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there is a lot of big news coming from the chip market.

according to the latest news, industry insiders said that apple has reserved the first batch of production capacity of the cutting-edge a16 chip from tsmc, and openai has also reserved the chip from tsmc through its chip design companies broadcom and marvell. it is reported that the a16 chip is the most advanced process node currently revealed by tsmc, and it is also tsmc's first step into the angstrom process. it is scheduled to be mass-produced in the second half of 2026.

at the same time, there is also good news from the global chip market. the latest data released by the korean customs shows that in august this year, south korea's export growth rate returned to double digits, with chip exports reaching us$11.9 billion (about rmb 84.8 billion), a year-on-year increase of 38.8%, maintaining growth for 10 consecutive months and setting a record high for the same period in history.

analysts said that the third quarter is the traditional peak season for the memory chip market, with strong demand for stocking in the downstream market. dram prices are expected to continue to rise, and the demand in the memory market is gradually recovering. trendforce estimates that the average price of dram memory chips will rise by as much as 53% in 2024 and will continue to rise by 35% in 2025.

big news from tsmc

on september 2, taiwan economic daily reported that industry insiders said that apple has reserved the first batch of production capacity of cutting-edge a16 chips from tsmc, and openai has also reserved the chip from tsmc through its chip design companies broadcom and marvell.

it is reported that the a16 chip is the most advanced process node tsmc has revealed so far, and it is also tsmc's first step into the angstrom process. it is scheduled to be mass-produced in the second half of 2026.

1 angstrom is equivalent to one tenth of 1 nanometer. after the current semiconductor process has broken through the 2-nanometer process, angstrom will be the goal to be climbed by the world's leading chip companies.

according to tsmc, a16 will adopt the next-generation nanosheet transistor technology and super power rail technology (spr). spr technology moves the power supply line to the back of the wafer, which can release more signal line layout space on the front of the wafer to improve logic density and performance. it is an original and industry-leading back-side power supply solution.

tsmc claims that the backside contact technology used in the a16 chip process can maintain the same gate density, layout footprint, and component width adjustment flexibility as traditional front power supply, and is particularly suitable for high-performance computing (hpc) products with complex signal wiring and dense power supply networks.

compared with the n2p process, the a16 is 8%-10% faster at the same vdd (operating voltage), and its power consumption is reduced by 15%-20% at the same speed. the chip density is increased by up to 1.1 times to support data center products.

industry experts said that the breakthrough of tsmc's a16 chip will greatly promote the development and application of artificial intelligence technology.

although tsmc's a16 process has not yet entered mass production, the first batch of customers have already surfaced. the industry expects that orders from apple and openai will become an important driving force for tsmc's development in artificial intelligence-related fields.

among them, apple, as one of tsmc's core customers, has always been one of the first technology giants to adopt tsmc's latest processes. for example, in 2023, apple exclusively won orders for all tsmc's 3nm chips (a17 process), making the iphone 15 pro series the industry's first smartphone equipped with this process technology.

the addition of openai is not surprising. tsmc's a16 chip is particularly suitable for high-performance computing (hpc) products, and openai needs more powerful chips to provide computing power for its products.

it has been reported that in order to reduce dependence on purchased ai chips, openai ceo sam altman plans to raise us$7 trillion and actively negotiate with tsmc to cooperate in building a wafer factory to carry out research and development and production of its own ai chips.

however, after evaluating the development benefits, openai shelved the plan and turned to developing its own asic chips. it also cooperated with broadcom, marvell and others, planning to use tsmc's 3nm and a16 process technology to produce these chips to accelerate the development of ai technology.

strong recovery

currently, the global semiconductor market is experiencing a strong recovery.

on september 1, local time, the latest data released by the south korean customs showed that in august this year, south korea's export growth rate returned to double digits, with chip exports reaching us$11.9 billion (approximately rmb 84.8 billion), a year-on-year increase of 38.8%, setting a record high for the same period in history.

this marked the 10th consecutive month of growth in south korea's chip exports, thanks to seasonal demand in the third quarter and continued demand for high-bandwidth memory (hbm) ddr5 and server memory chips.

as the "canary" of the global economy, south korea's chip export data showed an unexpected growth, reflecting strong demand in the global semiconductor market.

exports have been the main engine of south korea's economic growth, with semiconductors, automobiles and refined oil products being key products driving south korea's overall exports. authorities expect south korea's economic growth to accelerate to around 2% this year due to the recovery of global trade.

madhavi bokil, senior vice president of strategy and research at moody's ratings, said in the report that by next year, the cyclical rise in global semiconductor demand will help offset the sluggish domestic economy in south korea. it is expected that external demand for artificial intelligence-related chips and investment in new areas such as electric vehicles and renewable energy driven by the united states and the european union will offset the domestic weakness in south korea and support south korea's growth rebound to 2.5% and 2.3% in 2024 and 2025.

other analysts said that the third quarter is the traditional peak season for the memory chip market, the downstream market has strong demand for stocking, dram prices are expected to continue to rise, and the demand in the memory market is showing a gradual recovery trend.

trendforce previously released a report stating that with the bullish market demand, improved supply and demand structure, rising prices, and the rise of hbm, it is expected that the dram memory and nand flash memory industry revenues will increase significantly by 75% and 77% in 2024, respectively. the growth rate will decline in 2025 but will still be 51% and 29%, respectively.

trendforce estimates that the average price of dram memory chips will rise by as much as 53% in 2024 and will continue to rise by 35% in 2025.

yole's latest report points out that the semiconductor memory market is expected to grow from us$96 billion in 2023 to us$234 billion in 2024. this growth is due to the advancement of 3d architecture and heterogeneous integration technologies, which continue to improve performance and bit density. the memory industry is now on a rapid recovery track, with dram revenue expected to reach us$98 billion in 2024, an increase of 88% year-on-year, and nand revenue to reach us$68 billion, an increase of 74%. this growth momentum is expected to continue until 2025, when dram and nand revenues will reach us$137 billion and us$83 billion, respectively.