Arizona labor unions and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) have reached an agreement to resolve labor disputes that have dogged the chipmaker’s construction site in Phoenix, Arizona, they said in a joint statement.
The new accord is the result of months of negotiations between the world’s leading chipmaker and the Arizona Building and Construction Trades Council (AZBTC), a coalition of unions with 3,000 members on site — about one-quarter of TSMC’s total construction workforce.
Under the agreement, TSMC — which is investing US$40 billion in Arizona — plans to partner with unions to develop workforce training programs and maintain transparency on safety issues.
Photo: An Rong Xu, Bloomberg
Representatives of both sides are forming a new committee that is to meet quarterly to ensure compliance, including at least one meeting to project workforce requirements.
The joint statement said that TSMC is committed to hiring locally, but that “circumstances may require” the firm to tap foreign workers with “specialized experience.”
TSMC had upset union members this summer by saying a lack of skilled labor in the Phoenix region left the firm with no choice but to bring over workers from Taiwan.
“Today’s agreement is a win for Arizona workers and the construction timeline of TSMC Arizona,” trades council president Aaron Butler said.
“AZBTC union members have the critical skills necessary to help us complete our two advanced-chipmaking fabs, and we look forward to embarking together on a new chapter of partnership and collaboration,” TSMC Arizona president Brian Harrison said.
The accord achieves one of the union’s key goals: getting something on paper before the US Department of Commerce disperses the first round of funding from the Chips Act, with TSMC widely expected to be among the initial recipients.
The Chips Act sets aside subsidies worth US$100 billion to bring manufacturing of critical electronic components back to the US after decades of production abroad.
TSMC was one of Washington’s biggest targets for US investment and the company broke ground on a sprawling facility in Phoenix in 2021.
The firm originally planned to begin mass production next year, but in July announced a delay to 2025 due to what they said was a shortage of skilled labor, rankling the unions.
TSMC chief executive C.C. Wei (魏哲家) in October affirmed that the company plans to start production in Arizona in the first half of 2025.
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
INSATIABLE: Almost all AI innovators are working with the chipmaker to address the rapidly growing AI-related demand for energy-efficient computing power, the CEO said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reported about 60 percent annual growth in revenue for last month, benefiting from rapidly growing demand for artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing applications. Revenue last month expanded to NT$236.02 billion (US$7.28 billion), compared with NT$147.9 billion in April last year, the second-highest level in company history, TSMC said in a statement. On a monthly basis, revenue surged 20.9 percent, from NT$195.21 billion in March. As AI-related applications continue to show strong growth, TSMC expects revenue to expand about 27.6 percent year-on-year during the current quarter to between US$19.6 billion and US$20.4 billion. That would
Apple Inc has closed in on an agreement with OpenAI to use the start-up’s technology on the iPhone, part of a broader push to bring artificial intelligence (AI) features to its devices, people familiar with the matter said. The two sides have been finalizing terms for a pact to use ChatGPT features in Apple’s iOS 18, the next iPhone operating system, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the situation is private. Apple also has held talks with Alphabet Inc’s Google about licensing its Gemini chatbot. Those discussions have not led to an agreement, but are ongoing. An OpenAI
‘FULL SUPPORT’: Kumamoto Governor Takashi Kimura said he hopes more companies would settle in the prefecture to create an area similar to Taiwan’s Hsinchu Science Park The newly elected governor of Japan’s Kumamoto Prefecture said he is ready to ensure wide-ranging support to woo Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) to build its third Japanese chip factory there. Concerns of groundwater shortages when TSMC’s two plants begin operations in the prefecture’s Kikuyo have spurred discussions about the possibility of tapping unused dam water, Kumamoto Governor Takashi Kimura said in an interview on Saturday. While Kimura said talks about a third plant have yet to occur, Bloomberg had reported TSMC is already considering its third Japanese fab — also in Kumamoto — which would make more advanced chips. “We are