在往期的集微訪談欄目中，愛(ài)集微有幸采訪了Future Horizon創(chuàng)始人兼首席執(zhí)行官M(fèi)alcolm Penn。集微訪談就關(guān)于半導(dǎo)體市場(chǎng)周期、市場(chǎng)變化邏輯、對(duì)2023、2024年市場(chǎng)行情預(yù)測(cè)等一系列問(wèn)題，收到了十分有啟發(fā)的答復(fù)。

問(wèn)：那么與其他咨詢(xún)機(jī)構(gòu)相比，你們對(duì)2023年半導(dǎo)體市場(chǎng)營(yíng)收的預(yù)測(cè)是最悲觀的，那么市場(chǎng)中哪些因素讓你們做出這樣的預(yù)測(cè)呢？而且，為什么各機(jī)構(gòu)的預(yù)測(cè)存在如此巨大的差異？

答：我認(rèn)為2021年和2022年市場(chǎng)出現(xiàn)短缺的根本原因是需求與產(chǎn)能不匹配。事實(shí)上，這就是造成供不應(yīng)求或供過(guò)于求的原因，無(wú)法平衡供需是因?yàn)榻回洉r(shí)間過(guò)長(zhǎng)，在工廠制造晶圓需要時(shí)間，通常需要4個(gè)月或者甚至6個(gè)月，這取決于各方的復(fù)雜程度，即使非常簡(jiǎn)單的晶圓也需要3個(gè)月的制造周期。

因此等待交貨需要很長(zhǎng)時(shí)間，可能需要3個(gè)月、4個(gè)月、5個(gè)月甚至6個(gè)月，前提是擁有足夠的產(chǎn)能。如果沒(méi)有產(chǎn)能，那么建造新設(shè)施至少需要一年的時(shí)間。如果沒(méi)有工廠，那么則需要兩年的時(shí)間。因此，如果沒(méi)有提前下訂單，那么你可能需要等待2或3年才能獲得所需零件。

需求不會(huì)消失，事實(shí)上需求只會(huì)越來(lái)越強(qiáng)烈，因?yàn)槿藗兺ǔ?huì)超額訂購(gòu)，即訂購(gòu)量大于實(shí)際需求量。由于交貨時(shí)間太長(zhǎng)，人們會(huì)加倍訂購(gòu)量，工廠因此就必須要保持生產(chǎn)線的運(yùn)行，因此很難平衡供需。

在整個(gè)行業(yè)歷史上，我們沒(méi)有完全做到過(guò)供需平衡，因?yàn)槲覀儠?huì)遇到需求突然激增的時(shí)期，比如在2021年疫情封控期間，我們不能外出，只能在家遠(yuǎn)程辦公，我們不得不購(gòu)買(mǎi)計(jì)算機(jī)、電視、娛樂(lè)系統(tǒng)等設(shè)備，這導(dǎo)致需求劇增，而行業(yè)無(wú)法應(yīng)對(duì)這種情況，所以立即陷入了供不應(yīng)求的局面。

現(xiàn)在則恰恰相反，出現(xiàn)了供過(guò)于求的局面，當(dāng)產(chǎn)能突然增加時(shí)，所有的產(chǎn)品都開(kāi)始上線，然而顧客卻突然想到，“等等，我已經(jīng)拿到了自己需要的所有零件，但我卻超額訂購(gòu)了”，于是他們開(kāi)始削減訂單，并消耗自己的庫(kù)存，因此客戶(hù)不再有購(gòu)買(mǎi)需求，因?yàn)樗麄円呀?jīng)在一年前買(mǎi)過(guò)了。這就意味著需求突然消失，從而自動(dòng)導(dǎo)致了產(chǎn)能過(guò)剩，因?yàn)楝F(xiàn)在是有產(chǎn)能但無(wú)需求。

突然之間，工廠會(huì)變得空蕩蕩，近乎空無(wú)一物，為了填補(bǔ)工廠的空缺，人們要做的第一件事就是降低價(jià)格，就會(huì)出現(xiàn)需求下降、平均價(jià)格下降的情況，兩者將加速收入下降。這就是為什么總會(huì)出現(xiàn)急劇增長(zhǎng)和急劇下降的情況。簡(jiǎn)單地說(shuō)，這是市場(chǎng)周期調(diào)整的結(jié)果，這種周期性調(diào)整體現(xiàn)在曲線上通常十分陡峭，從而會(huì)出現(xiàn)兩位數(shù)的劇增和兩位數(shù)驟降的現(xiàn)象。

我認(rèn)為正是這種信念和對(duì)此信念的堅(jiān)定才讓我們與眾不同，相比之下其他人可能沒(méi)有我們這么勇敢，他們會(huì)試圖減少負(fù)面消息帶來(lái)的影響，來(lái)說(shuō)服自己這只是輕微的或適度的，不會(huì)持續(xù)很長(zhǎng)時(shí)間。但事實(shí)上，這種做法并不能解決問(wèn)題，因?yàn)樯a(chǎn)周期很長(zhǎng)，交付時(shí)間無(wú)法縮短。

事實(shí)是這是行業(yè)基因的一部分，也是行業(yè)運(yùn)作方式的一部分。我們敢于公開(kāi)說(shuō)出自己的想法，這可能是其他人沒(méi)有的勇氣。我們很幸運(yùn)，擁有獨(dú)立自主的地位，因此無(wú)需向老板交代，客戶(hù)就是我們的老板，我們可以向客戶(hù)解釋我們?yōu)槭裁从羞@樣的看法，他們可以選擇認(rèn)同或者不認(rèn)同。

但至少我們能夠堅(jiān)定自己的立場(chǎng)，我們不必回答董事會(huì)、投資者和股東的問(wèn)題，不必考慮這些事情。我們可以直言不諱地表達(dá)對(duì)行業(yè)的看法、觀察到的情況以及得出結(jié)論的原因。

現(xiàn)在，你可以自行評(píng)判我們的觀點(diǎn)是正確的、悲觀的還是樂(lè)觀的。我們會(huì)告訴你原因和事實(shí)，并解釋我們得出這個(gè)結(jié)論的原因。我們非常有把握，因?yàn)槲覀儾](méi)有使用過(guò)去17年或50年的歷史數(shù)據(jù)，也沒(méi)有使用以前的衰退和上漲情況來(lái)證明為什么這次會(huì)不一樣？什么樣的因素使得這次與以往不同？

問(wèn)：盡管您表示現(xiàn)在繪制2024年的增長(zhǎng)數(shù)據(jù)還為時(shí)過(guò)早，那么您能否根據(jù)當(dāng)前的市場(chǎng)情況給出一個(gè)粗略的估計(jì)？

答：是的，我認(rèn)為如果一切順利，按照預(yù)期進(jìn)行，明年的增長(zhǎng)率應(yīng)該會(huì)保持在個(gè)位數(shù)的低水平。因此，如果我必須猜測(cè)，我認(rèn)為第一年復(fù)蘇的典型增長(zhǎng)率大約在4%到6%之間，第二年則會(huì)有較強(qiáng)的增長(zhǎng)，可能進(jìn)入兩位數(shù)的低水平范圍。

這將是復(fù)蘇曲線的正常形狀，在今年9月的預(yù)測(cè)中，我們會(huì)更清楚地了解到確切的數(shù)字。那時(shí)我們將做出堅(jiān)定的承諾，但我們認(rèn)為這個(gè)數(shù)字是……但是，我希望此時(shí)的增長(zhǎng)率應(yīng)該在個(gè)位數(shù)的低范圍內(nèi)。當(dāng)然，如果經(jīng)濟(jì)在下半年崩潰，那將會(huì)稍微推遲一些，因?yàn)槲覀冞€不確定今年會(huì)如何發(fā)展，但今年的發(fā)展方式將影響未來(lái)的數(shù)字走向。

