The Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co is going to announce its plans to build a new fabrication plant in the USA. This fabrication plant will make 5nm CPUs and GPUs chips. Though we still need to wait for any confirmation, TSMC is expected to set up this fabrication plant in Arizona.
The new plant should have the capacity to manufacture 20,000 wafers a month, estimated to cost $12 Billion. For TSMC, this is a small operation compared to other fabs which total up to 12 million wafers in 2019 but its a start. Currently, the company’s Fab 18 makes 5nm chips in Taiwan.
TSMC is a major independent chipmaker for many companies, namely AMD, Nvidia, Apple Inc., and Qualcomm. Its fabricated processors are used in PCs, gaming consoles and smartphones. According to the source, the TSMC made this decision during a board meeting in Taiwan. The company is expected to reveal its ‘USA made’ 5nm chips plans soon.
For national security and employment?
It is said that the company is finalizing its deal with the United States government. The US government has been pushing manufacturing to happen in the United States for the local economy and national security. Irrespective of the reason, setting up fabrication plants increases demand in various professions and skills. Once finalized, the plant is expected to start its operations by 2023, bringing jobs to 1,600 personnel. It is not clear what kind of financial incentives it received from the US.
All benefit from this expansion
Intel is the only CPU company that has fabrication plants in the United States but uses them exclusively for their own products. TSMC is known to get large orders, especially since NVIDIA is gearing up to release Ampere architecture graphics cards. This even benefits AMD for its plans for CPUs, GPUs and gaming consoles. But 2023 is a long time so we’ll just have to wait and see the benefits of this expansion.
Source: WSJ
