TSMC Reportedly Begins Construction of Third Arizona Production Location

[T0@st]

As disclosed in a new press release—issued by the US Commerce Department—TSMC's North American operation has started another expansion. Last month, Taiwan's leading chip foundry committed a substantial $100 billion investment—eventually leading to a greater production footprint in Phoenix, Arizona. Reports suggest that ground has already been broken, in a low-key manner—as of yesterday (April 29)—at a planned third location, only hours after TSMC's receiving of permits—aka a "thumbs up" from the US government. According to local news outlets, key administrative representatives were in attendance to witness the initiation of construction work. TSMC's third plant is destined to pump out cutting-edge products via a 2 nm (N2) process technology, with Apple, NVIDIA and AMD confirmed as "front of the queue" customers. Despite recent fanfare and celebrations, industry analysts reckon that it will take up to a decade for the foundry's North American operation to solidify a dependable supply chain. In the interim, certain elements will require shipping to overseas locations—for packaging and finalization purposes.



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[MentalAcetylide]

It makes me wonder if things like this are just going to turn out to be glorified distribution centers rather than actual production.

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

It makes me wonder if things like this are just going to turn out to be glorified distribution centers rather than actual production.

I doubt it, that's a lotta cheddar to build a distribution center int he middle of the desert.

They have a vested interest in putting their production facilities in places other than one island within striking distance of their strongest oppressing force, and safeguarding them against another supply chain collapse.

 

[arbiter]

I doubt it, that's a lotta cheddar to build a distribution center int he middle of the desert.

They have a vested interest in putting their production facilities in places other than one island within striking distance of their strongest oppressing force.

yea a force that has been a lot of moves that make it look like its about to be taken over. If said force does that there is no telling how long production will be down there and IF it will ever restart.

 

[zenlessyank]

Great cooling in Arizona. Good thing they didn't build it in Alaska where it is so damned hot!

 

[kondamin]

Great cooling in Arizona. Good thing they didn't build it in Alaska where it is so damned hot!

One location in the us where they are doing everything would make to much sense.
you need to sprinkle them out all over the place so your specialists need to travel by aircraft and create wait times of weeks to fix problems that could be done in hours if things were close together.

 

[MentalAcetylide]

One location in the us where they are doing everything would make to much sense.
you need to sprinkle them out all over the place so your specialists need to travel by aircraft and create wait times of weeks to fix problems that could be done in hours if things were close together.

One location to do "everything" would be perfect. Unfortunately, when it comes to electronics((i.e. motherboards, etc.) & implementing it, no country in the world is capable of doing it on a national scale. A single country could certainly assemble the final product in that respective country, but there's no way in hell they can assemble all of the components, sub-components & such for it from scratch. The costs would be astronomical, and even then, countries like the US would still have to rely on imports for rare earth elements.
People think taking a tariff sledgehammer to the system to hurry up & bring all this stuff into the US is somehow going to change things. Sure, it looks good, sounds good, but as I've said in another post, its a wealth distribution problem. Building plants in the US that provide tens of thousands of jobs that pay $20-$30/hr don't mean squat when income growth stays in the single digits for them in conjunction with ever decreasing buying power while the $500 million+ club continue to see an income growth of 40% or more.

I doubt it, that's a lotta cheddar to build a distribution center int he middle of the desert.

They have a vested interest in putting their production facilities in places other than one island within striking distance of their strongest oppressing force, and safeguarding them against another supply chain collapse.

China invading Taiwan won't happen any time in the near future. They would be hurting themselves just as much as Taiwan and end up gaining nothing except control of a ruined country with nothing to show for it.

 

[kondamin]

One location to do "everything" would be perfect. Unfortunately, when it comes to electronics((i.e. motherboards, etc.) & implementing it, no country in the world is capable of doing it on a national scale.

intel Samsung or tsmc don’t need to have the whole thing in one spot, just huge chunks of similar production.

There is no need for a specialist in operating euv machines to come and tinker with the machines that make PCB’s for motherboards.

The factory that makes silicon boules doesn’t need to sit next to the facility that slices wafers from it.
But it would be interesting to have the slicing place be close to the foundry…