • The Register

After surging 28 p.c in 2022, foundry revenues are set to plunge over the following 12 months as wafer demand slows, stock consumption slumps, and geopolitical battle drives chip designers out of China, based on Trendforce.

The market seers now expect foundry revenues to fall 4 p.c year-over-year, properly under that of the 1.9 p.c decline noticed in 2019. And whereas orders for some parts are anticipated to select up within the second half of the 12 months, an unsure financial local weather stays a significant variable.

Semiconductor demand has fallen throughout the trade for the previous 12 months as the worldwide financial system has chilled within the face of rising rates of interest, skyrocketing vitality costs, and different results. NAND flash and DRAM have been among the many first semiconductors affected, with analysts predicting flash storage pricing would plummet 20 p.c within the newest quarter. That is unhappy information for reminiscence suppliers making an attempt to show a revenue, and nice information for anybody available on the market for affordable SSDs.

Now it seems this phenomenon is spreading throughout the broader semiconductor market. As we waltz additional into the primary quarter of the 12 months — historically a sluggish interval for smartphone, PC, and TV gross sales — Trendforce predicts wafer demand will drop, and fab utilization together with it.

What does that imply for us? Properly, if demand typically is down, costs have a tendency to slip as properly – or, not less than, they do not go up. We have already seen decrease costs trickling down within the PC area. Going through slowing demand for client chips, AMD and Intel have minimize pricing on their newest personal-computing processors, with chips routinely promoting for as a lot as 15 p.c under their really helpful retail worth.

The provision and demand mismatch must also assist to treatment prolonged lead occasions which have plagued prospects over the previous few years. Lead occasions for key parts like, steel–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFET), and insulated gate bipolar transistors, and energy administration circuits have improved steadily over the previous few months, falling under 26 weeks by final fall. Whereas not as attractive as a GPU, utility processor, or change ASIC, a scarcity of those parts can and has prevented machine and tools producers from delivery merchandise on time.

Issues are trying a little bit higher for TSMC and 12-inch wafer demand. Trendforce expects the world’s largest foundry operator will see “lower-than-ideal” utilization charges at its fabs throughout the first half of 2023. However issues ought to start to enhance within the second half of the 12 months as utilization charges of TSMC’s 7nm node will increase and its demand for its 5nm node returns to optimum ranges.

Trendforce predicts Samsung Electronics — the No. 2 foundry operator — will face capability headwinds after two of its largest prospects, Nvidia and Qualcomm, shift orders off its 8nm and smaller nodes to TSMC. With the launch of Nvidia’s Hopper and Ada Lovelace architectures used within the H100 and 40-series playing cards, Nvidia ditched Samsung 8nm course of in favor TSMC’s extra superior N4 manufacturing course of.

US-China commerce warfare takes its toll

Along with slowing wafer demand, Trendforce forecasts that geopolitical battle will proceed to trigger issues for foundries over the following 12 months. “Some main OEMs have initiated a evaluate of provide companions in order that they will meet the necessities of the tenders launched by the US authorities,” the report reads.

Over the previous two administrations, the US authorities has taken steps to deny Chinese companies entry to mental property and manufacturing tools utilized in semiconductor manufacturing. Late final 12 months, the US Commerce Division added almost three dozen Chinese language corporations, together with reminiscence vendor Yangtze Reminiscence Applied sciences Co. to the US “Entities” listing and enacted stricter rules on the export of producing tools.

Since then, the US has pressured the Dutch authorities to determine comparable export restrictions on ASML’s lithography machines. These efforts have culminated in a number of corporations saying plans to remove Chinese language-made chips from their merchandise. Most not too long ago it was reported that Dell deliberate to purge Chinese language chips from its provide chain by 2024.

In keeping with Trendforce, a number of chip designers have moved parts of their orders to foundries primarily based outdoors of China, with the bulk being to 8-inch wafer fabs. In consequence, analysts count on Taiwan’s UMC and Vanguard are prone to see an “above-average” improve in utilization within the second half of the 12 months.

Trendforce predicts foundry fragmentation 

Within the wake of the semiconductor scarcity, foundry operators introduced massive expansions to their international footprints totaling tons of of billions of {dollars}.

“Governments worldwide are actually far more conscious of the significance of native manufacturing attributable to current geopolitical occasions,” the report reads.

Each the US and Europe have put aside billions in funding below respective CHIPS bills to bolster home semiconductor manufacturing and cut back reliance on the Asia Pacific market. Trendforce is monitoring greater than 20 new fabs, anticipated to return on-line within the close to future. This consists of 5 in Taiwan, 5 within the US, six in China, 4 and Europe, and one other 4 throughout South Korea, Japan and Singapore.

As extra of those fabs come on-line over the following few years Trendforce predicts semiconductor manufacturing will develop into extra fragmented and regionalized. ®