Chip order manufacturer TSMC has in the fourth quarter 2019 about , raised $ 7 billion, of which almost exactly $ 5 billion remained as profit. Throughout the year 2020 TSMC achieved a turnover of 45, $ 5 billion and a profit of 17, $ 6 billion.

TSMC recently announced the financial results. Compared to the fourth quarter 2019 sales and profit increased by 14 or 23 percent. The company is by far the world’s largest chip contract manufacturer: it is followed by Samsung Semiconductor, whose quarterly sales are estimated by market researcher Trendforce at around 3.7 billion US dollars at the end of the year. Has high income with 5 nm From October to December 2020 TSMC ramped up the production of silicon chips with structure widths of 5 nanometers. The revenue share of the 5 nm process consequently rose from 8 percent in the third quarter 2020 to high 20 percent in the fourth quarter. Analogously, the income with 7- and 16 – nm technology fell 29 or 13 Percent (before: 35 / 18 percent). The biggest buyer is Apple with the mobile processor A 14 for the iPhone – 12 – generation and the iPad Air 4 as well as the M1 for the ARM Macs.

TSMC’s sales broken down by manufacturing process: The Income with 5 nm technology rose sharply in the fourth quarter 2019.

(Image: Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd.)

Huawei is out Huawei subsidiary HiSilicon had the production of the 5 nm Kirin processor 9000 for the Mate 40 Pro already started last summer, but can no longer order new chips from TSMC due to the trade dispute between the USA and China. As a result, the sales share of Chinese companies at TSMC fell within one quarter from 22 to 6 percent. Most of the free capacity has been bought up by US companies – their share increased from 59 to 73 Percent.

In December 2020 Rumors circulated that TSMC would no longer offer bulk discounts to large customers. A look at the operating margin confirms this: within a quarter it rose from 42, 1 to 43, 5 percent, year-on-year even by 4.3 percentage points. Thanks to capacity expansion, TSMC 2020 has almost 12, 4 million silicon wafers exposed – 23 Percent more than 2019. The stock exchange reacted with a slight plus to the business figures.

(mma)