By Alan Patterson, EETimes (April 15, 2021)
TAIPEI — Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) has again raised its 2021 capital expenditure target to $30 billion after customer demand exceeded the company’s expectations three months ago.
The world’s biggest chip foundry, which is running full tilt with capacity utilization in the neighborhood of 100%, in January was aiming for capex this year to reach about $28 billion. The new $30 billion figure nearly doubles the $17.2 billion the company spent in 2020.
TSMC said during a conference call with analysts that it upgraded the target in order to meet increasing demand for advanced and specialty technologies in the next several years. About 80% of the budget will go to leading process technologies, including 3nm, 5nm and 7nm, with the remaining 10% earmarked for advanced packaging and mask making, and about 10% for specialty technologies.