TSMC makes a lot of money from 10-year-old chip technology

TSMC's 28 nm chip sales rebounded after Covid-19 and will be expanded production in the coming years.

TSMC is selling the 4 nm process to manufacturers who need the most advanced processors on the market. These include MediaTek with Dimensity 9000 and most recently Qualcomm with Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1. However, the old 28 nm chips are also bringing huge revenue to the Taiwanese company.

According to analysis firm Strategy Analytics, 28mm chip technology, introduced a decade ago, is returning to growth. TSMC, UMC and SMIC are continuing to expand their 28 nm chip production capacity. In 2021, the total revenue of 28 nm wafer foundries exceeds $7.2 billion, and TSMC accounts for three-quarters of this revenue.

After two years of Covid-19, revenue from TSMC's 28 nm chips increased again. Photo: Gizchina

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company plans to build a factory in Kaohsiung to produce 7 nm and 28 nm processes this year and start operations in 2024. In addition, TSMC will set up a company subsidiary is Japan Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing (JASM) to provide foundry services in Kumamoto (Japan). The schedule of the JASM factory is similar in Kaohsiung.

TSMC was the first foundry in the world to adopt the 28 nm manufacturing process in 2011. This technology has many applications for various products such as CPU central processing unit, graphics processing unit (GPU), ), high-speed network chips, smartphones, application processors (APs), tablets, home entertainment, consumer electronics, automobiles, and IoT.

According to research firm Counterpoint, in the first quarter of 2022, 69.9% of all global smartphone chips were manufactured by TSMC, while Samsung accounted for 30%. However, if only the chip segment is manufactured on 4 nm and 5 nm processes, Samsung leads with a rate of 60%, compared to 40% of TSMC. Recently, the Taiwanese company is competing fiercely with Samsung in the research and production of 3 nm chip technology.