Shipment value of the Taiwanese semiconductor manufacturing industry reached US$15.2 billion in the fourth quarter of 2020, up 3.2% sequentially and 24.4% year-on-year, according to MIC (Market Intelligence & Consulting Institute), a major government think tank and IT research institute in Taiwan. Based on MIC’s findings, the growth was attributed mainly to the bullish sales of foundries. Their sales contributed mainly from smartphone application ICs and HPC (High Performance Computing) ICs, as well as notebook PC ICs.
TSMC started to adopt 5nm process into its fabrication process in the third quarter of 2020, marking a new chapter for 5nm chips. TSMC’s 5nm process chips in the fourth quarter of 2020 accounted for 20%, up from merely 8% in the third quarter.