TSMC Said to be Planning Second Fab in Japan

[TheLostSwede]

The rumour mill has kicked into high gear this week about TSMC planning a second fab in Japan. The original source is the Nikkan Kogyo newspaper (via Reuters), based in Tokyo, although it's unclear where the actual fab would be located, if it's indeed even happening. According to the paper, the new fab would be focusing on 5 and 10 nanometer chips, but production isn't expected to start until sometime in the second half of this decade. This suggests that these would be mainstream nodes by then, which points to yet another fab for either the vehicle industry or something similar.

The fab is said to cost more than a trillion yen, or over US$7.4 billion to build. TSMC's CEO C.C. Wei was asked about the potential fab during TSMC's latest earnings call, but simply said that the company had nothing further to add. TSMC is of course busy building a fab in Japan on Kyushu island, but as it'll have a node capacity for 12 to 16 nm parts, it makes sense that TSMC would already be planning for an extension of said fab that can produce on more advanced nodes as its customers will be moving to more advanced nodes over time.



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[bonehead123]

Bring it.... sub-1nm parts already, that is !

Save dem older fabs for those gigantic 5-16nm auto-grade stuffs

 

[AnotherReader]

Bring it.... sub-1nm parts already, that is !

Save dem older fabs for those gigantic 5-16nm auto-grade stuffs

Automotive can get by with even older nodes. Besides, the node names are lies anyways; the minimum metal pitch in TSMC's N5 is 28 nm.

 

[TheLostSwede]

Automotive can get by with even older nodes. Besides, the node names are lies anyways; the minimum metal pitch in TSMC's N5 is 28 nm.

The EV market needs more advanced nodes for a lot of chips though.

 

[AnotherReader]

The EV market needs more advanced nodes for a lot of chips though.

Yes, there's demand for smaller nodes, but so far, it's insignificant compared to the demand for older nodes. They will get there in time, but I don't think they'll ever be breaking down the doors to get dibs on TSMC's new processes like Apple.

 

[TheLostSwede]

Yes, there's demand for smaller nodes, but so far, it's insignificant compared to the demand for older nodes. They will get there in time, but I don't think they'll ever be breaking down the doors to get dibs on TSMC's new processes like Apple.

No, that's highly unlikely, but as this fab is rumoured to only start production 2025 or later, there should be demand by then for at least something smaller than the 12-16 nm fab they're currently building.

 

[Calmmo]

More contingency plans for the.. seemingly inevitable i guess.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

absolutely fab-ulous.

More CPUs to build giant robots.

 

[zlobby]

Do you think they start feeling the heat?

absolutely fab-ulous.

More CPUs to build giant robots.

They are called 'mechas' or 'gundam' if you want to be precise.

 

[kondamin]

The EV market needs more advanced nodes for a lot of chips though.

pretty certain ev cars are simpler than conventional cars And would need less processing power and fewer controllers if it wasn’t for all the gadgetry modern cars have.

 

[semantics]

The EV market needs more advanced nodes for a lot of chips though.

Eh... Cars in general need a lot of simple chips because everyone but Tesla just includes basic chips inside of every individual piece of hardware due to how cars are made by a bunch of parts from a few oems and internal parts bins, they don't really have complex control over each other so they work mostly independently. It's not unusual to have 50+ ECUs.

Teslas are pretty interesting electrically vs other car companies, they have less than half of those ECUs @20-ish, way less in wiring harnesses, they also don't use disposable fuses it's all resettable efuses. Funny enough original Teslas did not have J1962(OBD2) connectors because it doesn't burn gas it doesn't fall under that regulation, they did add it in later iterations for w.e reason.

EVs don't need any more more modern chips than a ICE car except depending on what you want to do.
Cars are just having more advanced processing in general with things like more complex diving assistance and entertainment built into the cars. Tesla needs complex chips because they do a lot of computing and it's way more vertically integrated. Ford at least admits to wanting to be more like Tesla and do a lot more integration to reduce costs. Basically Tesla's per car margins are so much better than the rest of the industry so some of the companies are looking to emulate what they've done which is reduce and remove anything and everything they could and moving to a more centralized architecture. Tesla kind of had to do it in the S/X days because traditional oems did not want to do more limited runs at lower volumes and they also asked Tesla for extra money for the development, so Tesla just pulled everything in-house.

 

[zlobby]

pretty certain ev cars are simpler than conventional cars And would need less processing power and fewer controllers if it wasn’t for all the gadgetry modern cars have.

No ECUs involved to interpret maps, but the autonomous mode AI needs powerful machinery to work on. Let alone the fancy infotainment where you can now even play Crysis on.

 

[bug]

Hm, I was under the impression fabs are built in areas less riddled with earthquakes...

 

[stimpy88]

They'd better get on with it. I give them a max of 2 years before China "changes" their business model for them, permanently.

 

[prtskg]

Hm, I was under the impression fabs are built in areas less riddled with earthquakes...

I was thinking the same thing. But I guess they did their math where it's going to be most profitable.

 

[zlobby]

I was thinking the same thing. But I guess they did their math where it's going to be most profitable.

It's risk-to-benefit ratio.

 

[bug]

I was thinking the same thing. But I guess they did their math where it's going to be most profitable.

As long as they're not profitable because earthquakes cause outages 20% of the time, giving them reason to jack up the prices. (I know they won't, Taiwan isn't in an earthquake-free zone either, so they could have done it already).

 

[Shou Miko]

I like that TSMC annonces they are planing to make more FABs it's great honestly only thing about it is it takes 1~2 years before the fabs are up and able to produce anything that goes out the door.

I read this in a written interview from TSMC when they talked about their USA and Germany fabs because it's not just taking the settings you already use from your running fab and type them in because things just ain't the same.

But still excited every time wish I could get a personal tour at a TSMC fab one day it would be one dream to come true

 

[bug]

I like that TSMC annonces they are planing to make more FABs it's great honestly only thing about it is it takes 1~2 years before the fabs are up and able to produce anything that goes out the door.

I read this in a written interview from TSMC when they talked about their USA and Germany fabs because it's not just taking the settings you already use from your running fab and type them in because things just ain't the same.

But still excited every time wish I could get a personal tour at a TSMC fab one day it would be one dream to come true

1-2 years? We should be so lucky.

 

[Shou Miko]

1-2 years? We should be so lucky.

Well lets see how the fabs in the US and Germany do, because when the machines on those 2 locations might be more similar than the current fab.

 

[yeeeeman]

i think japan is a safer bet than us. japanese people are hard working, respect work and aren't fat/stupid

 

[Rithsom]

i think japan is a safer bet than us. japanese people are hard working, respect work and aren't fat/stupid

Any reason for the USA bashing? Nobody here asked for your opinion of Americans. Besides, the USA is still going to have some of the most advanced fabs going forward, whether you like it or not.

I hate it when people spout nonsense about Americans. Same goes for those who excessively attack the Chinese or Russians. It comes off as childish and only makes you look bad.

 

[bug]

Any reason for the USA bashing? Nobody here asked for your opinion of Americans. Besides, the USA is still going to have some of the most advanced fabs going forward, whether you like it or not.

I hate it when people spout nonsense about Americans. Same goes for those who excessively attack the Chinese or Russians. It comes off as childish and only makes you look bad.

Well, sadly for everybody, Russians managed to single themselves out anyway. But that's not only OT, it's also kinda going over the forum guidelines, so let's cool it.

 

[claes]

Think you missed the point: not Russians, just Russia and their awful government. But yes off-topic.