The founder approved the construction of a second site in Arizona. Unlike the former, which will burn in N5/N4, the new Fab is designed for N3, the most advanced burning node currently.
In November 2020, TSMC announced the construction of a manufacturing facility for N5 and N4 in the United States. More recently, Morris Chang has suggested that the site could also be used for 3nm etching. The founder has officially validated this plan.
In addition to its first fab, where production in N4 is expected to begin in 2024, TSMC will build a second fab in Arizona. This will be used to produce in 3nm from 2026. The total investment made for these two factories is approximately 40 billion US dollars. As TSMC notes, this amount “represents the largest foreign direct investment in Arizona history and one of the largest foreign direct investments in U.S. history.” The founder’s two factories in Arizona will help create 10,000 jobs, including 4,500 jobs reporting directly to TSMC. Once completed, they will produce more than 600,000 wafers annually. Finally, the company also addresses the ecological aspect, with the announcement of the construction of an industrial water treatment plant on the site.
An advanced node outside Taiwan
The decision to manufacture 3nm outside the island of Taiwan is quite significant. Certainly, in 2026, this burning process will no longer represent the top of the technology, but still a very advanced node. However, until now, TSMC is careful to keep its most successful facilities on the island, in part for geostrategic reasons.
Without falling into overly simplistic analyses, maintaining state-of-the-art sites in Taiwan is a great way for the country to ensure the protection of the United States. Indeed, so regularly, Joe Biden repeats that the United States would be ready to defend Taiwan in the event of an attack from China, we bet that this commitment is not motivated solely by a democratic ideal. And although TSMC President Mark Liu said, speaking in Beijing during Nancy Pelosi’s visit, that no one can control the company by force, the United States certainly wouldn’t look kindly on the Chinese to get its hands on the facilities of TSMC, which are filled with so many lithographic scanners that the Trump and then Biden administrations are trying to deprive Chinese smelters like SMIC.
Anyway, back to the Arizona factory, here’s what Mark Liu had to say about it: “When completed, TSMC Arizona aims to be the greenest in the United States, producing the most advanced semiconductor process technology in the nation, enabling the next generation of high-performance, low-power computing products for years to come. We are grateful for the continued collaboration that has brought us here and look forward to working with our partners in the United States to serve as a foundation for innovation in the semiconductor space.”
Source: TSMC
