Senior TSMC execs to meet with Alibaba, Biren, and other key China customers

Senior executives from TSMC will collect in Shanghai this week for the corporate’s annual tech discussion board TSMC Technology Symposium on June 21, the place the chip large will share particulars of its forthcoming merchandise and applied sciences, in accordance to media outlet icsmart. The visiting group consists of TSMC CEO C.C. Wei, vp of enterprise growth Kevin Zhang, and deputy normal supervisor of know-how analysis Cliff Hou. As a part of their journey, the trio plans to go to Chinese chip design firms reminiscent of Alibaba and Biren Technology, the report stated.

Why it issues: This would be the first time that TSMC executives have been ready to go to the corporate’s customers in mainland China in individual since 2020. The firm’s mainland China occasions have been all held on-line over the last three years due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Details: Numerous vital customers for the chip maker are set to attend the TSMC Technology Symposium in Shanghai, which comes one month after comparable occasions in Taiwan and Europe and every week earlier than one other symposium in Japan.

• TSMC representatives will go to Alibaba and Biren. Alibaba has a chip unit referred to as T-Head, which makes a speciality of designing chips for cloud computing and numerous other functions.  Biren is a fabless semiconductor design firm based in 2019 by Lingjie Xu and other former NVIDIA and Alibaba workers.
• Currently, the Chinese mainland market accounts for 10% to 15% of TSMC’s total income, solely second to its North American enterprise, in accordance to the agency’s first-quarter monetary report. 
• In 2016, TSMC established a manufacturing unit in Nanjing, the capital of japanese China’s Jiangsu province. The facility manages a 12-inch wafer fab and a design service middle. The agency additionally operates a manufacturing unit in Shanghai, which was established in 2002 and consists of an 8-inch wafer fab.
• On Wednesday, as well as to offering a showcase of TSMC’s superior chip course of know-how, the discussion board is anticipated to deal with how to scale back value and enhance effectivity, with costs for every little thing from constructing factories to buying tools and even neon fuel rising due to international inflation, in accordance to media outlet Vocus.
• On April 26, TSMC held its 2023 North America Technology Symposium, introducing its newest know-how developments together with progress on 2nm know-how and new merchandise in its industry-leading 3nm know-how vary.

Context: Last October, TSMC secured a one-year license to proceed ordering US chipmaking tools for its growth in China, permitting it to keep away from the US’s export controls to China. Recently, senior officers from the US have reportedly indicated that the federal government could prolong the one-year exemption for TSMC, which can allow the corporate to pursue its growth plan in China.

• TSMC began pre-production operations on its 2nm course of in June, and the corporate plans to begin mass manufacturing of the superior 2nm chip in 2025.
• TSMC claims that in contrast to the 3nm chip know-how (N3 sequence), the velocity of its 2nm chips will enhance by 15% utilizing the identical energy consumption and that energy consumption shall be lowered by 30% when used on the similar velocity.
• At a shareholders’ assembly in June, President of TSMC Mark Liu stated that TSMC holds a key position in calming geopolitical tensions between China and the US.