TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Taiwan’s semiconductor supply chain remained a major beneficiary of growth in the global Foundry 2.0 market in the first quarter, according to research firm Counterpoint.
Foundry 2.0 broadens the traditional definition of the semiconductor foundry industry beyond wafer fabrication to include packaging, testing, photomask production, and other supporting services. TSMC Chair C.C. Wei (魏哲家) introduced the concept in 2024, reflecting the increasingly interconnected nature of the chip industry, according to CTEE.
Counterpoint said global Foundry 2.0 revenue reached NT$2.78 trillion (US$86 billion) in the first quarter, up 23% year-over-year. Taiwanese companies were among the biggest beneficiaries of the growth, as demand for AI chips expanded across wafer manufacturing, advanced packaging, and testing services, according to CTEE.
TSMC remained a key driver of Foundry 2.0 growth, with first-quarter revenue rising 41% from a year earlier, outpacing the overall market. Institutional investors said sustained AI chip demand, driven not only by Nvidia GPUs but also by cloud service providers developing their own application-specific chips, has kept advanced-process capacity utilization high.
Foundry 2.0 growth is not limited to advanced-node AI chips. As TSMC shifts part of its mature-process capacity toward more advanced technologies, other foundries are gaining opportunities to serve demand for supporting chips used in AI servers.
Many of these chips, including power management, control, and networking chips, are manufactured using mature processes, boosting demand for mature-node manufacturing and improving product mixes at UMC and Vanguard International Semiconductor Corp. The companies reported first-quarter revenue growth of 10% and 14% year-over-year, respectively.
AI-driven growth is also extending into semiconductor packaging and testing. ASE Technology Holding Co. reported first-quarter revenue growth of 18% year-over-year, reflecting the expansion of AI opportunities beyond chip manufacturing.
