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Sony invests $500 million in new TSMC plant
Sony Corporation will allocate $500 million for the construction of the TSMC plant in Japan. It is planned that the plant will produce image sensors and components for the production of automotive systems. It will be microchips made on the basis of a 22/28 nm technological process.
The plant will be operational by the end of 2024 in Kumamoto, and Sony Corporation is the main shareholder. The latter will invest for 2 years, part of which has already been allocated. According to preliminary data, the total amount of construction will be about $7 billion.
It is assumed that the direction of Sony Semiconductor Solutions will own a share of 20% of the new enterprise. In addition, the company will have privileges in terms of order allocation. The plant will export most of its products, which will reduce the shortage of semiconductor products that arose after the pandemic. It should be noted that for TSMC, the joint project with other companies is the first such experience for the business. Most of its production is concentrated at home, in Taiwan, but there are representative offices in different countries.
TSMC is engaged in the research and production of semiconductor components. Now it is the largest Asian business, the capitalization of which is 538 billion dollars. TSMC was founded in 1987, the main shareholder is China. The company is considered the leader in semiconductors, it occupies about 56% of the global market of chips. GlobalFoundries is in second place with about 10%, while United Microelectronics and its 8.5% is in third place.
In 2021 the revenue of TSMC increased almost by 25% to $56.8 billion. The main reason for this growth was the demand for chips from automakers. Most of the income falls on the production of chips for smartphones – 44% of total revenue. At the same time, this direction for the last year increased only by 8%, which is an extremely low indicator for the company. An increase of 51% was demonstrated by the demand of automakers, which amounted to 4%. The second place in terms of revenues is occupied by the production of products for high-performance computing, its share in total revenues reached 37%.
The most popular TSMC products are 7nm semiconductors, followed by 5nm chips and then 16nm. The U.S. customers are considered the largest buyers in terms of regions, they accounted for 65% of the company’s annual revenue. These are mainly technology companies, including Apple and Nvidia. Orders from the Asia-Pacific region reached the 14% mark, with demand from China dropping from 17% to 10%.