TSMC Plans Advanced 4nm Chip Production at Arizona Plant on Apple Demand: Report

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company will offer advanced 4-nanometer chips when its new $12 billion (roughly Rs. 97,500 crore) plant in Arizona opens in 2024, spurred by US customers including Apple to do so, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday. The firm is expected to announce the new plan when US President Joe Biden and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo visit Phoenix for a ceremony next Tuesday, according to the report, citing people familiar with the matter.

TSMC previously said it would make 20,000 wafers per month at the Arizona facility but the production may increase from those original plans, the report said. Apple will use about a third of the output as production gets underway, it added.

The report said in addition to Apple, TSMC customers including AMD and Nvidia have also asked TSMC to make more sophisticated chips at the Arizona plant.

TSMC's customers have asked the company to roll out its latest technologies simultaneously in the United States and Taiwan, the report added.

TSMC declined to comment, while Apple, AMD and Nvidia did not immediately respond to Reuters' requests for comment.

Last week, TSMC founder Morris Chang said the company was planning to produce chips with advanced 3-nanometre technology in Arizona, but added that the plans were not yet finalised.

Chang, told reporters in Taipei that the 3-nanometre plant would be located at the same Arizona site as the 5-nanometre plant. "Three-nanometre, TSMC right now has a plan, but it has not been completely finalised," said Chang, who has retired from TSMC but remains influential in the company and the broader chip industry.

Last month, TSMC reported an 80 percent on-year surge in profit for the July-September period of 2022, the strongest growth in two years. However, TSMC also trimmed capital spending by at least 10 percent for this year. TSMC, Asia's most valuable listed company, said it was being more conservative in planning investments for 2023, but still expected "a growth year".

© Thomson Reuters 2022