The Kaohsiung City Government yesterday approved Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) plan to build a new plant in the city, saying a second environmental review was not necessary.
The plant is to focus on making 7-nanometer and 28-nanometer chips, in line with rising demand from global customers.
The city government discussed for two hours environmental influences that would arise from TSMC’s plant and concluded that the world’s largest contract chipmaker met all requirements, rendering a second assessment unnecessary.
Photo: Ko Yu-hao, Taipei Times
TSMC is Apple Inc’s sole chip supplier. Its other major customers include Nvidia Corp, Intel Corp, Advanced Micro Devices Inc, Qualcomm Inc and MediaTek Inc (聯發科).
The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated a global digital transformation as lockdowns in different parts of the world has led to a surge in demand for personal computers and other devices that connect to the Internet, the Hsinchu-based chipmaker has said.
Chip demand also picked up due to widespread use of online payment tools and the increasing popularity of electric vehicles, it said.
The planned TSMC facility has boosted housing prices in Kaohsiung by double-digit percentage points since its announcement in September last year.
TSMC has come up with plans to address the unfavorable side-effects of its manufacturing activity and has pledged to use solar energy sources, Kaohsiung officials said.
The new complex would cover 9.2 hectares of land and would cover a total of 12 hectares after factoring in greenery, the company said.
TSMC’s investment marks a concrete leap in the city government’s efforts to build a semiconductor corridor, it added.
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
Intel Corp is joining Elon Musk’s long-shot effort to develop semiconductors for Tesla Inc, Space Exploration Technologies Corp and xAI, marking a surprising twist in the chipmaker’s comeback bid. Intel would help the Terafab project “refactor” the technology in a chip factory, the company said on Tuesday in a post on X, Musk’s social media platform. That is a stage in the development process that typically helps make chips more powerful or reliable. The chipmaker’s shares jumped 4.2 percent to US$52.91 in New York trading on Tuesday. The Terafab project is a grand plan by Musk to eventually manufacture his own chips for
Some robotaxi passengers were left stranded in the middle of fast-moving traffic in a major Chinese city after their driverless vehicles stopped running, according to police and media reports on Wednesday. A preliminary investigation indicates more than 100 robotaxis came to a halt because of a “system malfunction,” police in the city of Wuhan said in a statement, without elaborating. No injuries were reported. One passenger told Chinese media that their robotaxi stopped after turning a corner. An instruction on a screen read: “Driving system malfunction. Staff are expected to arrive in 5 minutes.” After no one showed up, the passenger pushed
Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) yesterday said it plans to resume operations at two coal-fired power generators for three months to boost security of electricity supply as liquefied natural gas (LNG) supply risks are running high due to the Middle East conflict. The two coal-fired power generators are at Mailiao Power Plant in Yunlin County’s Mailiao Township (麥寮). The plant, operated by Formosa Plastics Group (台塑集團), supplied electricity to Taipower’s power grid until the end of last year. Taipower’s decision came about one month after Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) on March 10 said that the nation had no imminent
RSS