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.
TECH TITAN: Pandemic-era demand for semiconductors turbocharged the nation’s GDP per capita to surpass South Korea’s, but it still remains half that of Singapore Taiwan is set to surpass South Korea this year in terms of wealth for the first time in more than two decades, marking a shift in Asia’s economic ranks made possible by the ascent of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電). According to the latest forecasts released on Thursday by the central bank, Taiwan’s GDP is expected to expand 4.55 percent this year, a further upward revision from the 4.45 percent estimate made by the statistics bureau last month. The growth trajectory puts Taiwan on track to exceed South Korea’s GDP per capita — a key measure of living standards — a
Samsung Electronics Co shares jumped 4.47 percent yesterday after reports it has won approval from Nvidia Corp for the use of advanced high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, which marks a breakthrough for the South Korean technology leader. The stock closed at 83,500 won in Seoul, the highest since July 31 last year. Yesterday’s gain comes after local media, including the Korea Economic Daily, reported that Samsung’s 12-layer HBM3E product recently passed Nvidia’s qualification tests. That clears the components for use in the artificial intelligence (AI) accelerators essential to the training of AI models from ChatGPT to DeepSeek (深度求索), and finally allows Samsung
Taiwan has imposed restrictions on the export of chips to South Africa over national security concerns, taking the unusual step of using its dominance of chip markets to pressure a country that is closely allied with China. Taiwan requires preapproval for the bulk of chips sold to the African nation, the International Trade Administration said in a statement. The decision emerged after Pretoria tried to downgrade Taipei’s representative office and force its move to Johannesburg from Pretoria, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has said. The move reflects Taiwan’s economic clout and a growing frustration with getting sidelined by Beijing in the diplomatic community. Taiwan
READY TO HELP: Should TSMC require assistance, the government would fully cooperate in helping to speed up the establishment of the Chiayi plant, an official said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said its investment plans in Taiwan are “unchanged” amid speculation that the chipmaker might have suspended construction work on its second chip packaging plant in Chiayi County and plans to move equipment arranged for the plant to the US. The Chinese-language Economic Daily News reported earlier yesterday that TSMC had halted the construction of the chip packaging plant, which was scheduled to be completed next year and begin mass production in 2028. TSMC did not directly address whether construction of the plant had halted, but said its investment plans in Taiwan remain “unchanged.” The chipmaker started