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.
CAUTIOUS RECOVERY: While the manufacturing sector returned to growth amid the US-China trade truce, firms remain wary as uncertainty clouds the outlook, the CIER said The local manufacturing sector returned to expansion last month, as the official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) rose 2.1 points to 51.0, driven by a temporary easing in US-China trade tensions, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The PMI gauges the health of the manufacturing industry, with readings above 50 indicating expansion and those below 50 signaling contraction. “Firms are not as pessimistic as they were in April, but they remain far from optimistic,” CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said at a news conference. The full impact of US tariff decisions is unlikely to become clear until later this month
GROWING CONCERN: Some senior Trump administration officials opposed the UAE expansion over fears that another TSMC project could jeopardize its US investment Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is evaluating building an advanced production facility in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and has discussed the possibility with officials in US President Donald Trump’s administration, people familiar with the matter said, in a potentially major bet on the Middle East that would only come to fruition with Washington’s approval. The company has had multiple meetings in the past few months with US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff and officials from MGX, an influential investment vehicle overseen by the UAE president’s brother, the people said. The conversations are a continuation of talks that
CHIP DUTIES: TSMC said it voiced its concerns to Washington about tariffs, telling the US commerce department that it wants ‘fair treatment’ to protect its competitiveness Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reiterated robust business prospects for this year as strong artificial intelligence (AI) chip demand from Nvidia Corp and other customers would absorb the impacts of US tariffs. “The impact of tariffs would be indirect, as the custom tax is the importers’ responsibility, not the exporters,” TSMC chairman and chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) said at the chipmaker’s annual shareholders’ meeting in Hsinchu City. TSMC’s business could be affected if people become reluctant to buy electronics due to inflated prices, Wei said. In addition, the chipmaker has voiced its concern to the US Department of Commerce
STILL LOADED: Last year’s richest person, Quanta Computer Inc chairman Barry Lam, dropped to second place despite an 8 percent increase in his wealth to US$12.6 billion Staff writer, with CNA Daniel Tsai (蔡明忠) and Richard Tsai (蔡明興), the brothers who run Fubon Group (富邦集團), topped the Forbes list of Taiwan’s 50 richest people this year, released on Wednesday in New York. The magazine said that a stronger New Taiwan dollar pushed the combined wealth of Taiwan’s 50 richest people up 13 percent, from US$174 billion to US$197 billion, with 36 of the people on the list seeing their wealth increase. That came as Taiwan’s economy grew 4.6 percent last year, its fastest pace in three years, driven by the strong performance of the semiconductor industry, the magazine said. The Tsai
RSS