Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) broke ground on its third semiconductor manufacturing fab in Arizona yesterday, US President Donald Trump's 100th day in office, featuring a visit from US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick.
Lutnick visited TSMC's semiconductor fabrication facility in Phoenix where the company broke ground on a third fab facility, the US Department of State said in a news release issued later yesterday.
Photo: Lam Yik Fei, Bloomberg
In the statement, Lutnick emphasized the importance of TSMC's investments in the US, saying: "We are at TSMC Arizona to celebrate the return of American manufacturing."
During the visit, TSMC chairman and CEO C.C. Wei (魏哲家) welcomed Lutnick and highlighted the progress made in its Arizona operation, the news release said.
To support the needs of the US' leading innovators in smartphones, HPC and artificial intelligence (AI), "we recently broke ground on our third fab, which will introduce more advanced semiconductor capacity to the United States." Wei said.
TSMC's major customers in the US also expressed support for the project.
Apple Inc CEO Tim Cook said that as TSMC Arizona's largest customer, "we're excited for the future of American innovation and the incredible opportunities it will create."
Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) also said that AI is revolutionizing every aspect of the technology stack, and Nvidia AI supercomputers are at the foundation.
"We're proud to produce our technology in Arizona, bringing AI infrastructure manufacturing back to America," he said.
AMD chair and CEO Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) said that TSMC has been a key partner of her company for many years and AMD's deep collaboration with TSMC's R&D and manufacturing teams has enabled AMD to consistently deliver leadership products.
TSMC, the world's largest chipmaker, said last month that it would invest an additional US$100 billion in the US to build three new chip manufacturing plants, along with two packaging facilities and a major R&D team center.
TSMC is already investing US$65 billion in Arizona to build three advanced wafer fabs.
The first fab in Arizona has started production using the 4-nanometer (nm) process, while the second fab, which is to use the more sophisticated 3nm, 2nm and A16 processes, is currently under construction and is expected to begin production in 2028.
The third is expected to begin production by 2030, using 2nm or more advanced processes, the company said in April last year.
Real estate agent and property developer JSL Construction & Development Co (愛山林) led the average compensation rankings among companies listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE) last year, while contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) finished 14th. JSL Construction paid its employees total average compensation of NT$4.78 million (US$159,701), down 13.5 percent from a year earlier, but still ahead of the most profitable listed tech giants, including TSMC, TWSE data showed. Last year, the average compensation (which includes salary, overtime, bonuses and allowances) paid by TSMC rose 21.6 percent to reach about NT$3.33 million, lifting its ranking by 10 notches
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