Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Q2 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
July 18, 2024

Key Takeaways

  • Q2 financials: Revenue was US$20.8 billion, up 10.3% sequentially, with a 53.2% gross margin, 42.5% operating margin, and EPS of NT$9.56.
  • Advanced nodes drive growth: 3 nm, 5 nm, and 7 nm technologies made up 67% of wafer revenue, while HPC revenue exceeded 50% for the first time.
  • 2024 CapEx narrowed to US$30–32 billion with 70–80% earmarked for advanced process technologies to support structural AI demand.
  • Upgraded guidance: Q3 revenue is forecast to rise ~9.5% quarter-over-quarter and full-year 2024 USD revenue growth is now seen slightly above mid-20s%.
  • Overseas fab dilution: Phase 1 builds in Arizona and Kumamoto will support future capacity but are expected to lower gross margin by 2–3 percentage points despite a maintained long-term 53%+ target.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Q2 2024
00:00 / 00:00

There are 12 speakers on the call.

Operator

Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to TSMC's Q2 2024 Earnings Conference and Conference Call. This is Jeff Su, TSMC's Director of Investor Relations and your host for today. Today's event is being webcast live through TSMC's website at www.tsmc.com, where you can also download the earnings release materials. If you are joining us through the conference call, your dial in lines are in listen only mode. The format for today's event will be as follows: First, TSMC's Senior Vice President and CFO, Mr.

Operator

Wendell Huang, will summarize our operations in the Q2 2024, followed by our guidance for the Q3 2024. Afterwards, Mr. Huang and TSMC's Chairman and CEO, Doctor. C. C.

Operator

Wei, will join you to provide the Company's key messages. Then, we will open both the floor and the line for the Q and A session. As usual, I'd like to remind everybody that today's discussions may contain forward looking statements that are subject to significant risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in the forward looking statements. Please refer to the Safe Harbor notice that appears in our press release. And now, I would like to turn the microphone over to TSMC's CFO, Mr.

Operator

Wendell Huang, for the summary of operations and the current quarter guidance.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Geoff. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. My presentation will start with the financial highlights for the Q2 of 2024. After that, I will provide the guidance for the Q3 2024.

Speaker 1

2nd quarter revenue increased 13.6% sequentially in NT or 10.3% in U. S. Dollars as our business was supported by strong demand for our industry leading 3 and 5 nanometers technologies, partially offset by the continued smartphone seasonality. Gross margin increased 10 basis points sequentially to 53.2%, mainly reflecting cost improvement and the more favorable foreign exchange rate, partially offset by the margin dilution from N3 ramp. Due to the operating leverage, total operating expense accounted for 10.5% of net revenue as compared to 11.1% in the Q1.

Speaker 1

Thus, operating margin increased 0.5 percentage points sequentially to 42.5%. Overall, our 2nd quarter EPS was NTL9.56 and ROE 26.7 percent. Now let's move on to revenue by technology. 3 nanometer process technology contributed 15% of wafer revenue in the 2nd quarter, while 5 nanometer and 7 nanometer accounted for 35% 17%, respectively. Advanced Technology, defined as 7 nanometer and below, accounted for 67% of wafer revenue.

Speaker 1

Moving on to revenue contribution by platform. HPC increased 28 percent quarter over quarter to account for 52% of our 2nd quarter revenue, surpassing 50% for the first time. Smartphone decreased 1% to account for 33%. IoT increased 6% to account for 6%. Automotive increased 5% to account for 5% and DCE increased 20% to account for 2%.

Speaker 1

Moving on to the balance sheet. We ended the 2nd quarter with cash and marketable securities of NT2 trillion or USD63,000,000,000 On the liability side, current liabilities increased by NT23 1,000,000,000, mainly due to the increase of NT16 1,000,000,000 in accounts payable. Long term interest bearing debt increased by NT9 1,000,000,000 mainly as we raised NT12 1,000,000,000 in corporate bonds. On financial ratios, accounts receivable turnover days decreased by 3 days to 28 days. Days of inventory decreased by 7 days to 83 days, primarily due to higher N3 wafer shipment.

Speaker 1

Regarding cash flow and CapEx, during the Q2, we generated about NTM 378,000,000,000 in cash from operations, spent NTM206,000,000,000 in CapEx and distributed $91,000,000,000 for Q3 'twenty three cash dividend. Overall, our cash balance increased NT101 billion to NT1.8 trillion at the end of the quarter. In U. S. Dollar terms, our 2nd quarter capital expenditures totaled 6,360,000,000 dollars I finished my financial summary.

Speaker 1

Now let's turn to our current quarter guidance. Based on the current business outlook, we expect our 3rd quarter revenue to be between $22,400,000,000 $23,200,000,000 which represents a 9.5 percent sequential increase or 32% year over year increase at the midpoint. Based on the exchange rate assumption of US1 dollars to 32.5 dollars NT, Nt. Gross margin is expected to be between 53.5% 55.5 percent. Operating margin between 42.5 percent 44.5 percent.

Speaker 1

This concludes my financial presentations. Now let me turn to our key messages. I will start by talking about our Q2 'twenty four and Q3 'twenty four profitability. Our 2nd quarter gross margin was 53.2%, slightly ahead of the high end of our guidance, mainly as we saw a higher than expected overall capacity utilization rate as compared to our forecast 3 months ago. We have just guided our 3rd quarter gross margin to increase by 1.3 percentage points to 54.5 percent at the midpoint.