其中的實(shí)際動(dòng)態(tài)不會(huì)改變，仍將呈現(xiàn)逐步重建庫(kù)存、重新思考供應(yīng)鏈、逐步減少過(guò)剩產(chǎn)能、平均銷(xiāo)售價(jià)格緩慢上漲等的漸進(jìn)過(guò)程，所有這些都是一步一步緩慢積累起來(lái)，從而增加出貨量，所以，問(wèn)題只是在于這個(gè)過(guò)程發(fā)生的速度是快還是慢。

我們認(rèn)為，這個(gè)過(guò)程會(huì)以中等正常的速度發(fā)生，增長(zhǎng)率可能是4%到6%，或許是8%，但我對(duì)8%表示懷疑，但肯定是4%到6%之間的范圍。因此，我期望預(yù)測(cè)的三種情況將在6%之間，最壞情況下為4%，而在牛市即非常樂(lè)觀的情況下可能達(dá)到10%。

問(wèn)：您已經(jīng)經(jīng)歷過(guò) 15、16 或 17 次行業(yè)嚴(yán)重衰退。那么您如何看待這一次的低迷呢？就像一個(gè)問(wèn)題，你知道，這對(duì)未來(lái)市場(chǎng)有何影響？

答：是的，正如我之前提到的，市場(chǎng)衰退總是由供需不匹配引起的。一旦出現(xiàn)產(chǎn)能過(guò)剩的情況，當(dāng)你從產(chǎn)能過(guò)剩轉(zhuǎn)變?yōu)楫a(chǎn)能不足，或者從產(chǎn)能不足轉(zhuǎn)變?yōu)楫a(chǎn)能過(guò)剩時(shí)，我向客戶(hù)運(yùn)輸?shù)呢浳飻?shù)量總會(huì)突然發(fā)生變化，這并不是需求發(fā)生了變化，因?yàn)槲覀兯\(yùn)輸?shù)呢浳锖托枨笫莾苫厥隆?/p>

其中還要加上庫(kù)存量增加或減少帶來(lái)的影響，因?yàn)閹?kù)存調(diào)整發(fā)生在供需之間，實(shí)際需求并沒(méi)有變，但購(gòu)買(mǎi)量和訂購(gòu)量將會(huì)截然不同。庫(kù)存調(diào)整是實(shí)際需求量加上額外的庫(kù)存量，以保證供應(yīng)鏈正常運(yùn)作，或者因?yàn)閹?kù)存太多而縮減庫(kù)存量。

我認(rèn)為這種情況總會(huì)發(fā)生，這是每個(gè)周期的典型特征。而這個(gè)周期和以往的18個(gè)周期沒(méi)有什么不同，直到行業(yè)能夠更好地平衡供需，這是一個(gè)相當(dāng)復(fù)雜的問(wèn)題。我們無(wú)法預(yù)測(cè)這在何時(shí)或如何發(fā)生，因?yàn)檫@與行業(yè)的運(yùn)作方式相反。

因此，我認(rèn)為情況都是一樣的，市場(chǎng)衰退總是由庫(kù)存清算、價(jià)格下跌等因素所驅(qū)動(dòng)，隨著清算庫(kù)存，人們需要購(gòu)買(mǎi)更多的貨物，從而推動(dòng)需求重新增長(zhǎng)，工廠再次充滿(mǎn)活力。

與此同時(shí)，由于產(chǎn)能過(guò)剩，你停止了投資，這將啟動(dòng)下一個(gè)周期。因此，我認(rèn)為情況總是有微妙的不同，不是所有產(chǎn)品的反應(yīng)速度都一樣。比如，存儲(chǔ)器總是反應(yīng)最快，隨后是微處理器、邏輯電路，而模擬電路總是在周期中最后一個(gè)作出反應(yīng)。

同樣，存儲(chǔ)器總是第一個(gè)恢復(fù)的，然后是微處理器、邏輯電路，最后才是模擬電路，并不是所有的行業(yè)都是不同的，有些行業(yè)在反應(yīng)速度方面與其他行業(yè)相似。因?yàn)槟銜?huì)發(fā)現(xiàn)一些行業(yè)能夠更快地做出反應(yīng)，例如個(gè)人電腦和消費(fèi)品行業(yè)。而汽車(chē)行業(yè)則需要更長(zhǎng)的供應(yīng)周期，因此反應(yīng)速度較慢。

我認(rèn)為每個(gè)行業(yè)都是不同的，每個(gè)產(chǎn)品也都是不同的，但它們都遵循著同樣的節(jié)奏，共同前行，只有微小的時(shí)間差異會(huì)真正影響整體情況。

問(wèn)：那么在這次經(jīng)濟(jì)衰退的背景下，您有什么話(huà)想對(duì)投資者和行業(yè)上下游企業(yè)說(shuō)呢？

答：是的，我認(rèn)為真正的信息是要從歷史中吸取教訓(xùn)，因?yàn)闅v史是預(yù)測(cè)未來(lái)行為的可靠指標(biāo)。但總的來(lái)說(shuō)，世界并不擅長(zhǎng)從歷史中吸取教訓(xùn)。我們總想著這一次會(huì)有所不同，總是相信會(huì)出現(xiàn)這種情況是有真正原因的。

但實(shí)際上，這一次確實(shí)有所不同，因?yàn)樗裱匀坏乃季S過(guò)程和動(dòng)態(tài)變化，除非你改變了這些動(dòng)態(tài)，否則結(jié)果不會(huì)改變。如果想要不同的結(jié)果，就必須采取不同的行動(dòng)。

我們的行為方式與過(guò)去完全一樣，因此，我認(rèn)為我要對(duì)客戶(hù)、投資者和整個(gè)產(chǎn)業(yè)鏈中的所有人強(qiáng)調(diào)一件重要的事情，那就是要關(guān)注自然現(xiàn)象，不要過(guò)于復(fù)雜，也不要過(guò)度思考，要觀察實(shí)際發(fā)生了什么事情，了解我們?cè)谥芷谥刑幱谑裁次恢?？回顧以前發(fā)生了什么？那將如何影響未來(lái)發(fā)生的發(fā)展趨勢(shì)？

在觀察這些因素時(shí)，要牢記這些因素，并尋找這次與之前的差異、變化，以及它如何微妙地不同于以前的情況？但在你腦海中已經(jīng)有了潛在的主題，所以你真正想知道的是這一次它如何微妙地解決問(wèn)題。但正如我們所看到的，這次下降與以前的經(jīng)濟(jì)衰退一樣，因此它幾乎不可能有所不同。

我們目前連續(xù)三個(gè)季度處于調(diào)整期，與過(guò)去17次衰退中的每次表現(xiàn)都完全相同。因此，復(fù)蘇很可能也會(huì)采取完全相同的方式，因?yàn)槲覀冏罱K必須清算庫(kù)存。

因此我們必須購(gòu)買(mǎi)更多的零件，不再依賴(lài)庫(kù)存，而是依靠我們的訂購(gòu)量，這將自動(dòng)增加訂單量，防止價(jià)格下跌，因?yàn)樾枨笸蝗辉黾恿恕Ｔ谶@種情況下，價(jià)格將停止下跌，甚至可能開(kāi)始上漲。

如果這種情況發(fā)生，你就會(huì)進(jìn)入一個(gè)良性循環(huán)，并最終吸收所有過(guò)剩產(chǎn)能。那時(shí)候，你可能會(huì)突然發(fā)現(xiàn)，“我沒(méi)有足夠的產(chǎn)能，交貨需要耗時(shí)2年”。所以，在我們學(xué)會(huì)根據(jù)自身需求建立產(chǎn)能之前，永遠(yuǎn)無(wú)法緩解供需之間的不平衡。

