“In 2022, TSMC led the foundry to start 3nm FinFET (N3) technology high volume production. TSMC’s 3nm process is the industry’s most advanced semiconductor technology offering best power, performance, and area (PPA), and is a full-node advance from its 5nm generation”.
In Q3 2024, sales of chips manufactured in 3nm technology already accounted for 20% of total sales. Together with 5nm and 7nm, sales (together advanced technologies) accounted for 69% of total sales. See Figure 1.
Currently, TSMC is already working on 2nm technology (will be available in 2025), and A16 (available in 2H 2025).
C.C. Wei, CEO:
“We have many, many customers interested in the 2 nanometer. And today with their activities with TSMC, we actually see more demand than we ever dream about as compared with N3. So we have to prepare more capacity in N2 than in N3. And following by A16, again, A16 is a very, very attractive for the AI server chips. And so actually the demand is also very high and so we are working very hard to prepare both 2 nanometer and A16 capacity.”
Figure 2 shows Net Revenue by platform. High Performance Computing (HPC) accounts for 51% of sales, followed by smartphones with 34%.
Figure 3 shows TSMC sales by geography. North America accounts for 62% of total sales!
CAPEX in 2024 will be “slightly above” $30 billion. See Figure 4.
Wendell Huang, CFO:
“Every year, our CapEx is spent in anticipation of the growth that will follow in the future years. And our CapEx and capacity planning is always based on the long term market demand profile. As the strong structural AI related demand continues, we continue to invest to support our customers' growth. We now expect our 2024 CapEx to be slightly higher than $30 billion. Between 70% and 80% of the capital budget will be allocated for advanced process technologies. About 10% to 20% will be spent for specialty technologies and about 10% will be spent for advanced packaging, testing, mask-making, and others. At TSMC, a higher level of capital expenditures is always correlated with higher growth opportunities in the following years. And as long as our growth outlook remains strong, we will continue to invest.”
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