Speaker 1

This is primarily due to the higher overall capacity utilization rate in the 3rd quarter and better cost improvement effort, including productivity gains, partially offset by continued dilution from N3 ramp up, N5 to N3 tool conversion costs and higher electricity prices in Taiwan. Excluding the impact of foreign exchange rate, of which we have no control over, and factoring in the margin impact from our global manufacturing footprint expansion plans, we continue to forecast a long term gross margin of 53% and higher is achievable. Next, let me talk about our 2024 capital budget. Every year, our CapEx is spent in anticipation of the growth that will follow in the future years. And our CapEx and capacity planning is always based on the long term market demand profile.

Speaker 1

As the strong structural AI related demand continues, we continue to invest to support our customers' growth. We are narrowing the range of our 2024 capital budget to be between $30,000,000,000 $32,000,000,000 as compared to $28,000,000,000 to $32,000,000,000 previously. Between 70% 80% of the capital budget will be allocated for advanced process technologies. About 10% to 20% will be spent for specialty technologies and about 10% will be spent for advanced packaging, testing, mask making and others. At TSMC, a higher level of capital expenditures is always correlated with the higher growth opportunities in the following years.

Speaker 1

Now let me turn the microphone over to C. C.

Speaker 2

C. Wei:] Thank you, Windho. Good afternoon, everyone. First, let me start with our near term demand outlook. We concluded our 2nd quarter with revenue of US20.8 billion dollars above our guidance in US dollar terms.

Speaker 2

Our business in the second quarter was supported by strong demand for our industry leading 3 nanometer and 5 nanometer technologies, particularly offset by continuous smartphone seasonalities. Moving into Q3 2024, we expect our business to be supported by strong smartphone and AI related demand for our leading edge process technologies. Looking at the full year 2024, we forecast the overall semiconductor market excluding memory to increase by about 10%, which is unchanged from our forecast 3 months ago. At this time, we would like to expand our original definition of foundry industry to Foundry 2.0, which also includes packaging, testing, mask making and others and all IDM excluding memory manufacturing. We believe this new definition better reflects TSMC's expanding addressable market opportunities in the future.

Speaker 2

However, I want to emphasize here that TSMC will only focus on the most advanced back end technologies, which help our customer in leading edge product. Under this new definition, the size of the foundry industry was close to US250 $1,000,000,000 in 2023 as compared to US115 $1,000,000,000 under the previous definition. With our new definition, we forecast the foundry industry growth to be close to 10% year over year in 2024. TSMC's share of the foundry industry under our new definition was 28% in 2023, supported by our strong technology leadership and broad customer base, we expect this one to further increase in 2024. Over the past 3 months, we have observed strong AI and high end smartphone related demand from our customers as compared to 3 months ago, leading to increasing overall capacity utilization rate for our leading 8, 3 nanometer and 5 nanometer process technologies in the second half of twenty twenty four.

Speaker 2

Thus, we continue to expect 2024 to be a strong growth year for TSMC. We are raising our full year guidance and now expect our 2024 revenue to increase slightly above mid-20s percent in U. S. Dollar terms. Next, I will talk about TSMC's capacity planning process and investment disciplines.

Speaker 2

This is important, especially when we have such high forecasted demand from AI related business. TSMC's mission is to be the trusted technology and capacity provider for the global logic IC industry for years to come. The continued surge in AI related demand supports a strong structurally demand for energy efficient computing. As a key enabler of AI applications, the value of our technology position is increasing as customers rely on TSMC to provide the most advanced process and packaging technology at scale in the most efficient and cost effective manner. As such, TSMC employs I'm sorry, TSMC employs a disciplined framework to address the structural increase in the long term market demand profile underpinned by the industry megatrend of AI, HPC and 5 gs.

Speaker 2

We work closely with our customers to plan our capacity. We also have a rigorous and roll off system that evaluate and judges market demand from both a top down and a bottom up approach to determine the appropriate capacity to build. Our capital investment decision are based on 4 disciplines. That is technology leadership, flexible and responsive manufacturing, retaining customers' trust and earning a sustainable and healthy return. To ensure a proper return from our investment, both pricing and cost are important.

Speaker 2

TSMC's pricing strategy is strategic, not opportunistic to reflect the value that we provide. Today, we are investing heavily in leading edge, specialty and advanced packaging technologies to support our customers' growth and enable their success. If customers do well, TSMC should do well. For example, we are happy to see many of our customers' structure profitability improving in these past few years. At the same time, we face rising cost challenges due to increasing process complexity, a leading node, higher electricity costs in Taiwan, global fab expansion in higher cost regions and other cost inflation challenges.

Speaker 2

Therefore, we are continuing to work closely with our customer to share our value. We will also work diligently with our suppliers to deliver on cost performance. We believe such actions will help TSMC earn a sustainable and healthy return partner and fulfill our mission as a trusted Foundry partner who are delivering profitable growth for our shareholders. Finally, I'll talk about our N2 status and 816 introduction. Our 2 nanometer and 816 technologies leads the industry in addressing the insensible need for energy efficient computing and almost all the AI innovator are working with TSMC.

Speaker 2

We expect the number of the new tape outs for 2 nanometer technologies in its 1st 2 years to be higher than both 3 nanometer and 5 nanometer in their 1st 2 years. N2WAT delivered full node performance and power benefit with 10 to 15 speed improvement at the same power or 25% to 30% power improvement at the same speed and more than 15% chip density increase as compared with the N3E. N2 technology development is progressing well, with device performance and year on track or ahead of plan. N2 is on track for volume production in 2025 with a ramp profile similar to N3. With our strategy of continuous enhancement, we also introduced N2P as an extension of our N2 family.

