Both Tesla and Ford are said to be in negotiations with TSMC for additional chip capacity. The automotive industry and the demand for millions of chips for the conversion to e-cars will be a driving force for the coming years, as other semiconductor manufacturers have recognized in addition to TSMC.
Tesla has so far been considered a major customer of Samsung, among others. However, since an electric car consists of hundreds of semiconductor components, various other manufacturers are also involved. In the future, this could also increasingly be TSMC, but not only classic car chips are expected here, but also prestige projects.
One of them might be the “Project Dojo”, here the use of a process from TSMC had already been indicated. The media report from Asia explicitly speaks of production capacities of the 5 nm series, which includes the N5 and N4. But Tesla also wants to obtain advanced solutions for autonomous driving from TSMC in the future, the report goes on to say. At the beginning, these came from Samsung in a 14 nm process, but later they switched to 7 nm. The infotainment already uses chips from other foundries – AMD's older Ryzen solutions are installed here.
Ford's F-150 Lightning needs many chips< /h2>
Ford also wants to secure additional capacity to ensure the chip supply for the coming years. Their current prestige project, the electric F-150 Lightning, is selling very well in the US, and production is expected to more than triple to 2 million units a year by 2026. This product family in particular was already badly affected with the classic petrol solutions at the beginning of the crisis and some of the production had to be discontinued. This should not be repeated.
Since the automobile manufacturers themselves were partly to blame for their own misery, the urgency of the matter is underlined once again. Intermediaries and suppliers should no longer (have to) do the work in some cases, Ford is approaching TSMC directly, according to media reports. You would be in good company with that, since many manufacturers recently sought proximity to chip manufacturers, for example BMW to Globalfoundries, Stellantis uses Foxconn and in the future also Infineon.