It is reported that TSMC has increased prices by 6%, and IC design customers are in a dilemma

According to Taiwanese media "Economic Daily", due to the 6% price increase of TSMC's entire process in 2023, IC design customers are faced with a dilemma. Especially at this stage, some applications have begun to loosen, and they need to reduce the amount of film input. However, in the face of important partners requesting price increases , and difficult to refuse.

Industry insiders pointed out that the previous sharp rise in wafer foundry quotations was mainly concentrated in second- and third-tier factories. Even due to the shortage of supply, some wafer foundries adopted a "quarterly increase" strategy, resulting in prices that were much higher than first-tier factories. In view of this, many IC design houses prefer to switch to a single-line factory for wafer production.

At a time when the quotations remain high, industry insiders said that they have seen a significant revision in the demand for some IC applications, mainly in the fields of consumer ICs for mobile phones, consumer PCs, and home appliance microcontrollers (MCUs).

According to industry analysts, given the poor market conditions in related fields, some long-term contracts may also have short-term variables, and individual manufacturers have different contingency measures. The main key is when the demand in the mainland market will recover. If the situation continues to be sluggish, there may be more adjustments in consumer IC applications in the second half of this year.