Sources within the Taiwanese supply chain, one of the most important in the technological world, assure that the demand for semiconductors is beginning to fall, and indicate that TSMC could be one of the most “affected” companiesin quotation marks because, as we do not know the conditions of the agreements signed between it and its clients, we also do not know the real room for maneuver that both parties have.
There are four key points in this report, so let’s take a closer look at them one by one. The first that would have reduced its orders is the Cupertino giant, Manzana, who will trust TSMC again to produce the A16 SoC that will be used in the iPhone 14 (it is rumored that only in the Pro models). According to the source, Apple has lowered its sales expectations for its next iPhone by 10%, and this will affect all of its suppliers, including TSMC.
Secondly, we have the significant drop in demand in the PC sector, which is forcing the large companies to readjust their inventories. As a consequence of this giants of the caliber of AMD and NVIDIA have had to cut orders for semiconductors, and other companies could have been affected as well. We do not have specific data, but we can predict that this will end up affecting the new generation products of both companies.
The third and fourth keys point precisely in that direction. It is commented that AMD would have reduced by 20,000 wafers its 7nm and 6nm chip orders to TSMC for the fourth quarter of 2022 and the first quarter of 2023. However, the good news is that the Sunnyvale giant’s 5nm chip orders would not have been affected , at least for now. NVIDIA would not have suffered the same fate, and that is the fourth key, since it is said that it has tried to reduce its semiconductor orders by 5nm to TSMC, but that the latter is not making concessions.
TSMC may be forced to review your income forecasts, that this represents a change in trend and that in the end the semiconductor market ends up recovering earlier than expected, but for now it is better to be cautious and wait to see how the situation evolves. I remind you that the main bottleneck is going to be in the next generation, that is, in the TSMC 5nm node, and not so much in the 7nm and 6nm nodes.