TSMC 2 nm wafers tipped to get a 10% price increase

With ever-rising demand from the likes of AMD, Nvidia, Apple, Qualcomm and even Intel, who has fabs of its own, TSMC N2 is shaping up to be one of the most sought-after nodes in recent history. Unfortunately, that allows the Taiwanese chipmaker to charge a premium.

A new report from Ctee says wafer prices could surge even higher in the coming weeks. Insiders speculate this is due to rising costs of building fabs in foreign locations like the United States, the general uncertainty around global economics, and to recoup a part of the $38-42 billion it plans to spend this year on capital expenditure.

A TSMC 2 nm wafer will supposedly cost 10% more than it did earlier. Last year, its price was estimated to be around $30,000 for a 300 mm wafer, putting its new price at a whopping ~$33,000. The report adds Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang considers TSMC's cutting-edge nodes to be "very worth it".

Nvidia is said to use the N2 node for its Rubin Next architecture. It will also power AMD's Zen 6 processors, Apple's A21 and M5 chips, MediaTek's Dimensity SoC and maybe even the CPU tile on Intel's Nova Lake desktop lineup.

This will prompt many smaller scale OEMs to look at previous-gen offerings such as N3 and N4. Or, they could look at Samsung Foundry's 2 nm offerings (SF2/SF2P) like Qualcomm allegedly did. If TSMC wafer prices keep rising, Samsung Foundry could have a real chance at a comeback, provided it stabilises its yields.

Intel's 18A and 14A nodes are also shaping up to be formidable competitors thanks to their inclusion of technology like backside power delivery, something that TSMC/Samsung Foundry won't have until a couple of years.