Comment by UltraSane
How much does Germany's very expensive electricity affect TSMC's costs?
How much does Germany's very expensive electricity affect TSMC's costs?
I’m assuming he means capex vs opex ? Electricity is opex.
When you get a detailed quotation from a manufacturer it's usually split into three: NRE, time (labor and machine) and material. Energy and other recurring consumables go under material.
In case of semiconductors with frontier processes (last few generations) NRE is extremely high and machine time rates are expensive. Doubling or tripling energy costs would have negligible effects.
At that size of node, semiconductor manufacturing costs are not material constrained.