Customized modems to power iPhone 15

Apple's iPhone 15 series to be launched in 2023 will be the first iPhones that use self-developed 5G modems manufactured by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, Taiwanese media reported.

The 5G modems will use TSMC's 5nm process, and the radio frequency integrated circuits will use the 7nm and A17 3nm processes, the report said.

The news came as the semiconductor giant reported a sixth straight quarter of record sales, buoyed by unrelenting demand from Apple and other customers for chips.

Revenue for the December quarter jumped 21 percent to NT$438.2 billion (HK$123.49 billion), compared with the NT$436.2 billion consensus estimate.

With the global semiconductor shortage showing no signs of abating, Asia's most valuable company has been running in high gear for the past year, driving the chipmaker to invest heavily in new fabs and manufacturing lines to meet customer demand.

Delivery times for chips increased by six days to about 25.8 weeks in December compared with November, says research by Susquehanna Financial Group. That lag marks the longest waiting time since the firm began tracking the data in 2017.

TSMC will grow at a faster pace this year "underpinned by price hikes, the ongoing industry upgrade cycle in high-performance computing/5G, and strong demand for cryptocurrency," Goldman Sachs analysts Bruce Lu and Evelyn Yu wrote in a note earlier this month.

The brokerage predicted the world's largest foundry's 2022 sales will grow 26 percent from a year earlier and lifted its target price for the chipmaker to NT$1,035 from NT$1,028.