TSMC is preparing to increase prices for its products due to trade restrictions from the United States

The US presidential administration Donald Trump recently introduced export duties on goods from China, and in line the growth of tariffs for other foreign goods, including chips from Taiwan. Against this background, the Taiwanese company TSMC, which is the largest contract manufacturer of chips, is preparing to increase prices for its products, planning to shift the increase in consumer costs.

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According to network sources, this year TSMC can increase prices for the most advanced silicon plates with 15 %chips. The growth of production costs and the probability of introducing export duties in the United States are the main factors underlying such a forecast. Earlier, analysts expected that the cost of silicon plates would increase by 5-10 % in 2025. The new forecast indicates that an increase in tariffs can affect the increase in costs and increasing the price of new products.

According to analysts, TSMC will increase the cost of silicon plates produced using the most advanced technologies, starting with 7 nm. Despite the fact that this is a relatively mature process, the plates released according to the process of 7 Nm are about $ 10,000 apiece. Apple, which is a priority client for TSMC, currently pays $ 18,000 for silicon plate with 3 nm chips. It is expected that, depending on the buyer, the cost of such a plate can be from $ 20,000 to $ 23,000 in 2025.

The increase in the cost of silicon plates with chips has already led to the emergence of more expensive devices with a less impressive increase in performance relative to their direct predecessors. The latest iPhone chips are not much more powerful than the versions of the past generation, and the recently released NVIDIA GeForce RTX video cards of the 50th series turned out to be one of the most disappointing generations of accelerators in recent years.

It is expected that on February 18, the American president will establish an increase in export duties in relation to new categories of goods that will affect TSMC and other companies that supply semiconductor products, aluminum, copper, etc. Trump in the United States, the increase in tariffs will push foreign companies to create production enterprises in the USA.

In the case of TSMC, the construction of the plant for the production of chips using advanced technologies will take several years. It is expected that the TSMC will begin to produce chips at the process of 4 Nm at the factory in Arizona this year, and the production of products with norms of 3 Nm and 2 Nm will begin by the end of the decade. However, these chips will still lag behind the products produced in Taiwan, since the manufacturer plans to produce chips according to the process of 1 Nm at the production capacities that will be erected in the city of Taiwan.