Speaker 2

N2P features further 5% performance with at the same power or 5% to 10% power benefit at the same speed on top of N2. N2 P was support both smartphone and HPC applications, and volume production is scheduled for the second half 2026. We also introduced A16 as our next narrow sheet based technology featuring Superpower Rail or SPR as a separate offering. TSMC's SPR is an innovative best in class backside power delivery solution that is the first in the industry to incorporate another backside content scheme to preserve gate density and device with flexibility. Compared with the N2P, A16 provides a further 8% to 10% speed improvement at the same power or 15% to 20% power improvement at the same speed and additional 7% to 10% chip density gain.

Speaker 2

A16 is best suited for specific HPC product with complex signal route and dense power delivery network. Volume production is scheduled for second half twenty twenty six. We believe N2, N2P, A16 and its derivative will further extend our technology leadership position and enable TSMC to capture the growth opportunities well into the future. This concludes our key message, and thank you for your attention.

Operator

Thank you, C. C. Thank you, Wendell. This does conclude our prepared remarks. Before we begin the Q and A session, I would like to remind everybody to please limit your questions to 2 at a time to allow all the participants an opportunity to ask their questions.

Operator

Questions, we will take both from the floor and from the call. Should you wish to raise your question in Chinese, I will translate it to English before our management answers your question. Now we will begin the Q and A session. I would like to take the first few questions from the floor, then we will go on to the call. So let's begin.

Operator

The first question we please take from Gokul Hariharan from JPMorgan. Thank you.

Speaker 3

Thanks, Jeff. Good afternoon, Cece and good afternoon, Wendell. Thanks for giving us the picture in terms of how you are planning future capacity. Just on AI I think last time we talked about this, maybe a couple of quarters back, C. C, you mentioned we expect to see supply to kind of reach balance supply demand to reach balance by end of this year.

Speaker 3

Just wanted to see what is your current remark? How do you think about supply demand balance for AI accelerator and COVAS advanced packaging capacity? And I think in your symposium, you talked about 60% CAGR, compounded growth for COVOS capacity in the next 4, 5 years. So could you talk a little bit about how much capacity for COVOS would you be planning to build next year as well? Like last year, you said you're going to be doubling the capacity this year.

Speaker 3

Now that we are in the middle of this year, maybe can we get a view on what is the capacity expansion for next year? That's my first question. Thank you.

Operator

Okay. Gokul, all right. For the benefit of the audience online and in person, please allow me to kind of try to summarize your question. So Gokul's question, first of all, he understands and appreciates TSMC's disciplined framework in terms of looking at how to build capacity. His question is that it seems that everyone today, AI accelerators and advanced packaging is queuing at TSMC to ask for capacity.

Operator

So his question is when do we expect supply demand to reach a balance both for the accelerator side and then for the COOS. At the symposium, we said COOS capacity will grow at a 60% CAGR the next few years. He also wants to know what are we planning to build or increase for 2025 COOS?

Speaker 2

Gogu, I also tried to reach the supply and demand balance, but I cannot today. The demand is so high. I had to work very hard to meet my customers' demand. We continue to increase. I hope sometime in 2025 or 2026, I can reach the balance.

Speaker 2

You're talking about CAGR or those kind of increase of the coal asset capacity. Now it's out of my mind. I mean, we continue to increase whatever, wherever, whatever I can, okay? The supply continue to be very tight all the way through probably 2025 and I hope it can be eased in 2026. That's today's situation.

Speaker 3

Any thoughts on next year capacity? Like, are you going to double your capacity again next year for COVAS?

Speaker 2

The last time I say that this year, I doubled it, right? More than double. Okay. So next year, if I say double, probably I will answer your question again next year, say more than double, Okay. We are working very hard, as I said, wherever we can, whenever we can.

Speaker 3

Okay. Thank you. My second question is regarding gross margins. I think second half guidance already seems to be better than what originally we were thinking that gross margin could drop in second half, but it looks like it's actually going up. And looks like a lot of the headwinds on gross margin is coming in this year.

Speaker 3

So how should we think about gross margin looking forward for TSMC? Are we going to get back to the high 50%, 60% gross margin that we saw in 2022, given that you got you're selling more of your value, you have some of the N3 tailwinds in terms of yield improvement coming through. Into that, I will also ask how should we think about impact of subsidies and ITC credits as you start ramping your overseas locations? How does that impact cost and gross margin? Because there's also some subsidies coming in and currently TSMC is mostly talking about gross CapEx and gross spend.

Operator

Okay. So let me summarize Gokul's second question is around gross margin and profitability. He notes second half 'twenty four gross margin seems to be better than the expectation. So his question is really how should we think about gross margin in the next several years? He notes, as we said, we will sell our value and the dilution of N3 will gradually reduce.

Operator

So where can the gross margins go back to a high 50s or 60% kind of level that we saw a few years ago in 2022? Maybe that's the first part of it. That's a good question. I'll stop here, then I'll get to the second.

Speaker 1

Sure. Gokul, let me share with you some of the puts and takes on gross margin 2025 and a little bit beyond that. You already talked there are positives and there are negatives. You already mentioned positive will be a decreasing dilution from N3. We're selling our value.

