TSMC released its 2Q earnings results during an earnings call today. The results show that Q2 consolidated revenue reached approximately NT$534.14 billion (approximately RMB 12.05 billion) and net income after tax was approximately NT$237.03 billion (approximately RMB 5.347 billion).
TSMC said that the company’s 2022 sales (in U.S. dollars) are expected to grow by about 30 percent and that production capacity will not be affected by delays in equipment availability this year. However, customer demand still exceeds the company’s supply capacity, and capacity continues to be tight this year.
Regarding the outlook for chip demand, TSMC said 2023 will see a typical down cycle in chip demand, but the overall decline will be better than in 2008. At the same time, the company expects customers to start reducing inventory, but the current high-end smartphone inventory is not too much. So 2023 is still a “growth year” for TSMC.
In addition, the company’s growth in 2023 will be supported by advanced technologies, with high performance computing (HPC) as the main engine for long-term growth. The company currently expects capacity utilization to remain good in 2023.
In terms of timing for next-generation chip production, TSMC reiterated that the company’s 3nm (N3) chips will go into production in the second half of this year and contribute to revenue in the first half of next year. It is worth mentioning that TSMC’s 3nm process has numerous derivative versions, including N3, N3P, N3S, N3X and N3E, which will be in volume production in the next two to three years.
For the 2nm chip (N2), TSMC reiterated that it will be in mass production by 2025. 2nm chip is a major node for TSMC, the process will use Nanosheet transistors (Nanosheet) instead of FinFETs, which means TSMC process officially entered the GAA transistor era. Among them, 2nm chips compared to 3nm chips, in the same power consumption, 10 ~ 15% faster. At the same speed, the power consumption is 25~30% lower.
TSMC’s second quarter 5nm process wafer shipments accounted for 21% of the company’s revenue (20% in the previous quarter), 7nm process wafer shipments accounted for 30% of the company’s revenue (30% in the previous quarter), this quarter 5nm process revenue continues to improve, but has not yet exceeded the revenue generated by the 7nm process. In addition, TSMC’s advanced process (7nm and beyond) revenue reached 51% of total revenue, continuing to expand from 50% in the previous quarter.
