TSMC's 5nm Chip Production Is Fully Booked

By Betty Joita

Posted on August 6, 2021

TSMC is by far one of, if not the most sought-after semiconductor company in the world, having worked with all the big names in the tech industry.
However, even TSMC is giving signs of being affected by the current silicon shortage – the company is currently running its 5nm production facilities at full capacity and there are even reports circulating around the internet that the 3nm orders are also fully booked.

Other big names in the business have had to turn to different companies, such as is the case with Qualcomm, who chose to work with Samsung for the production of its latest Snapdragon chipsets.
As some of you might have guessed, TSMC might be prioritizing some of its more lucrative clients in this situation, one of them being Apple.

According to Wccftech, Apple has ordered around 100 million ‘Bionic’ chips from the company. With this in mind, it’s no surprise that TSMC is working at full speed, with everything it’s got.

It’s quite possible that Apple has also secured a fair number of 3nm chips as well – after all, it wouldn’t come as much of a surprise, considering how competitive Apple is. This just spells bad news for other companies that don’t have the bottomless bag of coin that Apple has – even well-known names like AMD and Nvidia are struggling to get the semiconductors they need for their CPUs and GPUs.

We find ourselves in this situation, yet again, thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic. With a lot more people working from home, tech solutions had to be found for them to do their jobs remotely while, on the other hand, children also needed to continue with their studies, which, in turn has made all of us more reliant on technology than ever before.

This saw an increase in tech sales, which, when paired up with the other effects of the pandemic, from factory closures to social distancing, employees being sick or quarantined, led to a workforce shortage. It also made it even more difficult for companies to produce not just the chipsets but also other hardware components needed for our tech.

The chip shortage does not seem to be going away any time soon and the only other viable option except for TSMC is Samsung, in spite of experts who claim that the company is not on par to the Taiwanese giant, at least when it comes to chips.

However, this shortage will not be solved overnight and, by the look of things, other clients who are not Apple will have to reconsider their options.