Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said that the majority of its most advanced chips would continue to be manufactured in Taiwan and that it is boosting advanced chip packaging capacity to catch up with fast-growing demand driven by generative artificial intelligence (AI) applications like ChatGPT.
Deeply rooted in Taiwan, TSMC is expanding production capacity for its most advanced 3-nanometer (nm) chips at its Tainan fab and is building new plants to produce new 2-nanometer chips in Hsinchu and Taichung in 2025.
The chipmaker also plans to produce next-generation, cutting-edge 1.4-nanometer chips, which are currently under development, at home, it said.
Photo: Sam Yeh, AFP
“A majority of [these advanced chips] will be made in Taiwan,” TSMC chief executive C.C. Wei (魏哲家) said in response to a shareholder’s question about capacity expansion plans during the company’s annual general meeting in Hsinchu.
"I think Taiwan’s semiconductor industry plays a stabilising role amid global geopolitical tensions. Whether it’s China or the United States... they all hope that TSMC is around," said TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音).
"I hope Taiwan’s semiconductor industry can do well to have a stabilising effect on global geopolitical conflict."
Although TSMC has been expanding its global footprint in the past few years to meet customers’ requirements, it expects that only a small portion, or about 20 percent, of its 28-nanometer chips and some advanced chips would be made at fabs outside Taiwan in the next five years or even longer.
Aside from its advanced fabs in the US, TSMC deploys more mature process technologies to produce chips mostly for vehicles and other gadgets at its fabs in China and Japan.
The company is also evaluating plans to build two new fabs — in Japan and in Europe, likely in Germany — to produce less advanced chips.
TSMC is engaging with customers and partners to evaluate the feasibility of building a specialty fab focused on automotive technology in Germany, it said.
Like its Japanese fab, the company is considering allowing some automotive customers to hold minor stakes in the planned fab, Liu told a media briefing after the shareholders’ meeting.
At home, TSMC is trying hard to boost advanced packaging capacity through unconventional approaches to cope with demand after ChatGPT and other generative AI applications became popular at the start of the year.
“Because of ChatGPT, TSMC has received large orders for advanced packaging. Demand has greatly exceeded our capacity,” Liu said.
Nvidia Corp, a major supplier of AI graphics processing units, is one of the major clients of TSMC’s chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) packaging technology.
To satisfy customers’ demand, TSMC allocated some capacity for the advanced packaging technology at its fab in Taoyuan’s Longtan District (龍潭), Liu said, adding that it outsources some of the CoWoS production to chip packagers.
For the full year, CoWoS capacity would be double the size of last year, as the company continues its pace of expansion, he said.
Revenue contribution from chips used in generative AI applications is still tiny, but this new business is helping the company’s advanced chip packaging reach economies of scale, Liu said.
TSMC also called on the government to step up efforts to encourage green energy production.
Because of the scarcity of energy from renewable sources in Taiwan, the company would not be able to achieve carbon neutrality by 2030, Liu said.
Additional Reporting By AFP
Nvidia Corp yesterday unveiled its new high-speed interconnect technology, NVLink Fusion, with Taiwanese application-specific IC (ASIC) designers Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯) and MediaTek Inc (聯發科) among the first to adopt the technology to help build semi-custom artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure for hyperscalers. Nvidia has opened its technology to outside users, as hyperscalers and cloud service providers are building their own cost-effective AI chips, or accelerators, used in AI servers by leveraging ASIC firms’ designing capabilities to reduce their dependence on Nvidia. Previously, NVLink technology was only available for Nvidia’s own AI platform. “NVLink Fusion opens Nvidia’s AI platform and rich ecosystem for
WARNING: From Jan. 1 last year to the end of last month, 89 Taiwanese have gone missing or been detained in China, the MAC said, urging people to carefully consider travel to China Lax enforcement had made virtually moot regulations banning civil servants from making unauthorized visits to China, the Control Yuan said yesterday. Several agencies allowed personnel to travel to China after they submitted explanations for the trip written using artificial intelligence or provided no reason at all, the Control Yuan said in a statement, following an investigation headed by Control Yuan member Lin Wen-cheng (林文程). The probe identified 318 civil servants who traveled to China without permission in the past 10 years, but the true number could be close to 1,000, the Control Yuan said. The public employees investigated were not engaged in national
CAUSE AND EFFECT: China’s policies prompted the US to increase its presence in the Indo-Pacific, and Beijing should consider if this outcome is in its best interests, Lai said China has been escalating its military and political pressure on Taiwan for many years, but should reflect on this strategy and think about what is really in its best interest, President William Lai (賴清德) said. Lai made the remark in a YouTube interview with Mindi World News that was broadcast on Saturday, ahead of the first anniversary of his presidential inauguration tomorrow. The US has clearly stated that China is its biggest challenge and threat, with US President Donald Trump and US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth repeatedly saying that the US should increase its forces in the Indo-Pacific region
ALL TOGETHER: Only by including Taiwan can the WHA fully exemplify its commitment to ‘One World for Health,’ the representative offices of eight nations in Taiwan said The representative offices in Taiwan of eight nations yesterday issued a joint statement reiterating their support for Taiwan’s meaningful engagement with the WHO and for Taipei’s participation as an observer at the World Health Assembly (WHA). The joint statement came as Taiwan has not received an invitation to this year’s WHA, which started yesterday and runs until Tuesday next week. This year’s meeting of the decisionmaking body of the WHO in Geneva, Switzerland, would be the ninth consecutive year Taiwan has been excluded. The eight offices, which reaffirmed their support for Taiwan, are the British Office Taipei, the Australian Office Taipei, the