我們?cè)?jīng)這樣做，但現(xiàn)在不再采用這種方式，因?yàn)槿藗冐?fù)擔(dān)不起建造昂貴的工廠，也不知道要把產(chǎn)出賣(mài)給誰(shuí)。而客戶(hù)不愿意承諾未來(lái)購(gòu)買(mǎi)產(chǎn)出，比如說(shuō)兩年后保證購(gòu)買(mǎi)，他們并不了解未來(lái)情況，所以這是一個(gè)無(wú)解的方程式。

問(wèn)：您已經(jīng)預(yù)測(cè) 1 月和 3 月市場(chǎng)收入將下降 22%。然而，我們也注意到您在 5 月份小幅回撤了 2%。第一季度的哪些因素促使您做出這一決定？

答：說(shuō)實(shí)話(huà)，我們其實(shí)并沒(méi)有修改我們的預(yù)測(cè)。我們認(rèn)為原始數(shù)字本身就可以準(zhǔn)確地給出未來(lái)趨勢(shì)的框架。我們總是會(huì)先做出一個(gè)預(yù)測(cè)，即我們認(rèn)為未來(lái)會(huì)發(fā)生的事情，然后再根據(jù)當(dāng)年實(shí)際情況評(píng)估預(yù)測(cè)的準(zhǔn)確性。如果出現(xiàn)了真正戲劇性的事情，我們會(huì)修改預(yù)測(cè)嗎？

因?yàn)槲覀冋J(rèn)為應(yīng)該根據(jù)最初做出的承諾來(lái)評(píng)估我們的表現(xiàn)，而不是不斷更改預(yù)測(cè)來(lái)獲得正確的數(shù)字，如果每個(gè)月都不斷調(diào)整數(shù)字，那么任何人都可以得到正確的數(shù)值，這是不可取的，我們堅(jiān)信我們的客戶(hù)是公正的，可以看到這一點(diǎn)。

因此當(dāng)我們做出了22%的預(yù)測(cè)時(shí)，其實(shí)我們?cè)?8個(gè)月前就已做出這個(gè)預(yù)測(cè)，有趣的是，當(dāng)時(shí)我們正在預(yù)測(cè)和研究衰退對(duì)供需平衡的影響，并期待該行業(yè)采取一些行動(dòng)。正如你所說(shuō)，我們?cè)?月和3月再次確認(rèn)了這個(gè)預(yù)測(cè)，并認(rèn)為這個(gè)數(shù)字仍然是可靠的。

當(dāng)時(shí)真正的區(qū)別在于，它是否會(huì)變成負(fù)數(shù)？很多人當(dāng)時(shí)認(rèn)為不會(huì)變成負(fù)數(shù)?，F(xiàn)在，人們普遍認(rèn)為會(huì)變成負(fù)數(shù)，但只有5%或6%的人這么認(rèn)為。我們?nèi)匀徽J(rèn)為將出現(xiàn)雙位數(shù)負(fù)增長(zhǎng)的情況，這完全取決于最后的計(jì)算結(jié)果。這是一個(gè)數(shù)學(xué)問(wèn)題，我們最初預(yù)測(cè)第一季度會(huì)萎縮10%，但就范圍而言，我們預(yù)計(jì)可能會(huì)萎縮-8%至-12.5%。

正如它發(fā)生的那樣，目前第一季度表現(xiàn)稍微強(qiáng)勁一些，第一季度的下降幅度只有-8.2%，更接近我們預(yù)測(cè)的-8%，我們認(rèn)為這是最好的結(jié)果，第一季度的情況傾向于我們之前預(yù)測(cè)范圍內(nèi)偏積極的一面。然后我們預(yù)測(cè)第二季度會(huì)是-6%，但目前還不確定，因?yàn)槿藗儗?duì)第二季度的情況看法不一。真正讓我擔(dān)心的事情以及我們沒(méi)有改變預(yù)測(cè)的原因是臺(tái)積電的預(yù)測(cè)，臺(tái)積電預(yù)計(jì)銷(xiāo)售額下降的范圍在9%至4%之間，這是一個(gè)很大的范圍。

-4%至-9%的下降幅度是一個(gè)巨相當(dāng)大的范圍，這說(shuō)明臺(tái)積電面臨的情況不確定，并且臺(tái)積電可以視為整個(gè)行業(yè)的預(yù)警。我們確信我們正在走向市場(chǎng)衰退的底部，該衰退始于去年6月，所以我們已經(jīng)度過(guò)了兩個(gè)季度、三個(gè)季度。

通常情況下衰退會(huì)持續(xù)四個(gè)季度，也就是一整年，所以我們現(xiàn)在正處于第四個(gè)季度。我們預(yù)計(jì)整個(gè)情況會(huì)得到控制，開(kāi)始重新調(diào)整并觸底反彈，但實(shí)際上連續(xù)下滑的最終結(jié)果會(huì)是什么？會(huì)是-2%、-6%還是-8%呢？我們暫時(shí)無(wú)法確定。因此，根據(jù)當(dāng)前的情況，我們認(rèn)為可能會(huì)在-7%這個(gè)數(shù)量級(jí)的范圍內(nèi)。

如果情況的確如此，那么我們的預(yù)測(cè)實(shí)際上是-5%。因此，如果把這種情況應(yīng)用到全年，可能會(huì)達(dá)到-20%，與我們之前預(yù)測(cè)的-22%相比略有偏差。但我們向整個(gè)行業(yè)傳達(dá)的信息是，今年的情況不會(huì)降至個(gè)位數(shù)，我們不會(huì)讓今年的走勢(shì)下滑到很低的負(fù)數(shù)，比如-5%、-6%甚至-10%。因?yàn)橐_(dá)到這么低的水平，市場(chǎng)在第二季度就必須開(kāi)始復(fù)蘇，但這是不可能發(fā)生的，市場(chǎng)必須在第二季度開(kāi)始積極轉(zhuǎn)變，才有可能實(shí)現(xiàn)數(shù)字在個(gè)位數(shù)區(qū)間內(nèi)。

因此，我們非常確信，這種情況不會(huì)發(fā)生，因?yàn)槿绻娴某霈F(xiàn)了這種情況，其實(shí)現(xiàn)在已經(jīng)快到6月份了，接近第二季度末了，但沒(méi)有人站出來(lái)說(shuō)，嘿，市場(chǎng)已經(jīng)轉(zhuǎn)好，一切都好起來(lái)了，所有貨物都超額配送了，這是一件很棒的事情，沒(méi)有人這樣說(shuō)。因此，第二季度肯定不會(huì)成為正數(shù)。而如果第二季度不是正數(shù)，那么整個(gè)年度就不可能是取得個(gè)位數(shù)的負(fù)數(shù)。

因此，這不僅僅是一個(gè)數(shù)字。數(shù)字雖然非常明顯，但數(shù)字背后傳達(dá)的信息才是真正重要的，即發(fā)生了什么事情？我們目前處于周期的哪個(gè)階段？我們期望這種情況發(fā)展成什么樣？我們預(yù)計(jì)這種情況在一年中會(huì)如何發(fā)展？在過(guò)去的18個(gè)月里，這種情況根本沒(méi)有發(fā)生任何改變。

實(shí)際上，我們所說(shuō)的將要發(fā)生的事情正在發(fā)生，可能是一天、一周或是一個(gè)月，時(shí)間的長(zhǎng)短取決于各種動(dòng)態(tài)因素。然而，這場(chǎng)衰退的本質(zhì)以及隨后的復(fù)蘇的本質(zhì)，正在遵循著眾所周知的規(guī)律和成熟的行業(yè)模式。

