Judging from previous reports, Apple, a major customer of TSMC’s advanced process technology after mass production, has reserved all of TSMC’s 3nm process technology this year’s production capacity, which will be used to manufacture the A17 bionic chip and the new 13-inch MacBook Pro equipped with the iPhone 15 Pro series. And so will be equipped with M3 chip.
According to DigiTimes, Apple, which has booked all of TSMC’s 3nm process technology this year, has recently cut orders, which will also cause TSMC’s monthly production of this process technology to drop to 50,000-60,000 wafers in the fourth quarter of this year, which will not reach the previous level. Expected 80,000-100,000 wafers.
In addition, the current monthly output of TSMC’s 3nm process technology is expected to be around 65,000 wafers, which means that if the monthly output in the fourth quarter is really 50,000-60,000 wafers as reported, it will not increase but decrease compared to the current one. .
Since Apple is the main customer after the mass production of TSMC’s advanced process technology, and the 3nm process technology OEM price is higher, Apple’s reduction of orders will affect their revenue for this process technology. If the monthly output in the fourth quarter is lower than the three quarter, may also cause their quarterly revenue to decline sequentially.
In addition, DigiTimes mentioned that since Apple’s orders occupy most of the production capacity of TSMC’s 3nm process technology production line, TSMC is also unable to undertake orders from major customers such as Qualcomm and AMD in the short term, and it is difficult to offset the impact of Apple’s order reduction.
