Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has achieved early production yields at its first plant in Arizona that surpass similar factories back home, a significant breakthrough for a US expansion project initially dogged by delays and worker strife.
The share of chips manufactured at TSMC’s facility in Phoenix that are usable is about 4 percentage points higher than comparable facilities in Taiwan, Rick Cassidy, president of TSMC’s US division, told listeners on a webinar on Wednesday, according to a person who participated.
The success rate, or yield, is a critical measure in the semiconductor industry because it determines whether companies would be able to cover the enormous costs of a chip plant.
Photo: Bloomberg
The accomplishment is a sign of progress for Washington’s efforts to revitalize semiconductor manufacturing in the US.
TSMC, the main chip manufacturing partner for Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc, is in line to win US$6.6 billion in US government grants and US$5 billion in loans — plus 25 percent tax credits — to build three fabs in Arizona. The award, like almost all others from the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act, is not yet finalized.
The two other chipmakers at the heart of the tech strategy of US President Joe Biden’s administration — Intel Corp and Samsung Electronics Co — have struggled in the past few months.
Intel, slated to be the biggest beneficiary of the CHIPS Act, is under such severe financial pressure that it is delaying global projects and considering selling assets.
Meanwhile, TSMC has been on a roll.
Its shares reached a record high this month after the chipmaker topped quarterly estimates and raised its target for revenue growth this year.
The latest yield advancement is notable for TSMC, because it has historically kept the most advanced and efficient plants in Taiwan.
Its Arizona site got off to a rocky start, as the company could not find enough skilled staff to install advanced equipment, and workers struggled with safety and management issues.
TSMC reached an accord with construction labor unions late last year.
The chipmaker originally planned to have its first Arizona plant start full production this year, but pushed back the target to next year over the labor issues. It later delayed the start date for its second fab to 2027 or 2028, from an initial target of 2026. That fueled concerns that the company might not be able to make chips in the US as efficiently as in Taiwan.
TSMC could now be keen to expand its US presence further, depending in part on the possibility of more US government backing, Cassidy said, citing early conversations in Washington about a second CHIPS Act.
There is room for at least six fabs at the Phoenix complex.
Taiwan has arranged for about 8 million barrels of crude oil, or about one-third of its monthly needs, to be shipped from the Red Sea this month to bypass the Strait of Hormuz and ease domestic supply pressures, CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) said yesterday. The state-run oil company has worked with Middle Eastern suppliers to secure routes other than the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20 percent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas typically passes, CPC chairman Fang Jeng-zen (方振仁) said at a meeting of the legislature’s Economics Committee in Taipei. Suppliers in Saudi Arabia have indicated they
A global survey showed that 60 percent of Taiwanese had attained higher education, second only to Canada, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan easily surpassed the global average of 43 percent and ranked ahead of major economies, including Japan, South Korea and the US, data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for 2024 showed. Taiwan has a high literacy rate, data released by the ministry showed. As of the end of last year, Taiwan had 20.617 million people aged 15 or older, accounting for 88.5 percent of the total population, with a literacy rate of 99.4 percent, the data
CCP ‘PAWN’? Beijing could use the KMT chairwoman’s visit to signal to the world that many people in Taiwan support the ‘one China’ principle, an academic said Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) yesterday arrived in China for a “peace” mission and potential meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), while a Taiwanese minister detailed the number of Chinese warships currently deployed around the nation. Cheng is visiting at a time of increased Chinese military pressure on Taiwan, as the opposition-dominated Legislative Yuan stalls a government plan for US$40 billion in extra defense spending. Speaking to reporters before going to the airport, Cheng said she was going on a “historic journey for peace,” but added that some people felt uneasy about her trip. “If you truly love Taiwan,
NEW LOW: The council in 2024 based predictions on a pessimistic estimate for the nation’s total fertility rate of 0.84, but last year that rate was 0.69, 17 percent lower An expected National Development Council (NDC) report expects the nation’s population to drop below 12 million by 2065, with the old-age dependency ratio to top 100 percent sooner than 2070, sources said yesterday. The council is slated to release its latest population projections in August, using an ultra-low fertility model, the sources said. The previous report projected that Taiwan’s population would fall to 14.37 million by 2070, but based on a new estimate of the total fertility rate (TFR) — the average number of children born to a woman over her lifetime — the population is expected to reach 12 million by
RSS