問(wèn)：所以你已經(jīng)表示今年第一季度更接近你之前預(yù)測(cè)的牛市。最糟糕的 -26% 不太可能，現(xiàn)在不太可能，所以你過(guò)去，你仍然強(qiáng)調(diào)實(shí)質(zhì)上沒(méi)有任何真正改變，這部分是什么意思呢？為什么你認(rèn)為它沒(méi)有真正改變？

答：是的，該行業(yè)的內(nèi)在動(dòng)態(tài)實(shí)際上并未發(fā)生變化。我們的全面預(yù)測(cè)是基于經(jīng)濟(jì)在整個(gè)時(shí)間段內(nèi)不會(huì)惡化，只是通過(guò)周期性的自然進(jìn)展來(lái)推動(dòng)的。我們對(duì)未來(lái)存在一些不確定性，所以我們將預(yù)測(cè)已略微調(diào)整為消極的狀態(tài)。

事實(shí)上，我們高度關(guān)注全球應(yīng)對(duì)通貨膨脹而采取的措施導(dǎo)致利率上升，以及這可能對(duì)消費(fèi)者支出能力甚至企業(yè)產(chǎn)生影響的問(wèn)題，因?yàn)樗麄冋谂浹a(bǔ)日益增長(zhǎng)的利息支出和成本，同時(shí)面臨可支配收入的減少。

在周期的末端，我們預(yù)測(cè)的-26%實(shí)際上是基于這樣一個(gè)事實(shí)，即我們擔(dān)心全球可能在今年下半年真正進(jìn)入衰退。這就是為什么我們 會(huì)說(shuō)，如果全球經(jīng)濟(jì)在今年下半年陷入衰退，那么預(yù)測(cè)就會(huì)接近-26%。如果全球沒(méi)有陷入衰退，一切都非常順利，情況非常樂(lè)觀，那么預(yù)測(cè)范圍在-18%之間。

我認(rèn)為差異實(shí)際上就在于這個(gè)未知因素，即在此期間經(jīng)濟(jì)會(huì)如何反應(yīng)？我們認(rèn)為，供求和其他行業(yè)掌握的問(wèn)題將推動(dòng)經(jīng)濟(jì)達(dá)到中間范圍-22%。但如果經(jīng)濟(jì)狀況稍強(qiáng)，那么預(yù)測(cè)將略向左移；如果經(jīng)濟(jì)狀況較弱，并且在今年下半年進(jìn)入衰退，那么預(yù)測(cè)將趨向最糟糕的-26%。

問(wèn)：所以從全球經(jīng)濟(jì)的角度來(lái)看，現(xiàn)在最大的區(qū)別是今年下半年將會(huì)發(fā)生什么？

答：目前還無(wú)法確定，我的意思是，是否存在問(wèn)題取決于你與誰(shuí)溝通。到目前為止，美國(guó)相對(duì)來(lái)說(shuō)沒(méi)有受到太大的影響，需求依然強(qiáng)勁。但另一方面，仍然存在很多不確定性。

我們經(jīng)歷過(guò)幾次小規(guī)模的銀行危機(jī)，利率和高通脹的問(wèn)題仍然存在，失業(yè)率太低，所以他們?cè)噲D調(diào)節(jié)通貨膨脹的所有舉措目前都沒(méi)有奏效，如果他們不得不加速解決使世界陷入衰退的不利因素，全球范圍內(nèi)將產(chǎn)生一定的連鎖效應(yīng)。

因此，現(xiàn)在仍非常不清楚，經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)家也無(wú)法確定，這仍是一種風(fēng)險(xiǎn)。這不是可能性，而是需要引起關(guān)注的風(fēng)險(xiǎn)。因此，針對(duì)這個(gè)問(wèn)題，我們要向投資者傳遞的信息是：必須密切關(guān)注經(jīng)濟(jì)風(fēng)險(xiǎn)，必須關(guān)注產(chǎn)能風(fēng)險(xiǎn)，因?yàn)槲覀內(nèi)栽诮ㄔO(shè)產(chǎn)能，即使我們不需要它，但我們并沒(méi)有停止產(chǎn)能。

你必須考慮這兩個(gè)因素，因?yàn)樗鼈儗⑹顷P(guān)鍵決定因素。我們建立的產(chǎn)能越多，就需要更長(zhǎng)的時(shí)間來(lái)吸收。經(jīng)濟(jì)狀況越糟糕，對(duì)需求的壓制力就越大。因此，這兩個(gè)真正未知的變量是方程中的關(guān)鍵，而其他事情正在按計(jì)劃進(jìn)行。

我們正在清算庫(kù)存，庫(kù)存正在下降，單位出貨量遠(yuǎn)低于自行修復(fù)的單位需求水平。價(jià)格已經(jīng)觸底，并且不再大幅下跌，因此出現(xiàn)了底部反彈的跡象。因此，所有這些事情都在按照預(yù)期的方式進(jìn)行，但我們不知道需求將會(huì)受到怎樣的影響，是否會(huì)因?yàn)榻衲晗掳肽甑慕?jīng)濟(jì)衰退而受到?jīng)_擊。

問(wèn)：還有像現(xiàn)在的大環(huán)境，所以您之前提到，2022年半導(dǎo)體行業(yè)最不利的因素就是產(chǎn)能的同步增加和市場(chǎng)需求的疲軟。您認(rèn)為2023年第一季度的復(fù)蘇是否預(yù)示著市場(chǎng)需求的大幅復(fù)蘇？還是預(yù)示著大環(huán)境發(fā)生了一些變化？

答：我認(rèn)為第一季度并沒(méi)有我們想象的那么糟糕，這可能是因?yàn)閹?kù)存清算花費(fèi)的時(shí)間比以往更長(zhǎng)。

出現(xiàn)這種情況的一個(gè)原因是由于這次情況與以往有一些結(jié)構(gòu)性的差別。在經(jīng)濟(jì)繁榮時(shí)期，我們與客戶(hù)簽訂了很多長(zhǎng)期價(jià)格和供應(yīng)協(xié)議，許多公司試圖堅(jiān)持這些協(xié)議，當(dāng)允許公司減少貨運(yùn)量并推遲不可避免的事情時(shí)，這種做法就被排除了，最終這些協(xié)議會(huì)被取消，只是時(shí)間問(wèn)題而已，所以客戶(hù)堅(jiān)持價(jià)格或單位運(yùn)輸協(xié)議，從某種意義上來(lái)說(shuō)是自己給自己設(shè)的目標(biāo)， 因?yàn)樗麄兏静恍枰呀?jīng)購(gòu)買(mǎi)過(guò)的零部件。

因此，在某個(gè)時(shí)間點(diǎn)，客戶(hù)不會(huì)再購(gòu)買(mǎi)這些零部件。這只是把購(gòu)買(mǎi)時(shí)間向后推遲了一點(diǎn)，因此相比于正常情況，單位需求量實(shí)際上需要更長(zhǎng)的時(shí)間才能降到趨勢(shì)線以下。這有助于保持之后的單位貨運(yùn)量，有助于保持價(jià)值穩(wěn)定，但在某種程度上這有點(diǎn)不真實(shí)。這種情況在第二季度開(kāi)始發(fā)生，第二季度開(kāi)始急劇下降。

在這方面，我認(rèn)為沒(méi)有什么真正的變化，使得整個(gè)情況與之前有任何真正的不同，唯一的原因就是我們簽訂了這些長(zhǎng)期價(jià)格協(xié)議，所以導(dǎo)致了這種情況的發(fā)生。我認(rèn)為許多領(lǐng)域，如邏輯電路，現(xiàn)在都是用水做成的，都是片上系統(tǒng)類(lèi)型的零件，這些都有很長(zhǎng)的工廠交貨時(shí)間，在晶圓工廠的時(shí)間至少需要4個(gè)月，甚至可能長(zhǎng)達(dá)6個(gè)月。