Speaker 1

And we continue to drive down our costs, increase the productivity. That is we are very good at that. On the other hand, let's use N5 conversion to N3 as an example. We are not ruling out the possibility of further converting more N5 to N3 because we're seeing very strong demand for M3. If we decided to do that, of course, there will be a negative impact on the year that we do that.

Speaker 1

But in the future years, that will be beneficial. We continue to face cost challenges, inflation cost challenges, including electricity prices, etcetera. And also, we are beginning the production of our overseas fab, 2 overseas fabs next year, the Phase 1 of Arizona fab and Phase 1 of the Kuma Motor fab. We expect that the overseas fabs will dilute our gross margins by between 2 to 3 percentage points next year and in the next several years. So those are the puts and takes to give you the concept.

Speaker 1

However, we've taken all that into considerations with our efforts in managing the cost gap, especially between the overseas fab and Taiwan, we're repeating and confident to say that 53% and higher gross margin is achievable. So I think that's the first part of your question.

Speaker 3

Yes, that's right.

Operator

And then maybe also just Gokul asked if it's possible to get back to the high 50%, 60% level that we saw in 2022?

Speaker 1

Yes. If we have a very high utilization rate, everything else stays the same, possible.

Operator

Okay. And then the second part of his question was what is the impact from the different government incentives, including the CHIPS Act, ITC credits in the U. S, etcetera, to the financials and also I think partly gross CapEx and net CapEx? Thank you.

Speaker 1

Generally speaking, when subsidies are received, then you see that on the cash flow statement. It will be used to offset the asset value. That will be on the balance sheet. When this fab begins to production, the P and L impact will come in. So generally speaking, it's like that.

Speaker 1

Different government has different approach in providing the grants. So that's a different story. But you can look at our financial statements. There will be actual subsidy received in the previous quarter and previous year. For example, 2023, we received a total subsidies of slightly higher than US1.5 billion dollars equivalent.

Speaker 1

And we received that mainly in Japan.

Operator

Okay. All right. Great. Thank you. Let's move on.

Operator

We'll take the next one from Charlie Chan from Morgan Stanley, and then we'll go to Bruce Lu from Goldman.

Speaker 4

Thanks. Hi, C. C. Wendell and Jeff. Great to see you in person again.

Speaker 4

So I have my first question is really about your progress of selling the value. I'm not sure what's the progress. And do you think for next year, your leading edge capacity is going to be in shortage? Is that the case? Whether that increase your chance to sell more value to your customers?

Operator

Okay. So Charlie's first question is around pricing, and he wants to understand the progress of, I guess, selling our value. And also in next year, looking at next year, particularly for the leading edge nodes, do we expect that in terms of the demand to be very full?

Speaker 2

Charlie, this kind of pricing strategy is very strategic. You are asking me about the status. So far, so good. And we are continue this is ongoing and continuous process. We are continuing to see our value.

Speaker 2

And by the way, my customer are doing very well also. Okay? You knew that. So we should do well also.

Speaker 4

So that is actually my follow-up question on this first question. For different segment, for example, HPC customers are doing very, very well, but for smartphone customers, probably more sensitive to the cost. Do you expect a kind of difference of kind of value increase for different customers even at the same node.

Operator

So Charlie is asking how will we do the pricing? Will it be different between, for example, an HPC customer versus a smartphone customer at the same node? And also his question earlier was, do we expect the demand for the leading nodes to be very high next year?

Speaker 2

Since the pricing is strategic, so it won't be flat for every product sector. So it will be different. Okay, that all I can share with you. And all my customers, they are looking for leading edge capacity for next few years, and we are working with them. And so far, we try our best to support them, both in pricing and in capacity.

Speaker 4

Thank you. And second topic is definitely, over the past 2 days, those geopolitical risks. So Mr. Donald Trump took about, maybe a few years ago, TaiwanTSMC took a 100% business from the U. S.

Speaker 4

So congrats on their part, very high market share. However, the concern is growing, right, that the U. S. Continue depends on our islands, TSMC and the chip production. So our question is for shareholders, right, how TSMC is going to mitigate this potential geopolitical risk?

Speaker 4

For example, whether you are going to further expand your U. S. Capacity or even share the ownership, right, with the U. S. Government?

Speaker 4

And maybe a technical question to Wendell. For today, right, if we are shipping chips to the U. S. Customers, do we need to pay for the U. S.

Speaker 4

Tariff?

Operator

Okay. Sorry. So Charlie's second question is around sort of overseas expansion and geopolitical risk. He notes the comments from former President Trump a few days ago that Taiwan Semiconductor has taken 100% of the business. So his question is really how does TSMC plan to mitigate the geopolitical risk?

Operator

Does this include expanding capacity overseas, particularly in the U. S? Would we consider, I think part of his question was some JV or joint investments, whether with government or whether with partners? And the last question, I think, was more for Wendell about the tax or the tariffs, so to speak.

Speaker 2

Okay. Charlie, so far, we did not change any our original plan of expansion of our overseas fab. We continue to expand in Arizona, in Kuman Motto and maybe future in Europe. No change to our strategy. We continue our current practice.

Speaker 2

You mentioned about the JV. No. Okay.

Speaker 1

On the tariff, not that we know of. Normally, if there's an import tariff, the customers will be responsible for that, but no discussion, nothing. Okay.

Operator

Thank you. Thank you, Charlie. All right. We'll take the next question from Bruce Lu from Goldman Sachs in the front, then we'll move online.

