Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co is weighing plans to pump tens of billions of dollars more into cutting-edge chip factories in the US state of Arizona than it had previously disclosed, but is cool on prospects for an advanced European plant, people familiar with the matter told Reuters.
TSMC is the world’s most advanced chip-maker, and its investment plans are being closely watched amid a global chip shortage and new initiatives in the US and Europe to subsidise semiconductor production. TSMC announced last year that it would invest $10 billion (roughly Rs. 73,320 crores) to $12 billion (roughly Rs. 88,000 crores) to build a chip factory in Phoenix.
Reuters this month reported that previously disclosed factory could be the first of up to six planned plants at the site. Now, company officials are debating whether the next plant should be a more advanced facility that can make chips with so-called 3-nanometre chipmaking technology compared to the slower, less-efficient 5-nanometre technology used for the first factory.
The more advanced 3-nanometre plant could cost $23 billion (roughly Rs. 1,68,640 crores) to $25 billion (roughly Rs. 1,83,300 crores), one person familiar with the matter told Reuters. Details of TSMC’s plans for the additional factories at the Arizona site have not been previously reported.
Officials have also sketched out plans for TSMC to make next-generation 2-nanometre and smaller chips as the Phoenix campus is built out the next 10 to 15 years,…
