City officials in Phoenix, Arizona, on Wednesday approved a slate of financial incentives and government support for Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) planned US$12 billion chip plant, a step toward bringing high-tech manufacturing to the US and addressing national security concerns over the industry supply chain.
The city agreed to provide about US$200 million to develop roads, sewers and other infrastructure, according to a notice from the city council.
At least one additional set of traffic lights would be included for a cost of approximately US$500,000.
Photo: Cheng I-hwa / Bloomberg
The company is conducting due diligence on several locations in Phoenix with a final decision to be made later.
The decision to locate a plant in Arizona came after US President Donald Trump’s administration warned about the threat inherent in having much of the world’s electronics made outside of the US.
TSMC, the primary chipmaker for firms such as Apple Inc, had negotiated a deal with the administration to create US jobs and produce sensitive components domestically for national security reasons.
The Phoenix project is projected to create about 1,900 new jobs over five years, the company said.
“We appreciate the continuous bipartisan support from the US federal, state and city governments,” a spokeswoman for the company said. “It gives TSMC and its supply chain partners the confidence this and other future investments will be successful.”
TSMC in May said that the facility would utilize its 5-nanometer technology for 12-inch wafer fabrication and have a capacity of 20,000 semiconductor wafers per month, with construction of the plant scheduled to start next year and production to begin in 2024.
The company has said that it hoped to convince its own suppliers to set up operations in the vicinity of its new fabrication facility.
Chip giants Intel Corp and Micron Technology Inc already operate facilities in Arizona, and have helped build a vibrant local semiconductor industry over the years.
TSMC said that subsidies would be critical in setting up a fab in the US, given the additional expenses.
While Phoenix has approved its infrastructure spending, TSMC is still waiting on state and federal subsidies and incentives that could surpass by far the city’s expenditures.
The company would enter a formal deal with the city after selecting a site, which is expected before the end of the year, Reuters reported.
A representative for the city council declined to comment beyond statements in public documents.
“It is remarkable that this came to fruition during a pandemic,” Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego said in a statement. “The payoff is huge. TSMC will create 1,900 high-tech jobs and foster thousands more related jobs in the semiconductor supply chain ecosystem.”
Additional reporting by CNA
Nvidia Corp’s demand for advanced packaging from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) remains strong though the kind of technology it needs is changing, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said yesterday, after he was asked whether the company was cutting orders. Nvidia’s most advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chip, Blackwell, consists of multiple chips glued together using a complex chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) advanced packaging technology offered by TSMC, Nvidia’s main contract chipmaker. “As we move into Blackwell, we will use largely CoWoS-L. Of course, we’re still manufacturing Hopper, and Hopper will use CowoS-S. We will also transition the CoWoS-S capacity to CoWos-L,” Huang said
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) is expected to miss the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump on Monday, bucking a trend among high-profile US technology leaders. Huang is visiting East Asia this week, as he typically does around the time of the Lunar New Year, a person familiar with the situation said. He has never previously attended a US presidential inauguration, said the person, who asked not to be identified, because the plans have not been announced. That makes Nvidia an exception among the most valuable technology companies, most of which are sending cofounders or CEOs to the event. That includes
INDUSTRY LEADER: TSMC aims to continue outperforming the industry’s growth and makes 2025 another strong growth year, chairman and CEO C.C. Wei says Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), a major chip supplier to Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc, yesterday said it aims to grow revenue by about 25 percent this year, driven by robust demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips. That means TSMC would continue to outpace the foundry industry’s 10 percent annual growth this year based on the chipmaker’s estimate. The chipmaker expects revenue from AI-related chips to double this year, extending a three-fold increase last year. The growth would quicken over the next five years at a compound annual growth rate of 45 percent, fueled by strong demand for the high-performance computing
TARIFF TRADE-OFF: Machinery exports to China dropped after Beijing ended its tariff reductions in June, while potential new tariffs fueled ‘front-loaded’ orders to the US The nation’s machinery exports to the US amounted to US$7.19 billion last year, surpassing the US$6.86 billion to China to become the largest export destination for the local machinery industry, the Taiwan Association of Machinery Industry (TAMI, 台灣機械公會) said in a report on Jan. 10. It came as some manufacturers brought forward or “front-loaded” US-bound shipments as required by customers ahead of potential tariffs imposed by the new US administration, the association said. During his campaign, US president-elect Donald Trump threatened tariffs of as high as 60 percent on Chinese goods and 10 percent to 20 percent on imports from other countries.
RSS