這意味著即使在去年6月或7月你想要減少產(chǎn)量，實(shí)際上也做不到，因?yàn)楣S已經(jīng)滿(mǎn)載了你的零部件，你只能選擇把它們報(bào)廢扔掉，或繼續(xù)生產(chǎn)直到用完，而這可能要等到12月或1月。

因此，這種情況延遲了單位庫(kù)存調(diào)整的時(shí)間點(diǎn)，這是一種結(jié)構(gòu)性差異，與上一次略有不同，因?yàn)楝F(xiàn)在更多是定制零部件，所以，你的工廠已經(jīng)承諾生產(chǎn)這些零部件。如果將其報(bào)廢，那么就需要有人支付這些廢料的費(fèi)用，否則你只能繼續(xù)生產(chǎn)，并在以后再進(jìn)行調(diào)整。

問(wèn)：關(guān)于英國(guó)芯片法案。英國(guó)政府投資 10 億英鎊的半導(dǎo)體行業(yè)支持計(jì)劃,那么您的理解？

答：但我認(rèn)為他們并沒(méi)有真正稱(chēng)之為芯片法案，因?yàn)檫@會(huì)讓它進(jìn)入與中國(guó)、美國(guó)和韓國(guó)等世界其他國(guó)家類(lèi)似的情況。

如果你把英國(guó)投入的10億美元與中國(guó)3年、美國(guó)5年、歐盟十年的內(nèi)500億美元相比，那顯然是微不足道的，但我認(rèn)為這就像蘋(píng)果和橘子無(wú)法進(jìn)行比較一樣。你需要知道的是英國(guó)在很長(zhǎng)一段時(shí)間內(nèi)實(shí)際上缺乏其高科技企業(yè)的戰(zhàn)略，包括半導(dǎo)體。

在很長(zhǎng)一段時(shí)間內(nèi)，我指的是30年左右，英國(guó)在一定程度上支持其研究和開(kāi)發(fā)工作，英國(guó)對(duì)研究提供了很多支持，而在那之后，會(huì)涌現(xiàn)出大量的世界級(jí)技術(shù)，其中很多被世界一流的企業(yè)購(gòu)買(mǎi)，因?yàn)檫@些技術(shù)非常優(yōu)秀。

我認(rèn)為他們想要通過(guò)這個(gè)10億英鎊的投資，試圖協(xié)調(diào)一下我們?cè)谘芯糠矫孀隽耸裁?？我們能不能提高其水平，將其轉(zhuǎn)化為一個(gè)生產(chǎn)線示范項(xiàng)目，使它在價(jià)值鏈上向上提升一個(gè)級(jí)別，并要求用戶(hù)決定應(yīng)該做什么？我們應(yīng)該大批量生產(chǎn)嗎？有必要在這里建立這樣的工廠嗎？

與臺(tái)積電或三星等企業(yè)競(jìng)爭(zhēng)并不是最終目的，而是要展開(kāi)對(duì)未來(lái)前沿產(chǎn)品的競(jìng)爭(zhēng)，因?yàn)橛?guó)正在進(jìn)行這方面的研究，如果想要商業(yè)化，需要考慮到5到10年后的發(fā)展方向。這10億英鎊對(duì)投資旨在支持我們正在進(jìn)行的研究，并幫助制定未來(lái)5到10年的發(fā)展戰(zhàn)略，明確我們現(xiàn)在所處的位置、我們正在做什么以及為什么這么做。

但如果英國(guó)在未來(lái)10年內(nèi)投入500億英鎊用于并行的芯片計(jì)劃，那將是自取滅亡，這是瘋狂的，因?yàn)橛?guó)不知道該怎么做。因此，第一步是找出我們擅長(zhǎng)什么，這就是我們正在做的事情。我們能夠?qū)⑵涮嵘羶r(jià)值鏈的更高端嗎？而目前，英國(guó)在芯片生產(chǎn)方面的規(guī)模非常小，我認(rèn)為可能不到全球總產(chǎn)量的1％。因此，還有很長(zhǎng)的一段路要走，但試圖與臺(tái)積電或三星或SK海力士等企業(yè)競(jìng)爭(zhēng)是愚蠢的。

但是當(dāng)您在看下一代技術(shù)時(shí)，沒(méi)有人占據(jù)優(yōu)勢(shì)時(shí)，就沒(méi)有贏家，為什么不呢？我的意思是，英國(guó)和其他任何國(guó)家一樣有能力成為未來(lái)技術(shù)的供應(yīng)商。并且要記住的是，30年前中國(guó)臺(tái)灣還只是一個(gè)小島，當(dāng)時(shí)臺(tái)積電成立時(shí)并沒(méi)有電子工業(yè)和半導(dǎo)體工業(yè)，并且它比英國(guó)更小，因此我們是一個(gè)小島并不意味著不能在某個(gè)領(lǐng)域成為第一名。

但問(wèn)題是，我們不知道哪個(gè)領(lǐng)域?qū)⒊蔀槲磥?lái)的關(guān)鍵？這不是今天的產(chǎn)品，而是明天的產(chǎn)品。這就是為什么研發(fā)投資如此重要的原因。但現(xiàn)在的區(qū)別在于，研發(fā)具有目的性，我們可以用它做些什么？將其發(fā)展成為世界一流技術(shù)的潛力是什么？

我認(rèn)為這更多是對(duì)未來(lái)的一種投資，是踏上未來(lái)道路的墊腳石。目前，這可能是第一步，也可能是唯一的一步......這取決于很多事情，但它可能是唯一的一步。如果我們?cè)僖淮畏艞墸敲次覀儠?huì)回到最初的起點(diǎn)，但這也可能是邁向未來(lái)的一系列步驟中的第一步。

問(wèn)：你之前說(shuō)過(guò)，現(xiàn)在是時(shí)候開(kāi)始為下一次轉(zhuǎn)變做準(zhǔn)備，進(jìn)行反周期性投資并獲得先發(fā)優(yōu)勢(shì)。那么您能詳細(xì)說(shuō)明一下這部分嗎？

答：我認(rèn)為，管理這個(gè)周期的唯一有效方式是進(jìn)行反周期性投資?，F(xiàn)在正是建造新工廠的時(shí)候，因?yàn)閮赡旰蠊S才開(kāi)始投入使用，這正好是行業(yè)開(kāi)始感到供應(yīng)短缺的時(shí)候。屆時(shí)，你將擁有足夠的產(chǎn)能，這樣你就能獲得其他公司無(wú)法處理的所有業(yè)務(wù)，因?yàn)榈侥菚r(shí)，他們已經(jīng)沒(méi)有足夠的產(chǎn)能了。

這是管理供需周期的一種經(jīng)典方式，即在市場(chǎng)下跌時(shí)進(jìn)行投資，在市場(chǎng)上漲時(shí)停止投資，這與你的直覺(jué)相反，但應(yīng)該聽(tīng)從你的錢(qián)包的建議，因?yàn)檫@意味著當(dāng)市場(chǎng)加速增長(zhǎng)時(shí)你將擁有足夠的產(chǎn)能來(lái)滿(mǎn)足需求，而你的競(jìng)爭(zhēng)對(duì)手則需要在同一時(shí)間進(jìn)行投資才能跟上。

然而這種反周期性的投資很難實(shí)現(xiàn)，因?yàn)槟惚仨氁玫焦蓶|的允許，如果你能成功進(jìn)行這樣的投資，那么你就是贏家。像韓國(guó)的SK海力士、三星以及臺(tái)積電這樣的公司，已經(jīng)成功地從中獲益。

但實(shí)際上這很難做到，因?yàn)槟阈枰?股東負(fù)責(zé)，而他們只會(huì)問(wèn)你：“市場(chǎng)上沒(méi)有需求，為什么你要花費(fèi)這么多錢(qián)建造新工廠？”這是一個(gè)很難回答的問(wèn)題，除了說(shuō)“相信我，相信我”這句話(huà)外，你需要更強(qiáng)有力的理由才能讓他們相信，而單憑“相信我”是無(wú)法獲得100億美元來(lái)建工廠的。

以下是采訪原文（英文）：

Q:So compared with other consulting agencies, your forecast for semiconductor market revenue in 2023 was, let's say, the most pessimistic, so what factors in the market make y ou make such a prediction? And also, why is there such a huge difference between agencies when it comes to the forecast?

