N7P

Forecasting strong demand for its 5 nm and 7 nm class process technologies in the coming years, TSMC has announced that it's increasing its capital expenditure for 2019 by a whopping 36% - 40% over its earlier plans. The lion’s share of the additional money will be spent on the equipment that will be used to make 5 nm chips. TSMC expected its 2019 CapEx to be between $10 billion and $11 billion early this year (in line with $10.5 billion in 2018), but increased demand for chips to be made using one of its 7 nm-class nodes (N7, N7P, N7+, N6) and projected demand for 5 nm semiconductors made the foundry change its mind. At its conference call with analysts and investors this week...