TSMC Is Building A Second Fab In Arizona

TSMC, the Taiwan-based semiconductor manufacturer, recently provided an update regarding its status in Arizona, US. With the first fab set to begin production of the N4 process by 2024, it is now making plans to construct a second fab that will start production of the 3nm process by 2026.

TSMC says that the construction of the second fab will also provide jobs for more than 10000 construction workers, along with an additional 10000 high-paying high-tech jobs, 4500 of which will be direct jobs from the company itself. In total, the semiconductor company will also be investing around US$40 billion (~RM176 billion), making it the most significant foreign direct investment in the state’s history.

“When complete, TSMC Arizona aims to be the greenest semiconductor manufacturing facility in the United States producing the most advanced semiconductor process technology in the country, enabling next-generation high-performance and low-power computing products for years to come,” Dr. Mark Liu, TSMC Chairman, said. “We are thankful for the continued collaboration that has brought us here and is pleased to work with our partners in the United States to serve as a base for semiconductor innovation.”

Once completed, both of TSMC’s fabs will be able to manufacture over 600000 wafers per year, with an estimated end-product value of more than US$40 billion (~RM176 billion). The first fab itself, which went into construction back in 2020, will have a production capacity of 240000 wafers a year and is where not only the N4 process will be conducted, but also N4P and N4X.

The announcement marks a shift in the global manufacturing supply chain, due in no small part to the ongoing economic conflict between the US and China. Because of sanctions and restrictions put in place by both economic powerhouses, tech giants and manufacturers have had little or no choice but to shift their factories and manufacturing plants out of the latter country, TSMC being one such entity.

Of course, TSMC isn’t the only manufacturer and chipmaker to establish a presence in the US. Last year, Samsung announced that it would be opening a new semiconductor plant in the state of Texas, to the tune of US$17 billion (~RM75 billion).

Sony And TSMC Reportedly Joining Forces To Tackle Chip Shortage With Japan’s Help

Japanese tech company Sony and Taiwanese semiconductor giant TSMC may be joining forces to help tackle the ongoing global chip shortage, according to reports published independently by Reuters and Nikkei. It is said that both companies are considering a partnership to co-establish a new semiconductor factory in Japan, which is expected to be up and running by 2024.

People familiar with the matter told the publications that the new plant will be based at a Sony-owned location in Japan’s Kumamoto Prefecture, close to the company’s own image sensor factory (shown above). The project is said to cost US$7 billion in investment from both Sony and TSMC, with half of it reportedly covered by the Japanese government. The new factory will be managed by the Taiwanese semiconductor giant, the sources added.

Reuters and Nikkei reports that the plant would manufacture chips for cameras, cars and other purposes – all of which have recently seen a drop in production capacity due to the ongoing shortage. Both Sony and TSMC declined to comment regarding this potential partnership when approached by the publications. Meanwhile, Nikkei believes that Japanese automotive parts manufacturer Denso is also interested in the project.

If accurate, the new factory by Sony and TSMC would definitely contribute to other efforts that are also aiming to ramp up the manufacturing of semiconductors. However, it will still take some time until it is able to help with the production, seeing that the plant will only be operational in 2024. Moreover, Sony and TSMC themselves – as well as other major companies such as IBM and Foxconn – have noted that the chip shortage will likely continue for another few years until the strong demand for semiconductors could be met.

TSMC Allegedly Increasing Chip Prices By 20 Percent Amidst Ongoing Shortage

TSMC is reportedly increasing the prices of its chips, the company told its clients earlier in the week. According to a report by WSJ (paywall), the semiconductor manufacturer plans on raising its prices by as much as 10% for its advanced chips and 20% for less advanced components.

The announcement clearly isn’t happy or welcoming news, given that the world is still suffering from an ongoing chip shortage that many experts and industry leaders say could last well into 2022 and the early months of 2023. On top of that, TSMC’s price hike will most definitely be reflected within the final bill of finished products that use its components.

That list, by the way, unsurprisingly includes electronic goods like laptops, phones, PC components, and game consoles like the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. Product that, by the way, are made by equally big name brands like Apple, AMD, NVIDIA, and Qualcomm, to name a few.

There is, of course, a silver lining of sorts in TSMC’s announcements. Raising the prices means that, for the first time since the pandemic began, demand for its chips could ultimately reduce and, in turn, take some pressure off already constricted supplies. At least, until its new factories in the US and Taiwan become operational.

