Strengthening Its Position
According to industry sources, TSMC recently decided to make a new capital investment of US$3.153 billion in order to increase its production capacity. US$528 million is scheduled to be spent on the construction of new manufacturing facilities and the rest goes to facility expansion and renovation.
Earlier, TSMC announced that it would make a capital investment of US$11.2 billion in total this year, up 10% from a year ago. This aggressive investment has to do with 7 nm process-based mobile application processors. The global demand for this type of products is expected to surge from the beginning of next year.
TSMC has been the sole supplier of application processors for Apple products since 2013. In particular, it has been the sole supplier of the A11 processor for the iPhone 8 since the second quarter of this year. Supply from TSMC is expected to account for at least 60% of the A12 for the iPhone 9, too.
In this regard, TSMC is bringing in extreme UV lithography equipment, an indispensable part of the process, from ASML. The Dutch semiconductor equipment manufacturer is the only one in the world that is supplying the equipment. Each unit of the equipment is priced at over 200 billion won.