TSMC is the world’s largest foundry. The company takes designs for chips made by companies like Apple, Qualcomm, MediaTek, and others, and builds them. TSMC reported that for the second quarter the company generated a record quarterly profit of 237.03 billion Taiwan dollars ($7.9 billion US dollars), up 76.4% year over year and ahead of estimates. That was a record quarter in terms of net income for TSMC.
In a TSMC cleanroom, yellow light is used to avoid interference with the UV light used to mark circuit patterns
Surprisingly, TSMC says it has “excessive chip inventory” thanks to “weakening demand” for PCs, smartphones and other consumer products. TSMC says it will take a few quarters for the chip industry to return to equilibrium. TSMC CEO CC Wei said, “Our suppliers have faced greater challenges in supply chains, extending tool lead times for both our advanced and mature nodes,” said Wei.
Still, the trend has not been the friend of TSMC investors, with foundry prices dropping $48.20 or 36.02% over the past six months to $85.63 a share. With the list of customers TSMC has, notably Apple, MediaTek and Qualcomm, the foundry should not be in serious economic trouble in the short term.
