Before the chip shortage swept the world, many chip manufacturers expanded their production significantly in an attempt to quickly seize the market in order to meet customer needs. However, since 2022, the demand in the consumer electronics market has declined significantly, leading to oversupply, cutting orders and price cuts, and manufacturers canceling production expansion plans. Since July, the market has reported that many chip manufacturers have been cut off by customers due to the sluggish demand in the consumer electronics market, and even TSMC is not immune. In addition, the price of many chips has frequently plunged, and the price of some chips has even dropped by 80%, which affects the utilization rate of advanced process capacity.

TSMC has about 80 EUV lithography equipment for advanced processes such as 7nm, 5nm, and 4nm, and in September TSMC will also start mass production of the latest 3nm process, which requires the assistance of EUV lithography equipment. According to market sources, because the first-generation 3nm process customers may only be left with Apple, TSMC decided to slow down the expansion progress to ensure that the production capacity will not be excessively idle and cause cost pressure.

Bloomberg previously reported that ASML EUV lithography equipment requires 30,000 kWh of electricity a day and consumes about 10 million kWh of electricity a year, while the new generation of EUV lithography equipment consumes about 1 million watts of electricity each, which is about the same as previous generations. Equipment 10 times, is expected to account for 12.5% of Taiwan's overall energy consumption in 2025, and the semiconductor industry may become an "obstacle" in reducing global carbon emissions.

In response to the outside world's doubts that the development of advanced processes requires a lot of electricity, TSMC quoted the 2020 Industrial Technology International Strategy Development Institute (ISTI) model derivation analysis results of the Industrial Technology Research Institute. TSMC can save 4 kWh of electricity for every 1 kWh of production electricity used by TSMC.

Foreign media reported that TSMC plans to shut down some EUV equipment from the end of the year to save EUV's huge power consumption. TSMC said that under the premise of maintaining normal operations, the company continues to promote advanced semiconductor process technology to produce more advanced, more energy efficient and more environmentally friendly products. In addition, the company actively invests in green manufacturing and implements relevant actions for energy conservation and carbon reduction, including optimizing the energy efficiency of the process, and cooperating with machine equipment manufacturers to develop new energy conservation action plans.

Source: CSIA