Speaker 5

Thank you for taking my question. All right. My question is that why don't we take up our gross margin or structure for the VB target? I mean, TSMC has been saying for selling your value for past couple of quarters without changing the margin target, I. E, most likely you are passing through all the costs.

Speaker 5

But please, I do recall in 2021, I mean, TSMC do raise the gross margin target by then because to support the future growth with more R and D. As the technology continues to be enhanced and more difficult and one of your customer at least is supportive that to suggest that you should charge even more. So my question is why is that you don't raise your gross margin target when you are trying to sell your value, which we believe deserve much higher value.

Operator

Okay. So thank you, Bruce. So Bruce's first question is about profitability and value. Bruce seems to agree that TSMC is providing value to our customers. He also notes in 2021, indeed, a few years ago, our gross margin target, long term gross margin target was about 50% and we're able to increase that to 53% and higher.

Operator

So his question is really with everything that is going on today with the value of our technology enabling our customers more and more, why doesn't TSMC increase or revise up our long term gross margin target from the current 53% and higher? Is that the essence? Yes.

Speaker 2

Bruce, thank you for recognizing TSMC's value. I'm working with our customer. As I said, this kind of pricing is strategic. And certainly, we want to share our value. Changing the target in at this moment, I think I would like to emphasize 53% and higher.

Speaker 2

Please put more attention to and higher. The number, I'm not going to change it at this time. When I have a more conversation with my customer and discuss with them, and I probably will give you in the higher portion. Okay. Thank you.

Speaker 2

Okay.

Speaker 5

Thank you. My next question is for advanced packaging. So management used to mention that advanced packaging margin was lower than the corporate agent, but with higher ROICs. But given the recent progress for the COWAS and everything, do we see a much better profitability for the COWAS? And given that it was so difficult to expand the capacity, are you planning to work with more partners to increase your CoWoS supply, which will stop your current supply and demand issues?

Operator

Okay. Thank you, Bruce. So Bruce's second question is around advanced packaging. Part of it is in terms of the profitability. He notes we used to say, which is true, it's lower than the corporate average profitability, but can earn a similar return or ROE.

Operator

But his question is now with more and more cobots demand in greater scale, is the profitability of events packaging, I think, approaching or at or above the corporate average? And also, given the tight supply, would we consider to work with more partners to help increase the capacity for COWAS to support our customers' growth?

Speaker 2

You are right. For Advanced Packaging, the gross margin used to be much lower than the corporate average. Now it's approaching corporate average. We are improving it as because of scale of the economics and we put a lot of effort to reduce our cost. So, gross margin is greatly improving in these 2 years.

Speaker 2

As for the working with OSAT partners, yes, we are doing it because of I just answered the question, say, whether the coal was at capacity is enough or not, is not enough. And in greater shortage. And that limited my customers' growth. So we are working with our OSF partner and try to give more capacity to my customer so that they can grow healthy. And so the TSMC's wafer can be sold here city.

Speaker 2

Okay.

Operator

Okay. Thank you, C. C. Thank you, Bruce. Operator, can we move to the first participant online for their his or her questions, please?

Speaker 6

Yes. The first one, we got Brad Simpson, Erutai.

Speaker 7

Yes, thanks very much. My question was really about your capacity plans for the next nodes at N2 including A16. We're hearing that AI chipmakers are looking to migrate more aggressively from N minus 1 to the leading edge, particularly due to backside power because they're trying to lower their power budgets going forward. So my question, can you support this move? And if so, should we be expecting N2A16 to be structurally a much bigger node than we've seen in the past few nodes?

Speaker 7

Thank you.

Operator

Okay, Brett. Thank you. So Brett's first question is on capacity planning, particularly at the leading edge into an A16. So he notes rightly that AI customers are migrating aggressively from N minus 1 in the past to the most leading node. He knows particularly A16 driven by the interest in backside power.

Operator

So his question is can we support this move in terms of capacity to support the customers? And also whether thus N2 and A16 will be a much bigger node than our nodes in the past? Brett,

Speaker 2

you are right. All the people want to move into kind of a power efficient mode. And so they are looking for the more advanced technology so that they can save power consumption. And so a lot of my customers want to move into N2, N2P, A16 quickly. We are working very hard to build the capacity to support them.

Speaker 2

Today is a little bit tight, not a little bit, actually, today is very tight. I hope in next year or the next 2 years, so we can build enough capacity to support this kind of demand. Today, yes, we are working hard to support them. And enough, not yet, but we are working hard to get it.

Operator

Does that answer your first question, Brett?

Speaker 7

Okay. Thank you. Yes, that's great. Yes, thank you, C. C.

Speaker 7

Wei. My follow-up question was for Wendell. I wanted to just dig into the gross margin dilution from N3, where is that at today? And does the introduction of N3E structurally improve your N3 returns? I guess N3E is less capital intensive, there's less EUV layers.

Speaker 7

So I'm keen to understand that this drives better economics for TSMC, particularly as you start to ramp more entry capacity in the second half of this year? Thank you.

Operator

All right. Thanks, Brett. So Brett's second question is on the gross margin dilution from N3. He notes that N3E uses less EUV layers, less capital intensity. So his question is, as we ramp N3 more and more, does N3e structurally improve the returns and gross margin of N3 as a whole?

Speaker 1

Okay. Brad, we don't break it down between the different nodes within the family, but I can share with you, overall speaking, as we said before, N3 takes a longer while to reach the copper mart. In the past, it was about 8 to 10 quarters. For N3, we're looking at 10 to maybe 12 quarters. But it is improving, and we expect it to continue to improve.

