Taiwanese TSMC opens shop in the United States in the State of Arizona in order to make chips for Apple. Other manufacturers such as Intel and Micron will strengthen their manufacturing capabilities across the Atlantic.
US President Joe Biden and Apple CEO Tim Cook traveled to Arizona for a factory opening ceremony for Taiwanese chipmaker TSMC. “These chips will power iPhones and MacBooks, as Tim Cook can attest,” President Joe Biden said on Tuesday The Verge reports that he attended the ceremony. Headquartered in Phoenix, the factory will start producing 4-nanometer (nm) processors from 2024. A second factory is expected to come out of the ground in 2026 to design 3nm chips.
Also Intel and Micron
In total, the Taiwanese will invest $40 billion in its manufacturing capacity in Arizona. The two factories are expected to produce 600,000 wafers annually by 2026, enough to cover all American demand for advanced chips. Other manufacturers such as AMD and Nvidia will also buy from TSMC’s American factories.
These new infrastructures must come to guarantee the supply of chips and guarantee shorter production times. As the vast majority of semiconductors are made in China and supply chains have been massively impacted by the Covid 19 pandemic, foundries have seized the opportunity to get closer to their biggest customers. The United States is also trying to push manufacturers to produce on its territory with the CHIPS and Science Act plan which plans to invest 52 billion dollars in the chip industry.
Intel will also boost its U.S. manufacturing with its future complex in Chandler, a suburb of Phoenix, expected to be operational in 2024. The major American chip maker will also set up a silicon manufacturing site in Ohio in 2025. Micron will open a factory in New York. Cost of the operation? 100 billion dollars…
