Taiwan’s lead in advanced chips will speed up computers, phones while turning heads in China

Name: China condemns new US law aimed at boosting domestic semiconductor manufacturing
Uploaded: 2022-12-02T23:00:13.000Z
Duration: 1 min 57 s
Description: China condemns new US law aimed at boosting domestic semiconductor manufacturing

Semiconductor manufacturing looks to make a big leap forward in the coming three years, but US-led restrictions on exports to China could pose a ‘long-term challenge’

Analysts expect companies such as Apple, Qualcomm and MediaTek to place the initial orders with Taiwan’s TSMC for highly advanced 2-nanometre chips

4-MIN READ4-MIN

The Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) has reported “good” progress in its plans to mass-produce more advanced computer chips for products such as laptops and mobile devices. Photo: Bloomberg

Ralph Jennings

Published: 7:00am, 3 Dec 2022Updated: 7:38am, 3 Dec 2022

Mainland China could find itself left behind as many of the world’s personal computers and cellphones receive a big bump in processing power over the coming few years, while Taiwan’s economy stands to reap a massive windfall from trade with the West.

Advancements in computer chip technology, producing faster semiconductors that require less power, are expected to be put into production by 2025 in Taiwan, which has been at the cutting edge of hi-tech manufacturing for half a century.

And some industry experts expect that edge to extend so fast that mainland China will be studying it for ways to compete technologically with Western countries that rely on tech from the self-ruled island.

“If the United States continues to control high-end chips shipped to China, China will face a long-term challenge, as it may not be able to obtain any advanced processing chips,” said Ben Yeh, a Taiwan-based analyst with the Canalys market research firm.

01:57

China condemns new US law aimed at boosting domestic semiconductor manufacturing

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) says it will begin mass-producing top-end 2-nanometre chips at its facilities south of Taipei in 2025. CEO C.C. Wei reported “good” progress at an October earnings conference for TSMC, which is the world’s largest contract manufacturer of chips.

The nanometre figure, often abbreviated as “nm”, refers to the size of transistors placed on silicon chips. The smaller the transistors, the faster that devices such as laptops can run without sapping battery power.

The current industry standard is chips with 7-nm transistors, though Apple has begun moving to 5-nm. Last year, IBM unveiled the world’s first 2-nm chips.