Operator

Okay. Thank you, Brett. Operator, let's take the next set of questions from the next participant on the call, please.

Speaker 6

Next one to ask question Charles Shi from Midtown. Go ahead please. Yes, thanks for taking my questions. Maybe the first one, I just want to follow-up. Wendell, I think I heard you talking about that potentially more and try to N3 conversion, maybe beyond what you are trying to do right now, the conversion.

Speaker 6

Just want to understand overall philosophy here because I think in the past, the TSMC does do this node to node conversion quite actively, let's say, 10 nanometer to 7 nanometer and probably even earlier, 20 nanometer to 16 nanometer. And I think you told us basically treat 10 and the 7 as 1 large node, 20 and 16 as 1 large node. Should we start to really think about maybe 53 or just one big node and maybe more conversion, we should think about more of the N3 capacity growth will come from conversion going forward less from the Greenfield investment? That's the first question.

Operator

Okay, Charles. So Charles' first question is really look at our conversion strategy. He notes that we have always talked about building in tool commonality to provide us flexibility. We have done so in the past at certain nodes like 2016, 10 and 7. So his question is really, we had said that we potentially convert more N5 tools to support the strong demand for N3 capacity.

Operator

So his question is, should we, investors, analysts start to think about N5 and N3 as one big node?

Speaker 1

Right. You mentioned about 12 and 16, they are a big family. 7 and 10 are a big family. But 53 are not a big family in our definitions. At the same time, there are no to no tool commonality in TSMC is pretty high.

Speaker 1

So for 5 and 3, the commonality of tools is over 90%. And these two nodes are adjacent. They are in all in Tainan Science Park. And so it's very easy to do the conversions. Did I answer your questions?

Speaker 6

Yes. May I ask a second question?

Operator

Certainly.

Speaker 6

Thanks. Maybe a question about COOS. I think I heard you said maybe there's some technical difficulty on my side. I just want to clarify. Maybe you may double the COVAX capacity again in 2025.

Speaker 6

But a little bit more technical question, I do want to better understand the technology constraints because your customers seems to be migrating from CO OPPS S to the more advanced version of COOS L, COOS R. And we learned that COOS LR does not require TSC, does not require a large silicon interposer. Does that help at least to some degree the capacity constraints you are facing on overall COAS? And does that help to maybe to achieve that goal of maybe getting that to the supply demand balance some point in 2025, 2026? That's a 2 part question.

Operator

Okay, Charles. So Charles' question is really on COWAS. First, he would like to clarify, we said that COAS capacity is more than doubling in 2024. He said, did we say, is he correct to understand we said it will double again in 2025? That's the first clarification.

Operator

And then he would like to know as customers migrate from COOS S to COOS L and COOS R solution, a lot of technical challenges or benefits changes, sorry, not challenges. Does it help alleviate the capacity constraints? And would that allow COOS to reach supply demand balance in 2025? So one to clarify and one on the different solutions.

Speaker 2

Well, for Charles, you really know all the detail of the technology. You know the CoWAS R, CoWAS AS, CoWAS AEROG, blah, blah, blah. All these kind of thing is because of a customer's requirement. So even the same customer, they have different approaches for their different product. When I say that we doubled the portion is much more than the other one?

Speaker 2

I'll portion is much more than the other one, I'm not going to share with you because this is related to my customers' demand. So from last year to this year, we have more than doubled. And as I said, from this year to next year, we want to double again or probably want to more than double again. But still, I have to work with our OSAT partner to increase the overall supply to support my customer. Whether that's this kind of different version of the cohorts will give me some flexibility today, yes and no, because different version has a different tool set.

Speaker 2

But in common, some of the tools can be used by all the cohorts, okay. But different version have a different demand.

Operator

Okay. Thank you, C. C. Thank you, Charles. We'll come back to the floor for the next two questions, please.

Operator

We'll take the first one from Laura Chen from Citigroup, and then we'll go to Sunny Lin from UBS.

Speaker 8

Thank you, Jeff. Thank you for taking my question. My first question is also on the Vans node. I remember, C. C, you mentioned earlier that every clients are now engaged with you on the 2 nanometers migration.

Speaker 8

So I'm just wondering that when we enter in maybe 2026, the 3rd the 2nd year, can we expect that the revenue contribution initially will be larger than what we had comparing to N3? And also wondering that since the performance is much better, so can we expect the dilutions period to also be shorter than N3?

Operator

Okay. Sorry. So Laura's first question is about N2. Basically, that almost every customer is engaging with TSMC on 2 nanometer technologies. So her question is do we expect the revenue contribution from N2 in 2026, therefore, to be And also, correspondingly, with the N2 margin dilution, And also correspondingly, would the N2 margin dilution be less or better than N3 basically?

Speaker 2

I will give this kind of a mangman's question to the CFO. Okay.

Speaker 1

All right. Laura, the revenue, yes, it's going to be bigger, okay. Gross margin dilution, it will be faster to reach corporate average.

Speaker 8

That's very clear and helpful. And also my second question is also on the packaging side. We know that last time we also discussed and the H, AI will also benefit for TSMC in terms of the advanced nodes, the die areas. Just wondering that, do you also see your edge AI device clients, they are moving to 3DIC or SOIC anytime in the next 2 years? Or before that happenings, can we expect that more clients on the smartphone side, they will also adapt maybe info first?