A:Yes, I think the difference really comes from the fact that we believe that the shortage that we experienced in 2021 and 2022 was fundamentally driven by the fact that there was a mismatch between demand and capacity. And in fact, that's always what triggers the shortages or the excesses. It is that inability to balance supply and demand, because supply is on a very, very long lead time, whether you take the amount of time, it takes to actually make the wafer in the factory, which is typically anywhere from 4 months to even 6 months, and depending on how complex the parties, and even the very simple ones take 3 months.

So you got that long queuing time of actually being able to, if someone orders something which they hadn't previously warned you about, they can't get delivery for at least 3 months, maybe 4, 5 or 6 months, and that's if you have capacity. If you haven't got capacity, then it takes at least 1 year to build a new facility. If you haven't got a building, it takes 2 years. So you know, if you haven't ordered it, you could wait 2 or 3 years before you actually get the parts.

In the meanwhile, the demand doesn't go away. In fact, he gets worse because then people start to over order. They order more than they want. They double order simply because the lead time is too long. And they have to keep their production lines going, so you can't balance supply and demand very easily.

We failed to do that completely over the history of the industry, so you're gonna get these periods whereby suddenly demand runs away with you in the case of 2021, it was because the shutdowns we all had to work from home, we couldn't go out. We all had to buy computers, we bought new televisions, new entertainment systems simply to be enable us to now work from home. And that caused spurs in demand which the industry couldn't deal with, so it immediately tipped into an undersupply situation.

Now the opposite happens like now when suddenly you build more capacity, and it all starts to come online, and then suddenly the customers think, hang on, I'm getting all the parts I needed, but I over ordered, so they cut back and they eat their inventory. And so then you don't need to buy anything because you've already bought it the year before effectively. So that means demand suddenly goes away, which automatically causes over capacity, because now you've got the capacity, and now you haven't got the demand.

Suddenly you got an empty factory or a near empty factory. And then people want to fill the factory, so the first thing they do is to actually reduce the price. So then you have a situation of falling demand, falling average price, and that doubles up together to give you a steep decline in revenue. That's why you always get these steep increases, and these very steep decreases. Simply the correction to where you are in that cycle, so I think that's... and we believe that those corrections are quite steep. And then that's why we felt that you were always gonna get a high double-digit upturn and a high double-digit downturn.

I guess it's that belief and that confidence in that belief which makes us different from other people, other people aren’t may be quite so brave as we are. And they kind of try to temper the bad news by saying it's only gonna be slight or moderate, won't last very long. But in fact, it never does because these are long lead times, and you can't shorten that lead time.

The fact remains is it's just fundamentally part of the DNA, it's part of the way the industry works. We're brave enough to say it, I guess, so maybe some of the others aren't that brave. We're lucky that we're independent, so we don't have a boss to deal with, our boss is our customers. And we can explain to them why we think this, and they can either choose to say whether it doesn't affect me or they can choose to listen.

But at least we are able to stand up. We don't have to answer to a board. We don't have to answer to investors, to shareholders. We don't have to consider those things. We can just say here is how we view the industry, here's what we see, and here's why we come to our conclusions.

Now you can be the judge whether you think we're right or pessimistic or optimistic. And we'll tell you why, and we'll tell you the facts, and we'll tell you what led us to that conclusion. Then we are rich cheeky, because we didn’t show you 17 years or 50 years of history, and show you the previous downturns and the previous upturns, to say, why is it gonna be different this time? What's different, really different this time to make it different this time around.

Q:Last but not least although you have stated that it is still very early to draw the growth figures for 2024, so could you possibly give a rough estimate based on the current market situation?

A:Yes, I mean I think the way if it rolls out, as you would expect it to, you should be looking at a low single digit growth rate number for next year. So if I had to hazard, I guess I'd say somewhere between 4 and 6 % would be a typical type of number for that first year of recovery, increasing quite strongly in the second year into low double digits type of area there.

That would be the normal shape of the recovery curve that you would expect to see and we will know better what exact shape that's going to be when we come to our forecast in September of this year, that's when we will make a firm commitment, but we see that number to be... But I would expect at this point in time here to be in that low single digit range.

Now, if the economy does collapse in the second half of the year, that will push it out slightly, it still has that caveat of we really don't know how this year will roll out, but how the year does roll out will affect the way that the mathematics projects itself forward over that period there.

The actual dynamics behind that won't change. It still will be this gradual rebuilding of inventory, the gradual rethinking of the supply chain, the gradual decrease in excess capacity, the slow increase in average selling prices, all of those things, step by step, slowly accumulate together to give you this increase in value shipment, so it's just a question of whether that happens quickly or slowly.

We believe it will happen kind of in a moderately normal way that will give you this kind of 4 to   6%, maybe 8%, but I doubt it, but certainly a range in the 4 to 6%. So I would expect to see our three scenarios being somewhere between 6%. The forecast, probably in my 4% of the worst case and maybe 10% the really bullish, optimistic case.

Q:That was really helpful, and my third question would be, you have already been through like 15, 16 or 17 critical downturns of the industry. So how would you view the downturn this time? Like a question that was, you know, and what are the implications for the future market?

A:Yeah, I think, as I mentioned earlier, the downturns are always triggered by the same thing, and that is this mismatch between supply and demand. Once you get into an overcapacity situation, then when you're transitioning from an overcapacity to an under capacity or an under capacity to an over capacity, you always get these abrupt changes in the units that we ship to the customer. Not in the demand, because what we ship and what you need is two different things.

It's plus or minus any inventory adjustment as it's happening in between there. The demand they stay the same, but what you're buying, what you're ordering is gonna be very different. It's gonna be what you need plus what extra you want to have for your inventory to keep your supply chain either safe or to cut back on your inventory, because you've got too much stock.

I think you always do get this, and that's typical of every cycle. And this cycle is no different than the 18th will be exactly the same. Until industry manages to balance supply and demand much better. That's quite a complicated issue. I don't know when or how that could actually happen, because it's contrary to the way the industry works.

So I think it is the same, and it is always driven by liquidation of inventory, falling prices. Eventually you liquidate the inventory, so you got to buy more, rebuild the demand that factories start to get full again.

In the meanwhile, you stopped investing because you got too much capacity, so you stop investing. And that starts the very next cycle to go. So I think it's always subtly different, not all products react at the same time. A memory always reacts quickly, then micro, and then logic, and then analog is always the last one to react in the cycle.

Likewise, memory is always first to recover, then micro, then logic, and then analog, and not every sector is different as well. I mean because you find that some sectors that can... the pc, the consumer sectors react much faster. Then, for example, the automotive sector, which is on a much longer, a much more slower, kind of lead time to supply.

I think every sector is different, every product is different, but they all work to the same tune, they're all marching to the same drum. It's just small timing differences that really make the overall.

Q:So also in this recession, so what do you want to say to the investors and also companies from both upstream and downstream in the industry?

