Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has begun producing advanced 4-nanometer (nm) chips for US customers in Arizona, US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo said, a milestone in the semiconductor efforts of the administration of US President Joe Biden.
In November last year, the commerce department finalized a US$6.6 billion grant to TSMC’s US unit for semiconductor production in Phoenix, Arizona.
“For the first time ever in our country’s history, we are making leading edge 4-nanometer chips on American soil, American workers — on par in yield and quality with Taiwan,” Raimondo said, adding that production had begun in recent weeks.
Photo: Reuters
“That’s a big deal — never been done before, never in our history, and lots of people said it couldn’t happen,” Raimondo said of the previously undisclosed production start.
A spokesperson for TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker and a major supplier to Apple and Nvidia, which is to report earnings next week, declined to comment on Friday.
TSMC in April last year agreed to expand its planned investment by US$25 billion to US$65 billion and to add a third Arizona fab by 2030.
COURTING FIRMS
The US Congress created a US$52.7 billion semiconductor manufacturing and research subsidy program in 2022.
All five leading-edge semiconductor firms agreed to locate fabs in the US as part of the program.
Raimondo earlier said that the Department of Commerce had to convince TSMC to boost its US plans.
“It didn’t happen on its own... We had to convince TSMC that they would want to expand,” Raimondo said.
TSMC would produce the world’s most advanced 2-nanometer technology at its second Arizona fab, which is expected to begin production in 2028.
The company also agreed to use its most advanced chip manufacturing technology, called “A16,” in Arizona.
The department has also awarded TSMC up to US$5 billion in low-cost government loans.
Raimondo said she wants the US to make 20 percent of world’s leading-edge logic chips by 2030 — up from none before TSMC began production in Arizona.
In April last year, the department said TSMC expects to begin high-volume production in its first US fab by the first half of this year.
The department last month finalized an award of US$407 million to help fund Amkor Technology’s planned US$2 billion advanced semiconductor packaging facility in Arizona, which is set to be the largest of its kind in the US.
Amkor’s Arizona plant, when fully operational, would package and test millions of chips for autonomous vehicles, 5G/6G and data centers. Apple would be its first and largest customer with the chips produced at a nearby TSMC facility.
The nation’s fastest supercomputer, Nano 4 (晶創26), is scheduled to be launched in the third quarter, and would be used to train large language models in finance and national defense sectors, the National Center for High-Performance Computing (NCHC) said. The supercomputer, which would operate at about 86.05 petaflops, is being tested at a new cloud computing center in the Southern Taiwan Science Park in Tainan. The exterior of the server cabinet features chip circuitry patterns overlaid with a map of Taiwan, highlighting the nation’s central position in the semiconductor industry. The center also houses Taiwania 2, Taiwania 3, Forerunner 1 and
FIRST TRIAL: Ko’s lawyers sought reduced bail and other concessions, as did other defendants, but the bail judge denied their requests, citing the severity of the sentences Former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) was yesterday sentenced to 17 years in prison and had his civil rights suspended for six years over corruption, embezzlement and other charges. Taipei prosecutors in December last year asked the Taipei District Court for a combined 28-year, six-month sentence for the four cases against Ko, who founded the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). The cases were linked to the Core Pacific City (京華城購物中心) redevelopment project and the mismanagement of political donations. Other defendants convicted on separate charges included Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei City Councilor Angela Ying (應曉薇), who was handed a 15-year, six-month sentence; Core Pacific
J-6 REMODEL: The converted drones are part of Beijing’s expanding mix of airpower weapons, including bombers with stand-off missiles and UAV swarms, the report said China has stationed obsolete supersonic fighters converted to attack drones at six air bases close to the Taiwan Strait, a report published this month by the Arlington, Virginia-based Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies said. Satellite imagery of the airfields from the institute’s “China Airpower Tracker” shows what appear to be lines of stubby, swept-winged aircraft matching the shape of J-6 fighters that first flew with the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Air Force in the 1960s. Since their conversion to drones, the aircraft have been identified at five bases in China’s Fujian Province and one in Guangdong Province, the report said. J.
China used fake LinkedIn profiles to harvest sensitive data from NATO and EU institutions by soliciting information from staff, a European security source said on Friday. The operation, allegedly orchestrated by the Chinese Ministry of State Security, targeted dozens of employees at the military alliance or EU organizations through fictitious accounts, the source said, confirming reports in French and Belgian media. Posing as recruiters on the online professional networking platform, Chinese spies would initially request paid reports before later soliciting non-public or even classified information. One particularly active fake profile used the name “Kevin Zhang,” claiming to be the head
RSS