Speaker 8

Because so far, our understanding is that info, you only have one advance no, one single client. I'm just wondering that we see if we see that more clients to move to on the HAI side on advanced packaging. Thank you.

Operator

Okay. So Laura's second question is very specific, but again, in regards to advanced packaging, with more and more customers working on edge AI devices without well, being overly specific, but what does it mean or the implication for advanced packaging solutions? Do we expect in the next 2 years to see these edge AI customers start to use SOIC or 3DIC, particularly smartphone, will they still be using InFO or will they also consider these solutions as well? Is that correct, Lars? Okay.

Speaker 2

Well, very technical questions. Let me share with you, as my customer moving into 2 nanometer or A16, they all need to probably taking the approach of chiplets. So once you use your chiplets, you have to use in advanced packaging technologies. On the edge AI for those kind of smartphone customer, as compared with the HPC customer, HPC is moving faster because of bandwidth concern, latency of footprint, all those kind of things. For smartphone customer, they need to pay more attention to the footprint as well as the functionality increase.

Speaker 2

So you observe my big customers taking the info first and then for a few years, nobody catch it up. They are. They are catching up. Okay.

Speaker 9

Thank you

Speaker 8

very much, Sisi.

Operator

Okay. Thank you, Laura. We'll take the next question from Sunny Lin from UBS, and then we'll go back to the call.

Speaker 9

Thank you, Jeff. Good afternoon, Sisi and Wendell. Thank you for taking my questions. So my first question is on your business opportunities for smartphone and PC. Last few years, both were like ex growth for quite some time.

Speaker 9

And so how we should think about the units and silicon content for the coming 2, 3 years? First part, a lot of questions on the tight supply for 5 and 3 nanometer. And so are your customers engaging with you early on the planning into 2025 capacities for a better upgrade cycle? And then for silicon content, recall a few years back when 5 gs just started to ramp, you used to provide the silicon content expectations of 5 gs high end and mid and low end smartphones. So I wonder at this point of time, if you have any estimates for AI for smartphone going to next 2, 3 years?

Operator

Okay. Several parts to Sunny's first question. She's looking at smartphone and PC. So the first part is, she wants to know in terms of unit and silicon content, what is our expectation for smartphone and PCs in the next few years? N5 and N3 supply is very tight in terms of the capacity.

Operator

Can do we have enough capacity to support a potential unit or upgrade cycle? And last but not least, she's asking us to quantify the silicon content per device, per segment from Edge AI.

Speaker 2

That's a very long question. But let me answer the content first. AI is so hard, so that's right now, everybody, all my customer want to put their AI functionality into the edge devices. And so the die size will be increased, okay. How much?

Speaker 2

I mean, it's different from my customer to customer's product. But basically, probably 5% to 10% die size increase will be general rule. Unit growth, not yet, okay, because of what we did not see kind of a unit growth suddenly increase, but we expect this AI functionality was stimulated some of the demand, so stimulate the replacement to be shorter. So in terms of unit growth that in a few years later, probably 2 years later, you will start to see a big increase. In the edge device, that's a smartphone and the PC.

Operator

And will we have enough capacity to support?

Speaker 2

That's the one I try to avoid the answer. It's very, very tight. And we are working very, very hard to get enough capacity to support my customer from now all the way to next year to 2026.

Speaker 9

Got it. Thank you, C. C, for the answer. So my second question is try to look at the demand profile from different perspectives. If we look back in 2020 1 or early 2022, back then, demand was also pretty high.

Speaker 9

Customers were very aggressive on the demand forecast. Now looking at Gen AI, obviously, the technology has lots of great potential. But a new technology could also have lots of volatilities when it starts to ramp. And so how are we managing the volatilities of the demand? Why do you think this time around is different versus COVID period?

Speaker 9

How do we get comfortable with our capacity planning?

Operator

Okay. Thank you, Sunny. So Sunny's second question goes back to TSMC's capacity planning and CapEx framework. So she notes we today, generally, AI related demand is very strong, but she also notes a few years ago, back in 2000 and 1 and 'twenty 2, demand was also very strong. Many customers were also very positive or upbeat on the future demand.

Operator

And so today, with such strong generative AI demand, how does TSMC plan its capacity appropriately? How do we manage, I think your word was volatility, how do we manage the risk, basically, I guess, of not overbuilding capacity in this type of environment?

Speaker 2

I thought I explained that our capacity planning process, right, and the investment, we have I put a wording of discipline. That means we are not going to repeat the same kind of mistake that we have in 2021, 2022. Now this time, again, we look at the overall very big demand forecast for my customer. And so I look into actually the whole company with many people now examining and study that really is AI is so useful or be used by a lot of people or not. And we test our sales force inside TSMC, we are using AI, we are using machine learning skill to improve our productivity.

Speaker 2

And we found out it's very useful. And so I also in the line to buy my customers a product and we have to form in the line like I get no privilege, I'm sorry, but it's useful. And so I believe that this time AI's demand is more real than 2 or 3 years ago. At that time, it's because of people are afraid of shortage. And so automotive, everything, you name it, they are all in shortage.

Speaker 2

This time, AI alone, only AI alone, it will be a very useful tool for the human being to improve all the productivity in our daily life, be it in medical industry or in any product, manufacturing industry or autonomous driving everything, you need AI. And so I believe it's more real. But even with that, we also have a top down, bottom ups approach and discuss with our customer and ask them to be more realistic. I don't want to repeat the same kind of mistake 2 or 3 years ago, and that's what we are doing right now.

