TrendForce: The traditional off-season and wafer price increases offset the effect of the first quarter foundry output value increased by 8.2% quarterly.

According to TrendForce's research, although consumer electronics demand continues to be weak, but the server, high-performance computing, automotive and industrial control and other areas of industry structural growth demand, become a key driver to support the medium and long-term foundry growth. At the same time, due to the first quarter of 2022 output a large number of wafer price increases, pushing the quarter's output value for eleven consecutive quarters to a new high of $ 31.96 billion, a quarterly increase of 8.2%, a slight convergence compared to the previous quarter. In terms of ranking, the biggest change for the Hefei crystal integrated (Nexchip) over the tower semiconductor (Tower) to the ninth place.

Samsung by the impact of the terminal demand freeze, the only top 10 industry revenue decline

As TSMC (TSMC) in the fourth quarter of last year to raise wafer prices, the batch of wafers mainly in the first quarter of 2022 output, coupled with continued strong demand for high-performance computing and better foreign currency exchange rates to help make TSMC's revenue this quarter reached $ 17.53 billion, an 11.3% increase in quarterly revenue. The revenue of each process node generally increased by about 10% QoQ, with the 7/6nm and 16/12nm processes growing at the highest rate due to a small expansion, and only the 5/4nm process revenue declined due to the impact of Apple's iPhone 13 entering the production preparation off-season.

Due to the sluggish market conditions of TVs and smartphones, resulting in weaker demand for System LSI CIS, driver ICs, etc., coupled with the 4nm expansion and yield improvement rate is not as fast as expected, the second place Samsung (Samsung) became the only negative revenue growth foundry this quarter, with revenue of 5.33 billion, down 3.9% QoQ, the market share also fell to 16.3%. UMC (UMC) also benefited from the price increase wafer drive, revenue hit 2.26 billion U.S. dollars, a quarterly increase of 6.6%, ranked third, but this year, UMC has not yet opened new production capacity, so the revenue share of each process is roughly the same as the fourth quarter of last year.

GlobalFoundries' revenue for the quarter reached $1.94 billion, up 5.0% QoQ. As wafer shipments were roughly the same as the previous quarter, growth was mainly due to average unit price adjustments and product mix optimization, placing it in fourth place. In addition, as one of the major foundries in the U.S. system, SMIC has been assisting in the production of "Made in USA" national security and aerospace-related chips for years, and has recently planned to produce 45nm SOI products again to support the operation of defense and aerospace systems, with the first production chips expected to be delivered in 2023. SMIC has benefited from the recent smooth start-up of production capacity to increase wafer shipments, while the product portfolio has gradually shifted to structural shortage products, such as consumer PMIC, AMOLED DDI, and industrial control, automotive PMIC, MCU, etc., driving continued revenue growth, with Q1 revenue reaching $1.84 billion, up 16.6% QoQ, ranking fifth.

Crystal integration actively expand production to squeeze down the high tower semiconductor, three major players in mainland China market share of more than 10%

Sixth to eighth place in order for HuaHong Group (HuaHong Group), Powerchip (PSMC), the world advanced (VIS), respectively, benefited from the capacity utilization rate continues to be full, new production capacity, the average unit price and product mix adjustment, revenue performance have grown. Hefei Crystal Integrated's first quarter revenue reached $440 million, up 26.0% QoQ, the highest growth rate for the top 10 players, and also surpassed Tower Semiconductor (Tower) to leap to the ninth place, and close the market share gap between the eighth place and the world's advanced. According to TrendForce, Hefei Crystal Integrated is currently producing 0.1Xμm and 90nm large-size driver ICs, and will continue to actively expand its production in 2022, with the goal of completing the construction of the N2 factory capacity. At the same time, in order to reduce the risk of single market downturn cycle, also accelerate the development of TDDI, CIS, MCU and PMIC and other multi-product platform steps, currently Hefei Crystal Integrated has successfully developed 90nm CIS products in cooperation with SmartSens, mass production will be able to contribute to non-driver IC revenue.

Hightower, which ranks tenth, benefited from the shortage of industrial control and automotive analog-related chips, and its revenue grew to $420 million in the first quarter, up 2.2% QoQ. In order to continue the technical process advantage in the PMIC field, recently also actively explore PMIC technology applications, the development of higher voltage tolerance and effective reduction of chip area, in order to supply CPU, GPU and other high-performance computing, as well as automotive, industrial control power management needs. Looking ahead to the second quarter foundry market, TrendForce expects that, with a small amount of foundry capacity to increase the overall growth of shipments, will enable the top ten foundry output value in the second quarter to maintain growth, however, taking into account the continued sluggish demand for consumer end products, coupled with the contribution of wafer price increases have been largely reflected in the first quarter, the quarterly growth will be convergence.

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