Reports: TSMC planning for six wafer fabs in Arizona
That would triple the cost of the previously announced project and take the eventual monthly manufacturing capacity to 100,000 wafers, according to according to a report in Taiwan’s United Daily News. The build-out would likely to take several years and may be accelerated, slowed or stopped depending on economic and political circumstances.
City of Phoenix documents show that TSMC’s fab cluster will be built out in three phases according to the Phoenix Business Journal.
The Gigafab plan was shared with Taiwanese employees as TSMC begins looking for workers that are prepared to come and work in the US, according to the UDN report. Apparently TSMC is prepared to double workers’ salaries to persuade them to help staff up the US operation.
TSMC has only said that it plans to build a 300mm wafer fab in Arizona with a project investment budget of US$12 billion. Construction is due to begin in 2021 with mass-production of chips on 5nm manufacturing process in 2024, which will no longer be a leading-edge production process by then. The monthly production would ramp up to 20,000 wafers in that fab.
The development would be in line with US political policy to bring key manufacturing capability back to the country for reasons of geopolitical strategy.
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News articles:
TSMC dragged to the altar of US manufacturing
TSMC picks Arizona for 5nm wafer fab
TSMC is planning a US wafer fab . . . again
US talks to Intel, TSMC about building local foundry fabs
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