Speaker 9

Great to know. Thank you very much.

Operator

Okay. Thank you. Operator, can we move on to the next participant from the line, please? Okay. If not, then maybe we'll take the last two questions from the floor, or 1 or 2.

Operator

Let's start here and then here. So we'll start with Arthur Lai from Macquarie.

Speaker 10

Hi, C. C. And Wendell and Jeff, thanks for taking my question. Asar Lai from Macquarie. I used to cover downstream tech and especially data center before.

Speaker 10

And so I want to ask C. C. About the SPR because I think this is very important from the data center perspective. So when you bring the new technology, you can save around 20% power. Can we also think about you can save the total systems power consumption by another 20%.

Speaker 10

So it's a big change. And from the customer you asked, you spoke to, is there they can also you save their total cost of operation. So it becomes the more you buy, the more you save. Yes.

Operator

Okay. So Arthur's first question, he would like to understand more about Superpower Rail or our best in class backside power solution as it relates to data center demand. He knows, as we said, that it brings greater power efficiency from the chip level. His question, without specific numbers, but what does the mean for the system level power consumption saving? What does it mean for our customers' ability in terms of total cost of ownership in terms of the power savings?

Operator

And does that mean that the more you buy, the more you save?

Speaker 2

The more you buy TSMC's wafer, the more you save. Yes. Sorry, I just want to I like my customer. Your question, Arthur, you say that 20% save in the chips power consumption. Does that directly reply to indicate that the system power consumption will reduce by 20%?

Speaker 2

Probably not because of the whole system, including the connection, including the networking, including the processor's power consumption. So unless every component is, say, 20%, then you can achieve 20%. But again, the accelerator or the CPU is a big portion of the whole system's power consumption. So even it is not a 20%, it's significant portion of it. And so that's why all my customer want to using the leading edge and they are very aggressive to move into the 2 nanometer technology.

Speaker 10

Thank you. So I encourage company to do the right thing. So energy efficiency computing is definitely our goal for human beings. And then so I also would like to give more color about when you go into the A16 and when we expand the capacity, what do you think the biggest bottleneck would be?

Operator

Okay. So Arthur's second question is in terms of A16. What would be the biggest bottleneck to expand our capacity of A16 to support our customers, if any?

Speaker 2

We always say that when TSMC want to expand the capacity, we need the land, we need the electricity, we need the talented people and so all the above. Okay.

Speaker 10

Thank you, C. C.

Operator

Okay. Thank you. And then in the interest of time, we'll take question from the last participant on the floor, which is Brad Lin from Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Speaker 11

Thank you, Jeff, for taking my questions. So I have two questions. The first one would be on the during the compute test, we obviously have seen quite some big tech companies announce that they are going to accelerate the launch cadence. So what's the implication to TSMC? Should that give TSMC a better visibility on the pipeline and also the capacity planning?

Speaker 11

And on the other side, so what are the major challenges that you might face with this phased surveillance?

Operator

Okay. So Brad's first question is that Computex recently, several companies announced their intention to accelerate their product cadence or product launches. So his question is what does this mean, implications to TSMC in terms of capacity planning, in terms of supporting our customers, etcetera, etcetera. Is that right? Yes.

Operator

Okay.

Speaker 2

Well, we like this kind of a trend because of TSMC is record at the leading edge development. And so we actually, we every product when they design, it takes 1.5 years to 2 years. So we got this kind of message quite a long time ago. My customer announced it because they are so happy. And so we are happy also because they want us to share our value.

Speaker 2

So I take that advice. But goku, don't laugh. Okay. So to answer your question, yes, we have been prepared. And not only because of in June, they announced it, we much earlier, we already discussed with them and we prepare for these kind of changes.

Speaker 11

Got it. Thank you very much. So I would assume that would help us, well, kind of sell the value easier. So the second question will be on the well, obviously, we also see the bigger footprint of the AI chips. So while there are quite some activities about the fan out panel level packaging.

Speaker 11

So do you think that solution will become mentioned in the mid to long run? Or does TSMC have any plan to do the related investment? Thank you.

Operator

Okay. So Brad's second question is that, again, with AI related chips that there are larger and larger die sizes. So his question is in terms of advanced packaging and specifically fan out panel level packaging. Is this something that TSMC is looking at or exploring to do? Would this be something for TSMC in the mid- to long term?

Speaker 2

Yes. We are looking at this as kind of a panel levels fan out of technology. But the maturity today is not yet. So I personally, I was thinking it's about at least 3 years later. Okay.

Speaker 2

Within these 3 years, we don't have any very solid solution for a die size bigger than 10x of the radical size. Today, we support our customer all the way to 5x, 6x chip size. I'm talking about the fuel size, the biggest fuel size. 3 years later, I believe the panel, will be start to be introduced and we are working on it.

Speaker 11

And we will be ready for it as well.

Speaker 2

Of course.

Operator

All right. Thank you, C. C. Thank you, Brad. Thank you, everyone.

Operator

This concludes our Q and A session. Before we conclude today's conference, please be advised that the replay of the conference will be accessible within 30 minutes from now and the transcript will become available 24 hours from now, both of which are going to be available through TSMC's website at www.tsmc.com. So thank you everyone for joining us today. We hope everyone continues to stay well and we hope you will join us again next quarter. Goodbye and have a great day.

Powered by Quartr