A:Yeah, I mean I think the real message is learn the lessons of history. I mean history is a reliable indicator of how behavior will happen in the future. And in general, the world is bad learning the lessons from history. We always want to believe it's going to be different this time. We always believe that there's real reasons why that's going to be the case. But in reality,

it really is different this time, because it is following natural sort of thought processes and natural dynamics. Unless you're changing those dynamics, then the result will not be different. If you want a different result, you have to do something different.

We're behaving in exactly the same way as we have done in the past, so I think the main thing I would say to clients, to investors, to all of the people in the full chain is look at the natural things, don't be over complicated, don't over think it, look to see what is actually happening, where are we in the cycle? What has happened before? How is that likely to affect what's likely to happen in the future?

And I think when you do look at those things there, and you keep those in the back of your mind, all you're looking now for is differences, variances, how does it subtly different? But you got the underlying theme in your mind there, so you're really looking to see how will it subtly and resolve itself in a slightly different fashion this time now. But it's very unlikely as this downturn is showing, I mean, it is rolling out exactly as the previous ones have.

We've had three consecutive quarters now in this is adjustment and their behaving in exactly the same way as every other one of those past 17 downturns has behaved. And so, and the upturn is likely to behave in exactly the same way because eventually we will liquidate the inventory.

We will have to therefore buy more parts, because now we are not living off stock, we're living off what we're ordering, so your orders will automatically increase. That will stop the prices falling, because suddenly demand is going up. So suddenly prices will stop falling, or they may even start to increase.

And if that happens, you get into a positive spiral. And then eventually you will absorb all their excess capacity. And you will suddenly find yourselves “I haven't got enough capacity. That's a 2-year lead time”. So suddenly, you know the whole thing, until we learn to build capacity in anticipation of what we're needing, and you're never gonna be able to try to soften that forward looking of dislocation between supply and demand.

We used to do that, but now we don't, because people can't afford to build an expensive factory and not knowing who they're gonna sell the output to. But customers were reluctant to commit to that output, say, I guarantee to take that in 2 years’ time, because they don't know, so I mean you have an impossible equation to balance.

Q:Okay, great. It's always great, too. To be free to say something without the authorities out there. Also, so my next question would be, you have already made a forecast of a 22% decline in the market revenue in January and March. However, we've also noticed that you slightly put back 2% in May. What factors in the first quarter made you make this call back?

Q:Right, to be truthful, we didn't actually change our forecast. We did counsel that we thought that the original number was actually well within the framework of the accuracy that you can get in any forecast. What we do always is we make a projection what we think is going to be and why then we'll measure what we said against how that year rolls out, and only if something really dramatic happens, will we change our forecast?

Because we believe you should be measured by what you said in the beginning and not by what you keep constantly re-forecasting, because anybody can get the number right if you keep changing it every month. And that's not doing, we believe our clients are justice.

So when we made that 22% forecast, which we asked he made over 18 months ago, interestingly, we were predicting and looking at how that downturn would affect when we get to this situation of supply and demand coming into balance and what would you typically expect the industry to do? And then we reaffirmed it, as you said, in January and March, and we kind of said, yes, we believe that numbers as good as anything.

The real difference at that time was, was it even gonna be negative? I mean a lot of people were saying it wasn't even gonna be negative. Now, the general feeling is it will be negative, but only very slightly, maybe 5 or 6%, something like that. And we still believe it will be a strong double- digit negative growth. Now, it all depends on the math at the end of the day. I mean it is a mathematical situation. We forecast originally that we thought the first quarter would actually shrink by 10%. We had a range there of -8% to -12.5% in terms of what that range was likely to be.

Now, as it happened, the first quarter was slightly stronger. Then our forecast in that it was only -8.2% so that put it much closer to the -8%, which we said was the best end of the scale. The first quarter came in, if you wish, tilted towards the more positive end of our forecast range, but we then said the second quarter was gonna be -6%. And that's not clear yet, because it really you got a mixed opinion out there as to how bad the second quarter is going to be. The thing that really worried me and why we didn't change our forecast was that TSMC they are coming into the forecast that says their sales would decline by 9 anywhere from 9 to 4%, so that's a big range.

-4 to -9 is a huge range to work within. It goes to show the uncertainty that they're facing, and they're a bell whether of the industry overall, if you'd like to say, we do know that we are coming to the bottom of that decline. This decline started in June of last year, so we've had two quarters behind, the three quarters behind us.

The downturns typically last four quarters, so we're in the 4th quarter right now. We expect to see the whole thing come under control and start to readjust and bottom out by the end of this quarter here, so it's really dependent on what that sequential decline will end up being. Will it be -2%, -6%, -8%? It really... we're not sure. So at this point in time, we're saying that it's probably likely to be somewhere in the range of still a -7% type of number of that order of magnitude.

And if it is something like that, our forecast is actually saying -5%. So I think when we're looking at that there, that would take us into like a -20% for the year, it's a small deviation from -22%. But our whole message to industry, it is not gonna be single digit. You cannot get this year to be minus something minus low, -5, -6, even -10%. For it to be that low, you'd have to see the recovery in the second quarter. That isn't gonna happen. The market would have to go positive in the second quarter to get anywhere in a single digit range.

So our view very strongly is that is not gonna happen, because if it was, I mean, it's already June, almost June, so we're nearly at the end of the second quarter, and nobody is raising the flag saying, hey, the markets turn, everything's good, but all the books for over shipping, it's great. Nobody is saying that. So you cannot have a number in the second quarter which is positive. If it's not positive, then the whole year can't be a single digit negative number.

So it's really not just a number. The number is obviously very visible, but it's the message behind the number. That's really important. What is happening? Where are we in the cycle? And where do we expect this to be? And how do we expect it to roll out during the course of the year? That hasn't changed at all for the last 18 months.

And exactly what we said was going to happen is happening, whether it happens to the day or to the week or to the month, that's open to just the dynamics of it. But the actual nature of that downturn, the nature of the recovery that will follow, is following a well-trodden path and following a well-trodden well established industry pattern.

Q:That was this question, I will ask this question first. So you've already indicated that the first quarter of the year is closer to the bull market of the your previous forecast. And the worst -26% is less like, less likely now, so you used to, you still stress that nothing had really changed in substance, so I wonder what does the sense refers to, but what does a... nothing has changed in substance, so what does this part mean? And why do you think it hasn't really changed?

A:Right. The actual inherent dynamics of the industry hasn't changed. The full end of our forecast was driven by the fact that things would economically not deteriorate throughout the period of time, that it would just simply be a very natural progression through the cycle. We had a little bit of uncertainty there, which is why we moved the forecast to be slightly more negative.

In the fact that we were very concerned about the interest rate increases that were happening throughout the world to combat inflation, and the impact that might have on certainly consumer spending power and even businesses, as they were struggling to compensate for the increased interest charges and costs and a squeeze on their disposable income.

That we were concerned that the world might actually slip into recession in the second half of this year. And that's what led to say, if the world did go into a recession at the back end of this year, then you will be pushed closer to the -26%. If the world didn't go into recession and everything was very hunky dory and very positive, you’d be at the -18% of the forecast range there.

I think the difference was really that big unknown “how would the economy react in that time period there?” We felt the supply and demand the all those other issues there, which the industry was in control of will push you towards that middle range there the -22%. But if the economy was slightly stronger, then that will push you slightly to the left. And if the economy was weaker, and did go into a recession into the back half of this year that will push you into the slightly worst case of -26%.

Q:So the big difference really now is what will happen in the second half of this year from a global economic point of view?

And it's still uncertain. I mean it really depends on who you talk to as to whether there's gonna be an issue there or not an issue there. So far America has escaped relatively unscathed and is a strong part of demand. But on the other hand, there's still a lot of uncertainty there.

