TSMC Chief Brings Grim News for Prospective Smartphone Buyers

The global chip shortage, fuelled by demand from the artificial intelligence industry, continues to loom. TSMC CEO C.C. Wei has forecast that the semiconductor giant will struggle to meet customer demand for a long time. “It will take a long time before we can meet customer demand,” he stated during the company’s annual shareholders’ meeting. The grim forecast is hardly surprising, given that technology behemoths such as Nvidia, Apple, AMD, and Broadcom are heavily reliant on TSMC, meaning the surge in AI chip demand directly impacts the Taiwanese firm. Wei explained that TSMC is striving to avoid bottlenecking the global semiconductor supply chain. However, he added that the problem is no longer just about wafer capacity but has broadened significantly. A report indicated the crisis has extended to equipment suppliers, upstream vendors, power supply, chip fabrication capacity, and advanced packaging. Wei also cautioned that it would take a long time to meet American customers’ needs using US production. TSMC is also struggling to achieve its target of having 30 percent capacity at 2 nm or below due to environmental permit delays and labour shortages. Regarding price increases, Wei said the company wants to raise prices due to the impact of rising component costs, but assured that the hikes would not be implemented suddenly.