The Central Taiwan Science Park Administration said it has received official approval of a comparative environmental impact analysis report (EIA) for a production at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) 7-nanometer (nm) chip fab.
The park said it has to renew the report to cope with TSMC’s technology upgrade and the subsequent increase in chemical consumption.
The chipmaker’s fab is in a newly developed area of the science park in Taichung.
The remarks came after the Environmental Protection Administration yesterday approved the report.
“The approval will help TSMC expedite production of its 7nm process technology to move ahead of its global competitors,” group director-general Chen Ming-huang (陳銘煌) said in a statement.
TSMC this quarter started shipping a small volume of 7nm chips to customers from an advanced fab in Taichung and expects the volume to become significant next quarter.
The company is making 7nm chips for 18 customers to use in their smartphones, servers, graphic processing units, artificial intelligence applications and cryptocurrency mining machines.
The chips would contribute 10 percent of the company’s overall revenue this year and shipments would double from last year, TSMC said.
The chipmaker is set to start pilot production of next-generation 5nm chips in the first quarter of next year.
Overall, TSMC this year plans to increase capacity by 9 percent year-on-year to about 13 million units, and is to budget between US$10 billion and US$12 billion for capital expenditures.
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