We've had a couple of minor banking crises. We still got interest rates. Their inflation is still too high, and unemployment is too low. So all of the things that they're trying to address to cool inflation aren't working at the moment, so if they have to accelerate those deaccelerating factors that could easily tilt the world into a recession, and that will have a bit of a snowfall effect around the world.

So it's very unclear, and the economists can't decide, so we still have to push that as a risk, it's not a possibility, it's a risk that needs to be looked at. So our message to investors is you gotta keep an eye on that economic risk. You gotta keep an eye on the capacity risk, because we're still building capacity. Even though we don't need it, we haven't stopped back on capacity.

You gotta look at those two factors there, because they're going to be key determinants there, the more capacity we build now, the longer it's gonna take for it to be absorbed. And the worse the economy gets, the power that is gonna take on demand. So these are the two real unknown wild cards in the equation. The rest of it is coming, is working exactly as plan.

We are liquidating the inventory. It is coming down. The unit shipment is well below the unit demand level that's fixing itself. The prices are bottomed and not declining very much anymore, so they're kind of bouncing along on the bottom there. So it's all those things are working as you would expect them to work. But we just don't know what the demand is gonna be, whether it's gonna take a hit because of an economic downturn in the latter half of this year.

Q:Also about like, like the general environment of the current situation, so you have mentioned before that the most unfavorable factor of the semiconductor in industry in 2022 is the simultaneous increase in production capacity and weak market demand. Do you think the recovery of the first quarter of 2023 would indicate the sky recovery of the market demand? Or does it indicate some changes in the general environment?

A:What I think the reason why the first quarter was not as bad as we thought it was going to be was because that inventory liquidation took a little longer to kind of kick in than it normally did.

I think part of that is due to a couple of structural differences this time around. We had a lot of long-term price and supply agreements in place with customers in the boom years. A lot of companies try to insist on those being on it, and that kind of pushed out when companies were allowed to cut back on their shipments and delayed the inevitable. I mean eventually they were gonna cancel. It's just a question of how long would it be for that to happen, so kind of making customers adhere to a pricing or a unit shipment agreement is a bit of an own goal in a way, because they don't need the parts they've already bought them.

So at one point, in time, they're not going to buy them. And it just pushed it out a little bit, so it took a lot longer for that unit demand to actually go below the trend line, then it would normally have done. And that helped keep the unit shipments after that help keep the value up, so it was a little bit artificial. I think that is now starting to happen with a vengeance in the second quarter. We're starting to see that come down quite dramatically.

I don't think anything has really changed in that regard to make the whole scenario be any real different, and to what it was before, it's just simply a push out due to the fact that we had these long-term price agreements. And I think a lot of sectors like logic, for example, most logic circuitry now is made to water, it's all system on chip type parts, and they all have a long factory lead time. The time in wafer fact, for those is at least 4 months, could be up to 6 months.

That means that even though you wanted to cut back in June or July of last year, you couldn't actually do it because you've already got the factory full of your parts. It just has to you either scrap them and throw them away, or you keep making them until you run out and you only run out in December or January.

Again, it kind of delayed the impact of when you could make this unit adjustment. So that's a structural difference, which is slightly different this time to last time more of the parts being customized. Therefore, you got a factory committed to that part. And the either gets thrown away in which case somebody has to pay for that scrap, or you have to just let it roll and adjust it later on.

Q:I've missed a question, it's about UK Chip Act. So the critic says unbranded as the UK government delayed ￡1 billion package of support for the semiconductor industry as insignificant. So based on your understanding, what would be your suggestion for the current, you know, the Chip Act of the UK?

A:But I don't think they really called it a Chip Act, because that kind of puts it into the same kind of scenario of what's happening in China and the US and in other parts in Korea, in other parts of the world.

If you compare that $1 billion investment that the UK is putting in compared with the $50 billion in China over three years, in the US over 5 years, in the EU over 10 years. It is obviously insignificant when measured against that. But I think that's an apples and oranges kind of measurement there. But I think what you need to know is to think about is the UK has for a long period of time, actually lacked a strategy for its high-tech businesses, and including semiconductor,

For a very long time, I mean you are literally talking 30 years or something like that. It's kind of supported the R&D, the research to a certain extent. There's a lot of support for research in the UK and after that, research comes an awful lot of technology, which is world class and a lot of it is bought by world class companies because it is good.

But what they're trying to do, I think, with this billion-pound investment, is to try to get a coordination to what are we doing in this research? Can we bring it up one level in terms of turning it into a pilot line to take it to the next level up the value chain and to ask the users to determine what should we be doing? Should we be going into high volume production? Is there a need to have this here?

Not to compete with the likes of TSMC or Samsung with today's products, but to compete at the leading edge for tomorrow's products, because that's where the research is being done in the UK, if you want to commercialize that, you're looking at something that's 5 to 10 years down the road. And this billion-pound is aimed to shore up the research money that's going on, and also to help develop a strategy as to what should we be doing with a UK chip act in 5 or 10 years’ time, where we know now, what we're doing, why we're doing it.

But for the UK to spend 50 billion over the next 10 years on a parallel chip pack would be suicide, it would be crazy, because they don't know what to do with it. So the first step is to find out, here's what we're good at, here's what we're doing. Can we move it up the value chain? And at the moment, the UK is very small. It's probably, I would think, well under 1% of the world production, well under 1%. So you got potentially a long way to go, but it would be silly to try to become a competitor to a TSMC or a competitor to a Samsung or SK Hynix or something like that.

But when you're looking at the next generation of technologies where there is no winner when nobody has a foothold. Why not? I mean the UK is just as capable of being a supplier in the future technologies as anybody else is. And you have to remember, Taiwan was a tiny island 30 years ago when TSMC was founded with no electronics industry and no semiconductor industry, and it's smaller than the UK so just because we're a small island, doesn't mean to say you can't be number one in something.

But the question is, what is that something? And it's not today's product. It would be tomorrow's product. That's why the investment in R&D is so crucial. But now the difference is R&D with a purpose, what could we do with that? What is the potential developing that into a world class technology?

Yes, I think so, it's more of an investment in understanding the future, is a stepping stone. Now it may be the first step and only step in a... I don't know. I mean it depends on lots of things, but it could be the one and only step. And then we go back to giving up, but it could also be the first of several steps.

Q:Great, my last question, you have caught before saying that now it's time to start preparing for the next turnaround and making counter psychological investment and gaining first mover advantages. So could you elaborate more on this part?

A:So I think the only way to really manage this cycle efficiently is to invest counter cyclically. Now is the time you should be building new factories, because then they'll be available in 2 years’ time, that would be just at the time when the industry is going to start to feel under a supply crunch in terms of the not being enough capacity. And you'll be there with your capacity, so you will get all of that business that the other people can't deal with, because they have run out of capacity by then.

So that's the classic way to manage this supply and demand cycle, is to invest when the market is down and to stop investing when the market is increasing, which is counterintuitive to what your heart tells you to do. But it should be what your wallet tells you to do, because that means that you will have capacity when the market is coming to an acceleration and your competitors want, because they want to be invested at that same time.

But that's hard to do because you have to have shareholders who are willing to actually allow you to invest counter cyclically and to do that. But if you do, you will be the winner and companies that do that, I think, certainly the Korean companies, SK Hynix and Samsung tried to do that, TSMC tries to do that, and they are successful.  They really do reap the benefits of that.

But it's very hard because you do have a shareholder to answer to. And your shareholders will simply say, why are you spending all this money building new factories when there is no demand? And that's very hard question to answer, except trust me, and trust me doesn't allow you to spend $10 billion. You need a little bit more than just trust me.