[Guo Ming-Chi: Rumors of TSMC Stockpiling $1 Billion in Apple Chips Due to Memory Shortage Are False, Related Orders Are Planned in Advance] BlockBeats News, August 11 — Tianfeng International Securities analyst Guo Ming-Chi published an article stating that recent market rumors claiming TSMC has stockpiled approximately $1 billion worth of semi-finished Apple 2nm processors due to tight DRAM supply, preventing packaging completion, and citing TSMC's Q2 earnings call mentioning 'increased inventory days mainly due to 2nm ramp-up' as evidence, are inaccurate. According to his industry investigation, Apple’s hardware shipments this year have indeed been adjusted downward due to storage supply shortages. However, Apple’s processor orders with TSMC are planned at least three months in advance based on available storage supply, rather than requiring TSMC to produce large quantities of semi-finished products ahead of time. Guo Ming-Chi stated that this does not mean TSMC will not produce and hold semi-finished products in advance, but if the supply bottleneck is not on TSMC’s end, such actions would not yield significant practical benefits, and Apple would have little reason to pay extra for TSMC to operate in this manner. Therefore, he believes the scenario of 'TSMC stockpiling $1 billion worth of semi-finished processors and waiting for storage to arrive for packaging' has not occurred. He further pointed out that the increase in TSMC’s Q2 inventory days cannot be directly attributed to Apple processor semi-finished products. First, TSMC’s inventory days have typically increased during ramp-up periods for new advanced manufacturing processes. Second, TSMC’s inventory includes not only semi-finished products but also finished products, raw materials, supplies, and spare parts. Third, Apple is not the only customer for 2nm this year; other IC design companies such as AMD and MediaTek are also clients. [Original Link]