Taiwan's TSMC Crosses $1 Trillion Market Cap Amid AI Frenzy (reuters.com) 28
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Taiwan's TSMC scaled a record high on Thursday after posting strong second-quarter revenue on booming demand for AI applications, cementing its position as Asia's most valuable company. TSMC also topped a trillion dollar market value this week. The AI frenzy has sparked a rally in chipmaker stocks across the globe. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), the world's largest contract chipmaker, whose customers include AI poster child Nvidia, has especially benefited from the soaring demand for AI-capable chips.
Foreign investors have poured $4.8 billion so far this year into Taiwan's stock market, which is dominated by TSMC. Asian funds, however, according to HSBC, still remain underweight on Taiwan, suggesting there could be room for further inflow. Shares of TSMC, whose customers also include Apple, have jumped nearly 80% this year, widely outperforming the benchmark Taiwan SE Weighted Index, which is up 35%. On Thursday, TSMC's Taipei-listed shares rose more than 2% to a record T$1,080, taking the company's market value to T$28 trillion ($861 billion) and making it Asia's most valuable publicly listed company.
Foreign investors have poured $4.8 billion so far this year into Taiwan's stock market, which is dominated by TSMC. Asian funds, however, according to HSBC, still remain underweight on Taiwan, suggesting there could be room for further inflow. Shares of TSMC, whose customers also include Apple, have jumped nearly 80% this year, widely outperforming the benchmark Taiwan SE Weighted Index, which is up 35%. On Thursday, TSMC's Taipei-listed shares rose more than 2% to a record T$1,080, taking the company's market value to T$28 trillion ($861 billion) and making it Asia's most valuable publicly listed company.
Not just AI (Score:3)
Re: Not just AI (Score:3)
Yeah everybody had to wear masks and they thought photomasks and ruined a year's worth of chips
Re:Not just AI (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't know how TSMC came to be so dominant in the latest chips
It's a long story. [youtube.com] There's something to help you get caught up.
But it's also kind of cultural. European and western countries prize money and riches. Lots of APAC nations see engineering as a noble cause worthy of the level of admiration that most other countries reserve for their favorite soccer team or football star. TSMC is so big because most other nations "have better priorities" or whatever. I think I read somewhere that in the US, the highest paid State Official in 43 States is someone coaching some sort of sports team. [klfy.com] So when you look at that, yeah, leaves one to wonder why TSMC has left everyone in the dust.
when the fab equipment comes from Europe
Takes a bit of skill to build a tractor, takes a different kind of skill that requires a deeper understanding of the underlying principals to grow food. Just because Europe can follow blueprints to build a highly sophisticated machine, doesn't mean they have the skills to do the kind of engineering to make chips. You don't ask why the guy who makes the scalpel can't perform open heart surgery.
And do note. I'm not trying to insult the Americans or Europeans that actually have spent hard hours carefully advancing themselves through school to obtain the engineering degree they hold. What I'm saying is those people who have done this are surrounded by morons who will never appreciate the skill-set they truly bring to their country. They are surrounded by people who will give eight figures to some guy to run a ball 100 yards, but five figures to the people who constructed the building those people play in. That's the problem. That's why TSMC is killing it in this industry.
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Re:Not just AI (Score:5, Insightful)
I worked for a chip company in Santa Clara, CA....
The ASML machines do mask making. They print the mask for printing the traces on the wafers. They also make the machines that print the trace on the wafer. There are another dozen+ steps in the process after that to make an actual chip, but they are so important that when we built our engineering (test) fab, we poured the slab, ASML shipped in the equipment, flew in their engineers to assemble/configure it, and then we built the rest of the site around it. They came back at least once a year to maintain/tweak it.
There is no chip production without ASML. I can make a basic 1990s chip by hand using some common components in my home office... but if you want modern tech -you need ASML.
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They don't know the difference between manufacturing and engineering.
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But it's also kind of cultural. European and western countries prize money and riches. Lots of APAC nations see engineering as a noble cause worthy of the level of admiration that most other countries reserve for their favorite soccer team or football star. TSMC is so big because most other nations "have better priorities" or whatever. I think I read somewhere that in the US, the highest paid State Official in 43 States is someone coaching some sort of sports team. [klfy.com] So when you look at that, yeah, leaves one to wonder why TSMC has left everyone in the dust.
I think its more that for a long time foundries had been very capital intensive and weren't where profit was made in silicon. Today though TSMC has a huge lead and demand is higher than ever.
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Sorry, your engineering narrative doesn't quite hold water.
The US licensed the tech to ASML who makes the machines that TSMC uses.
Why didn't the US simply keep the tech and build the machines and the fabs itself?
Simple- because they wanted to keep engineering, rather than manufacturing.
