Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday unveiled the layout of its new fab in Arizona and reiterated its determination to ramp up advanced 5-nanometer chip production in 2024.
The company said that construction of Fab 21, in which it would invest US$10 billion to US$12 billion, has begun on a 445 hectare plot in Phoenix.
“As we expect demand for 5-nanometer [chips] will be strong and sustainable in the long term, we have made the Arizona fab, Fab 21, one of the 5-nanometer manufacturing sites,” TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told the company’s annual technology symposium.
Photo: Grace Hung, Taipei Times
The chipmaker has shipped more than 500,000 5-nanometer chips from its Fab 18 in Tainan since the technology became available last year, thanks to robust customer demand for smartphones, 5G applications, artificial-intelligence (AI) applications, networking devices and high-performance computing devices, Wei said.
The first phase of the Arizona fab would have an installed capacity of 20,000 wafers a month, TSMC said.
In January, the chipmaker said that further expansion would depend on market conditions and US government support.
TSMC yesterday introduced the technology for its new N5A process to produce 5-nanometer chips for automotive applications such as AI-enabled driver assistance and the digitization of vehicle cockpits.
Production using the N5A process is scheduled to be available in the third quarter of next year, Wei said.
The chipmaker said that its 3-nanometer technology would be the world’s most advanced technology when volume production begins in the second half of next year.
Its fabs in Tainan would be its major manufacturing sites for 3-nanometer chips, TSMC said.
To expedite mass production of 3-nanometer and 2-nanometer chips, TSMC is transforming its 2-nanometer research centers in Hsinchu into sites for initial production of new-generation chips, it said.
TSMC has been boosted capacity to catch up with customers' rising demand,expecting that its advanced technology capacity would expand at a compound annual rate of 30 percent from 2018 to this year.
Among advanced technologies,7-nanometer chip capacity would have increased fourfold until this year since 2018, TSMC senior vice president Y.P. Chin (秦永沛) told the symposium.
Five-nanometer chip capacity would quadruple until 2023 from last year’s level, he said.
The company is also expanding its advanced chip testing and packaging capacity to cope with growing demand, Chin said.
TSMC is building its fifth fab in Miaoli County’s Jhunan Township (竹南), which would offer the most advanced 3D packaging technology of system-on-integrated-chip in the second half of next year, he said.
Intel Corp chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) is expected to meet with Taiwanese suppliers next month in conjunction with the opening of the Computex Taipei trade show, supply chain sources said on Monday. The visit, the first for Tan to Taiwan since assuming his new post last month, would be aimed at enhancing Intel’s ties with suppliers in Taiwan as he attempts to help turn around the struggling US chipmaker, the sources said. Tan is to hold a banquet to celebrate Intel’s 40-year presence in Taiwan before Computex opens on May 20 and invite dozens of Taiwanese suppliers to exchange views
Application-specific integrated circuit designer Faraday Technology Corp (智原) yesterday said that although revenue this quarter would decline 30 percent from last quarter, it retained its full-year forecast of revenue growth of 100 percent. The company attributed the quarterly drop to a slowdown in customers’ production of chips using Faraday’s advanced packaging technology. The company is still confident about its revenue growth this year, given its strong “design-win” — or the projects it won to help customers design their chips, Faraday president Steve Wang (王國雍) told an online earnings conference. “The design-win this year is better than we expected. We believe we will win
Chizuko Kimura has become the first female sushi chef in the world to win a Michelin star, fulfilling a promise she made to her dying husband to continue his legacy. The 54-year-old Japanese chef regained the Michelin star her late husband, Shunei Kimura, won three years ago for their Sushi Shunei restaurant in Paris. For Shunei Kimura, the star was a dream come true. However, the joy was short-lived. He died from cancer just three months later in June 2022. He was 65. The following year, the restaurant in the heart of Montmartre lost its star rating. Chizuko Kimura insisted that the new star is still down
While China’s leaders use their economic and political might to fight US President Donald Trump’s trade war “to the end,” its army of social media soldiers are embarking on a more humorous campaign online. Trump’s tariff blitz has seen Washington and Beijing impose eye-watering duties on imports from the other, fanning a standoff between the economic superpowers that has sparked global recession fears and sent markets into a tailspin. Trump says his policy is a response to years of being “ripped off” by other countries and aims to bring manufacturing to the US, forcing companies to employ US workers. However, China’s online warriors
RSS