Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said that its board of directors has approved the issuance of US$1 billion of unsecured bonds in Taiwan and up to US$8 billion of bonds in the US to fund its capacity expansion.
The chipmaker told investors last month that it plans to invest US$8 billion in a 12-inch fab in Arizona over the next three years, a part of its US$12 billion investment in the US from this year to 2029.
The Arizona fab is under construction and is to start producing 5-nanometer chips in the first quarter of 2024, it said.
Photo: Bloomberg
TSMC has raised its capital spending for this year to US$30 billion, with 80 percent of the amount earmarked for advanced technology capacity expansion that includes 3-nanometer, 5-nanometer and 7-nanometer technologies in Taiwan.
The board approved capital appropriations of about US$17.57 billion for the installation of advanced, mature and specialty technology capacity, as well as the installation and upgrade of advanced packaging capacity, TSMC said in a statement.
The funds will also cover research and development, and capital expenditure for next quarter.
The directors also ratified a donation of 5 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine to the Centers for Disease Control to help curb a domestic virus outbreak.
The overall cost of the donation is estimated at US$175 million, including vaccine procurement, cold-chain logistics, handling services and insurance, it said.
The board also approved a proposal to pay a cash dividend of NT$2.75 per share for the second quarter of this year.
In a separate statement, TSMC said its revenue contracted 16.1 percent to NT$124.56 billion (US$4.48 billion) last month from NT$148.47 billion in June.
On an annual basis, revenue expanded 17.5 percent from NT$105.96 billion.
Consolidated revenue expanded 18.1 percent to NT$859.11 billion in the first seven months of this year, compared with NT$727.26 billion in the same period last year.
Taiwan’s foreign exchange reserves fell below the US$600 billion mark at the end of last month, with the central bank reporting a total of US$596.89 billion — a decline of US$8.6 billion from February — ending a three-month streak of increases. The central bank attributed the drop to a combination of factors such as outflows by foreign institutional investors, currency fluctuations and its own market interventions. “The large-scale outflows disrupted the balance of supply and demand in the foreign exchange market, prompting the central bank to intervene repeatedly by selling US dollars to stabilize the local currency,” Department of Foreign
ENERGY ISSUES: The TSIA urged the government to increase natural gas and helium reserves to reduce the impact of the Middle East war on semiconductor supply stability Chip testing and packaging service provider ASE Technology Holding Co (日月光投控) yesterday said it planned to invest more than NT$100 billion (US$3.15 billion) in building a new advanced chip testing facility in Kaohsiung to keep up with customer demand driven by the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. That would be included in the company’s capital expenditure budget next year, ASE said. There is also room to raise this year’s capital spending budget from a record-high US$7 billion estimated three months ago, it added. ASE would have six factories under construction this year, another record-breaking number, ASE chief operating officer Tien Wu
The EU and US are nearing an agreement to coordinate on producing and securing critical minerals, part of a push to break reliance on Chinese supplies. The potential deal would create incentives, such as minimum prices, that could advantage non-Chinese suppliers, according to a draft of an “action plan” seen by Bloomberg. The EU and US would also cooperate on standards, investments and joint projects, as well as coordinate on any supply disruptions by countries like China. The two sides are additionally seeking other “like-minded partners” to join a multicountry accord to help create these new critical mineral supply chains, which feed into
For weeks now, the global tech industry has been waiting for a major artificial intelligence (AI) launch from DeepSeek (深度求索), seen as a benchmark for China’s progress in the fast-moving field. More than a year has passed since the start-up put Chinese AI on the map in early last year with a low-cost chatbot that performed at a similar level to US rivals. However, despite reports and rumors about its imminent release, DeepSeek’s next-generation “V4” model is nowhere in sight. Speculation is also swirling over the geopolitical implications of which computer chips were chosen to train and power the new
RSS