Huawei's HiSilicon has unseated Apple as the largest customer of TSMC in terms of advanced process node capacity share, according to industry sources.
The sources said that TSMC's top-5 7nm process clients are HiSilicon, Apple, Qualcomm, AMD and MediaTek, with AMD being the only non-handset chips supplier.
Since the second half of 2019, TSMC has seen full utilzation for its 7nm processes, with delivery lead time extended and order visibility stretching more than six months, thanks largely to strong demand from four of the top-5 clients aggressively rolling out 5G chip solutions amid the increasingly bright sales prospect for 5G smartphones in 2020.
The sources expect HiSilicon/Huawei to retain the crown as the largest client for TSMC's advanced node production at least through the first half of 2020, as they have readied more than 10 wafer-start and development cases of 5G chipsets to be fabricated at TSMC using sub-10nm nodes.
Apple is expected to firmly stay as runner-up in the TSMC advanced process ranking in the short term, bolstered by better-than-expected sales of its iPhone 11 series, the sources said.
Qualcomm has switched 5G mobile SoC foundry orders to TSMC from Samsung Electronics, and the prospect for global 5G handset shipments reaching 200 million units in 2020 has prompted the US chipmaker to increase 7nm foundry orders with TSMC.
With its new-generation CPU and GPU platforms gaining impressive penetration in the PC market, AMD has also significantly increased its 7nm wafer-starts with TSMC after quitting foundry orders with Globalfoundries, the sources said.
MediaTek has kicked off shipments of the world's first sub-6 GHz 5G Soc and will roll out two new 5G SoCs in the first half of 2020, all requiring 7nm node capacity support from TSMC and its position as the foundry's fifth largest client for advanced process will not be shaken in the short term.
Article translated by Willis Ke
