In an enormous shift to their manufacturing operations – and an enormous political win domestically – TSMC has introduced that the corporate might be constructing a brand new, high-end fab in Arizona. The facility, set to return on-line in 2024, will make the most of TSMC’s soon-to-be-deployed 5nm course of, with the flexibility to deal with 20,000 wafers a month. And with a ultimate price ticket on the power anticipated to be $12 billion, this might make it one of the costly fabs ever constructed within the United States.
Operating over a dozen fabs throughout the globe, TSMC is accountable for a major share of worldwide logic chip manufacturing, significantly with modern and near-leading-edge processes. The firm has turn out to be maybe the most important winner amidst the gradual winnowing of fabs over the previous twenty years, as producer after producer has dropped out, consolidating orders among the many remaining fabs. And with GlobalFoundries dropping out of the race for cutting-edge manufacturing nodes, TSMC is one among solely three firms globally that is growing modern course of nodes – and one of many solely two that’s a pure-play foundry.
This success has turn out to be each a boon and a legal responsibility for TSMC. Along with Korean rival Samsung, the 2 firms have seen large development in revenues and earnings as they’ve turn out to be the final fabs standing. As a outcome, TSMC serves clients each regionally and globally, significantly the United States and China, the 2 of which aren’t having fun with the perfect of relations proper now. This leaves TSMC trapped in the midst of issues – each figuratively and actually – as China wants TSMC to supply modern chips, and the United States is now more and more reliant on TSMC as effectively following GlobalFoundries’ retreat.
As a outcome, the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company goes to do one thing it’s by no means completed earlier than, constructing a near-leading-edge fab within the US, exterior of its dwelling base of Taiwan. The new facility, set to be constructed in Arizona, will use the corporate’s 5nm course of, which is at the moment TSMC’s most superior manufacturing course of. And whereas this can now not be the case by the point it comes on-line in 2024, when 3nm processes are prone to be accessible, it might nonetheless make the Arizona facility among the many most superior fabs on the earth, and by far probably the most superior contract fab within the United States.
The Arizona facility can be becoming a member of TSMC’s different US fab, which is situated in Camas, Washington. It, like TSMC’s different non-Taiwanese-fabs, relies round older applied sciences, with the Camas fab particularly specializing in constructing flash merchandise utilizing comparatively massive course of nodes (350nm to 160nm). As a outcome, the Arizona fab represents a major shift for TSMC; it’s not the primary US fab for the corporate, nevertheless it’s the primary time TSMC has constructed such a complicated fab in one other nation.
All advised, the Arizona fab is ready to be a medium-sized facility – a “megafab” in TSMC parlance – regardless of its use of a complicated manufacturing node. The 20,000 wafers per 30 days throughput of the fab is effectively beneath TSMC’s largest “gigafabs” in Taiwan, which might transfer greater than 100,000 wafers per 30 days. As a outcome whereas the fab will add to TSMC’s 5nm capability, it gained’t turn out to be a large a part of that capability. Though with an anticipated price ticket of $12 billion, it’s going to nonetheless be a really costly facility to construct.
According to TSMC, the first impetus for constructing the fab – and particularly to construct it within the United States as an alternative of Taiwan – is particularly to have high-end manufacturing capability inside the United States. With GlobalFoundries dropping out of the race for modern nodes, the US authorities and different delicate fabless chip designers are in need of one other modern facility…
