Even through the ratio of mobile phone revenue is continually declining, mobile phone chips are still an important source of revenue growth for TSMC. In a July investors' conference, TSMC stated that this year mobile phone chips account for an approximately 55% proportion of revenue; whereas, in the upcoming five years this proportion will drop to 50%.

TSMC Senior Director of IoT Business Development Mr. Simon Wang yesterday at a SEMICON Taiwan international exhibition press conference explained that for TSMC's revenue base from 2015 to 2020, 55% of growth will come from smart phone-related chips, 20% of growth will come from high-performance computing chips, and IoT and automotive electronics products will account for the remaining 25% growth.

Mr. Simon Chang commented that smart phone growth can be divided into the following two directions: increased smart phone shipments and value growth for chips.

For high-performance computing, data centers, network infrastructure, cloud computing, deep learning, and artificial intelligence (AI) applications will drive demand for high-performance computing chips. For IoT and automotive electronics, the development of technologies related to processors, wireless communications, and various types of sensors will also drive demand for chips.

Regarding progress in advance manufacturing processes, Mr. Simon Chang stated that for 10nm manufacturing technological development is proceeding as anticipated, and currently designs have been completed for three clients. They will go into mass production at the end of this year and contribute to profits in the first quarter of next year. As for the development of 7nm manufacturing, they are expected to go into mass production during the first quarter of 2018.

In addition, 5nm technology is already beginning to implemented this year, and trial production is expected to be completed during the first half of 2019.

(TR/ Phil Sweeney)