Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said it would not comment on any pending legal action after more than a dozen current and former US employees filed a class action lawsuit accusing the chipmaker of discriminatory hiring practices.
Initially filed in August, the suit was refiled last week as a class action case with 13 plaintiffs named.
The 13 plaintiffs — whose backgrounds include the US, Mexico, Nigeria, Europe and South Korea — were seeking damages to redress TSMC’s apparent discrimination practices.
Photo: Bloomberg
In the lawsuit, the plaintiffs claimed TSMC’s employment practices include an “intentional pattern and practice of employment discrimination against individuals who are not of East Asian race, not of Taiwanese or Chinese national origin, and who are not citizens of Taiwan or China, including discrimination in hiring, staffing, promotion, and retention/termination decisions.”
While declining to comment on the lawsuit, TSMC did say that recruitment and promotion in the company did not take into account factors such as nationality and race.
“TSMC believes strongly in the value of a diverse workforce and we hire and promote without regard to gender, religion, race, nationality, or political affiliation because we respect differences, and believe that equal employment opportunities strengthen our competitiveness,” the company said.
“We also provide various channels for employees to raise concerns, and strive to address concerns constructively,” it said.
In Arizona, TSMC is building two advanced fabs, with the first scheduled to start mass production early next year, using the sophisticated 4-nanometer process, while the second is slated to mass produce wafers using the 3-nanometer and 2-nanometer processes in 2028 to tap into solid demand for artificial intelligence applications.
TSMC has announced a plan to build a third fab in Arizona using the 2-nanometer process or more advanced technology, with production slated to start by the end of 2030, boosting its total investment in Arizona to top US$65 billion.
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Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s leading advanced chipmaker, officially began volume production of its 2-nanometer chips in the fourth quarter of this year, according to a recent update on the company’s Web site. The low-key announcement confirms that TSMC, the go-to chipmaker for artificial intelligence (AI) hardware providers Nvidia Corp and iPhone maker Apple Inc, met its original roadmap for the next-generation technology. Production is currently centered at Fab 22 in Kaohsiung, utilizing the company’s first-generation nanosheet transistor technology. The new architecture achieves “full-node strides in performance and power consumption,” TSMC said. The company described the 2nm process as
Shares in Taiwan closed at a new high yesterday, the first trading day of the new year, as contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) continued to break records amid an artificial intelligence (AI) boom, dealers said. The TAIEX closed up 386.21 points, or 1.33 percent, at 29,349.81, with turnover totaling NT$648.844 billion (US$20.65 billion). “Judging from a stronger Taiwan dollar against the US dollar, I think foreign institutional investors returned from the holidays and brought funds into the local market,” Concord Securities Co (康和證券) analyst Kerry Huang (黃志祺) said. “Foreign investors just rebuilt their positions with TSMC as their top target,
H200 CHIPS: A source said that Nvidia has asked the Taiwanese company to begin production of additional chips and work is expected to start in the second quarter Nvidia Corp is scrambling to meet demand for its H200 artificial intelligence (AI) chips from Chinese technology companies and has approached contract manufacturer Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) to ramp up production, sources said. Chinese technology companies have placed orders for more than 2 million H200 chips for this year, while Nvidia holds just 700,000 units in stock, two of the people said. The exact additional volume Nvidia intends to order from TSMC remains unclear, they said. A third source said that Nvidia has asked TSMC to begin production of the additional chips and work is expected to start in the second
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