TSMC's Nanjing plant has entered the mass production stage earlier than schedule because the trial production yield has exceeded expectations. The first batch of wafers was officially shipped in recent days.
The fab's monthly production capacity is 20,000 wafers. It takes only 20 months from the factory's establishment to the completion of the first batch of production. Apart from demonstrating the ultra-high efficiency of TSMC, it also meets the needs of recent Chinese customers for production capacity demand. As disclosure, the first batch of wafers shipped by this plant is for the leading virtual currency mining machine producer, Bitmain.
According to reports, the production capacity of this 12-inch TSMC plant was estimated to be HiSilicon, which has a close relationship with TSMC. However, according to industry sources, the production capacity has been covered by Bitmain.
Bitmain, with its mining machine chips and mining machine products, has already enjoyed more than half of the global mining market in just four years, and now become China's second-largest IC design company. According to information from TSMC, Bitmain has contributed huge revenue to TSMC in the past year, and its order volume is comparable to that of NVIDIA.
The report further pointed out that TSMC's Nanjing 12-inch plant with a total investment of NT$90 billion has planned to produce 20,000 pieces per month. However, external estimates indicate that it has expanded to 60,000 pieces per month. In this regard, TSMC said at the Law Conference that there is no plan for expansion at present and that it will depend on market demand in the future.
In addition, by the end of 2018, including global foundries, UMC, Powerchip, TowerJazz and other global plants will get mass production in China, the global market share of China's foundry market will continue to rise.
