La chip crisis continues to rage and companies, but also consumers, are the ones who pay the highest price. TSMC, the largest microchip maker in the world, announced that by the end of the year i component prices for smartphones and other devices will rise. The reason is clearly purely commercial: the demand is high and the production is low.
TSMC, the largest chip manufacturer, announces a considerable price increase: this will lead to an increase in the cost of smartphones
According to the information provided by DigiTimes, TSMC recently communicated to its customers that before the end of the year it will raise the price of many of its own wafer. Specifically, components for making advanced chips of 7nm or less will be 10% more expensive than the current price. Meanwhile, larger construction processes (above 16 nm) will suffer an increase of up to 20%. This announcement is extremely important because TSMC manufactures processors for both Qualcomm than for MediaTek, the developers of our smartphone chips.
But there is one thing we users should know, which is that a 10% increase in the price of wafer to realize SoC should not result in a 10% increase in the final price of a smartphone. This is because each device has many more parts than just a processor. But in this case the individual companies are between a rock and a hard place: will they raise prices or not?
Companies like Xiaomi have already raised their prices to users, with the Mi series for example. Other devices such as the Redmi have remained rather stable in terms of the final cost. In any case, it will be who will raise prices and who will decide to absorb the increase e focus on sales volume to generate profits.
By the way, TSMC is not the only ad increase costs. Other manufacturers have also announced similar measures: Samsung Foundry, GlobalFoundries, PSMC, SMIC and UMC are just a few names.