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Simple- because they wanted to keep engineering, rather than manufacturing
Oh then it should be super simple for the "engineers" to start fabricating in the US at the level of TSMC. How's that going? [nytimes.com]
The US wanted to make money without the haggle of labor and lost in the process the lead to command the industry.
Maybe that's why the US has TSMC building facilities within the US [tsmc.com] because that way all the "engineers" can help out.
Even more interesting is Burn-Jeng Lin who developed immersion lithography, you know that stuff the US "invented" and the Dutch produce the machine, is from
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Oh then it should be super simple for the "engineers" to start fabricating in the US at the level of TSMC.
What in the fuck are you talking about?
People designing EUV hardware aren't designing fabs and manufacturing processes.
Even more interesting is Burn-Jeng Lin who developed immersion lithography, you know that stuff the US "invented" and the Dutch produce the machine, is from OH LOOK, Taiwan. Funny that.
Immersion lithography is used in DUV, not EUV.
Further, Burn-Jeng Lin was working for IBM, in the USA when that patent was filed. His doctorate was also earned in the USA.
What the fuck is your game, lol.
You Taiwanese, or something? Sorry man.
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Re:Not just AI (Score:4, Insightful)
1) They became specialists at process control, and chips are really hard to make. Note very few firms design and produce chips, now fabless is the way things are mostly done, where design and production are separate. Intel and Samsung are outliers here.
2) They were close to Asia when it began to boom and consumed chips like crazy; they became the place to buy them.
3) Even with the above, they were still second fiddle to Intel. Until Intel made a bad call on Extreme Ultraviolet lithography, thinking it wouldn't work, and TSMC took a bet on it. It did work, and TSMC leapfrogged Intel.
Re:Not just AI (Score:4, Interesting)
0.6) Because Europeans were happier to sell the machines than use them.
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"I don't know how TSMC came to be so dominant in the latest chips"
1) They were backed by the state, via direct funding, tax breaks, and "encouragement" to investors by government officials
2) The were pretty much the first out the gate for the foundry model. Before they came around you ran your own fab. They don't sell their own finished products, though they do provide IP for their processes.
3) They buy medium-skilled labor at cheap local prices but sell their product into a global market.
The last to buy before the Invasion from China... (Score:1)
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No. China is not going to invade Taiwan.
China could destroy Taiwan. 10000 times over. Easily.
China could not invade Taiwan.
Taiwan is heavily armed. Any attack would result in a retaliatorily strike that would destroy several major cities along the Chinese coast, and cause heavy damage inland as far as Beijing.
This is ignoring the international response that would occur... China would be a pariah.
Get over you masturbatory fantasy, or at least stop sharing it with us.
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-American rulers will slowly begin to pull back official focus from China
-Protecting Taiwan or not will be a wedge issue in the American press despite no obvious immediate build-up
-The American economy will be bad enou
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There is no "Asia rise" lead by China on the horizon.
You probably have failed to notice, but in the fall of 2022 China made a long stride back to the glorious era of Mao, towards the perpetual great leaps forward, great fights with four pests, four olds and so on.
While there is a lot of inertia from the previous 3 decades of slow decommunization that began with Deng, the process has now reversed completely.
If this political direction remains, and it appears it has now stabilized with most of Xi's opponents
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yes, and practically 100% of the soviet union citizens supported the soviet union up to its very last day.
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China could not invade Taiwan.
Pure. Fucking. Idiocy.
Ask your teacher why South Korea ends at the 38th parallel.
Hint- in the Chinese invasion of Taiwan, the Chinese aren't the US in this analogy. They're the fucking Chinese in this analogy- with their fucking eye-watering amount of cannon fodder armed with cheap Soviet knock-off weapons.
The Chinese would fucking steamroll Taiwan.
This is ignoring the international response that would occur... China would be a pariah.
This part is at least correct. And this is why it hasn't happened.
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China cannot invade Taiwan because Taiwan is part of China.
Taiwan might not be under the control of the PRC, but it is still part of China. That is one thing both the ROC and PRC agree on, and is the reason why both are not in the UN.
Taiwan was part of China when the ROC were sitting behind the 'CHINA' sign at the UN, and it remained part of China when the PRC replaced them.
The hostilities in the Chinese Civil War between the PRC and ROC for *ALL* of China, are in 'ceasefire' and have been for a long time -
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It could happen, but China doesn't want to kill Chinese people. It would much rather have a peaceful solution, which is really why the ceasefire in the Chinese Civil War has lasted so long.
The peaceful solution could be a Chinese Commonwealth.
The PRC doesn't especially want to control Taiwan. It just wants it to not be a base for the USA. If that is agreed, then maybe both the PRC and ROC can coexist, and China will remain one. There's even a suggestion that the PRC would not object to the ROC keeping it ow
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One China, Two+ Systems.
The people living in Hong Kong learned pretty quickly that the ruling party has no intentions to allow a "second system" to exist in their country for real.