TSMC 2nm Chips Reportedly Enters Development; 3nm, 4nm Due In 2022

While the chip shortage is expected to rage on till next year, Taiwanese foundry, TSMC, has no intentions of slowing down the development of new and thinner fabrications of its products. To that end, reports suggest that the foundry has already entered development of a 2nm process node.

According to Anandtech, TSMC seems to be developing both 3nm and 2nm at the same time. Unsurprisingly, the Taiwanese foundry isn’t sharing a lot of detail, only that development for the die lithography is progressing nicely under its “advanced CMOS logic”.

As for its 3nm and 4nm process, Anandtech says that both process nodes are still on track with its development, with 4nm expected to enter mass production by early 2022, while the 3nm – part of the company’s N3 roadmap – should enter risk production this year, with mass production expected to begin during the second half of 2022.

TSMC has long dominated the semiconductor market and has virtually cornered half the market, the other half having been bagged by Samsung. Earlier this month, the company also announced that it would spend US$100 billion (~RM410 billion) over the next three years to ramp up its production capacity.

TSMC Warns Chip Shortage May Last Into 2022

Taiwanese chip manufacturing giant TSMC warned that the global semiconductor shortage could last into next year, even as it expects better supply for its automotive clients next quarter. According to Bloomberg, CEO C.C. Wei told analysts that the company expects the chip shortage as a whole to continue throughout 2021 and potentially into the next year.

“In 2023, I hope we can offer more capacity to support our customers. At that time, we’ll start to see the supply chain tightness release a little bit,” he said.

Prodded by the extraordinary demand for chips, TSMC previously announced that it would spend US$100 billion (~RM413.8 billion) over three years to boost the chip-making capacity of its plants.

Wei noted the strong demand for 5-nm and 3-nm chips as an impetus for additional capacity, Reuters said. The company is already enjoying the fruits of the chip shortage – a revenue increase of 25.4% to a record of US$12.92 billion (~RM53.32 billion) in the first quarter of this year.

Still, TSMC is keeping an eye on Intel, which recently announced plans to build new chip factories and dive into the chip contract manufacturing (“foundry”) business.

But at least in the short-term, there may be more than enough demand for both companies – just not enough supply for someone looking to buy a smartphone or graphic card or a next-gen console or a car or… well, the list goes on.

Chinese Chipmaker Debuts First Homemade GPGPU; Based On TSMC 7nm FinFET Process

Shanghai Tianshu Intellectual Semiconductor Co. (Tianshu Zhixin) announced earlier this week that it was close to bringing its first-ever homegrown 7nm General Purpose GPU (GPGPU), Big Island (BI), into mass production and commercial delivery.

Tianshu Zhixin’s comes months after Big Island was first announced at the beginning of the year. Back then, the Chinese chipmaker hinted at BI being made with a 7nm process node, along with a 2.5D chip-on-water-on-substrate (CoWoS). The company failed to mention what 7nm process it was using for its GPGPU, but Tom’s Hardware has confirmed that it is a 7nm from TSMC’s foundries.

In addition to its “mass production” announcement, Tianshan Zhixin also shared some information about BI in the form of a slide. It’s written in Chinese, but based on what we can make out, the GPGPU is using 32GB HBM2 memory with speeds up to 1.2TB/s. There’s also a laundry list of its performance in floating point operations, including the usual FP32 and FP16 performance metrics.

At the time of writing, Tianshu Zhixin did not say when its first round of BI GPGPUs are scheduled to be shipped, nor did it say who would be its first batch of customers.

Apple Glass Micro OLED Displays To Be Made By TSMC

Recently, the Apple Glass AR headwear has seen a lot of resurgence in the news. Last month, Bloomberg reported that the company will first be working on an expensive headset before moving on to the mainstream glasses. But a new report states that TSMC is already working on the display for the AR headset.

According to Nikkei, TSMC is in the trial production phase of making micro OLED displays for the Apple Glass. And it will take several years to get to mass production. The company is even using its existing chip-making equipment for the process.

You might be wondering, why is Apple working with a chip maker rather than a glass maker like Corning for this? Sources say that this is because these micro OLED displays are extremely small – less than one inch in fact.

And because of this, they are built straight onto chip wafers. This is very much opposed to the conventional phones or TVs that have a glass substrate. Though the source says Apple is still “leveraging panel experts’ know-how on display technologies”.

Mass production of these micro OLED display for the Apple Glass being a long way away is no surprise. Apple’s plans for the eyewear was initially for a 2023 reveal, though that might be a little too tight a window.