Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) plans to invest about US$100 billion to expand capacity and fund research and development (R&D) of advanced technologies in the next three years to keep up with rising demand, it said yesterday.
TSMC unveiled the rare multiyear investment plan to appease customer panic over a global chip shortage.
“We are entering a period of higher growth as the multiyear megatrends of 5G and HPC [high-performance-computing] are expected to fuel strong demand for our semiconductor technologies in the next several years,” TSMC said in a statement.
Photo: Sam Yeh, AFP
In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated digitalization, which also drives semiconductor demand, the chipmaker said in the statement.
TSMC made the comments after China-based media Voice reported about the chipmaker’s grand capital investment plan and price adjustments, citing a letter sent by TSMC chief executive officer C. C. Wei (魏哲家) to customers. TSMC declined to comment on pricing.
TSMC has been improving productivity and boosting factory utilization to more than 100 percent over the past 12 months, but has not been able to keep up with demand, Wei said in the letter obtained by the Taipei Times.
The chipmaker is taking more actions to avert future supply crunches, it said.
“TSMC will be building greenfield [new] fabs and expanding existing fabs for both leading-edge and specialty technologies,” Wei said. “We have started hiring thousands of new employees, acquired land and equipment, and started construction of new facilities at multiple sites globally.”
TSMC operates 13 wafer manufacturing factories in Taiwan and China, and is building a new fab in Arizona. Based on the company’s first-phase plan, the US plant would produce 20,000 12-inch wafers per month after it opens in 2024.
TSMC in January budgeted record-high capital expenditure of US$25 billion to US$28 billion for this year, citing technology complexity, technology advancement and high costs of extreme ultraviolet lithography tools.
“Increased capacity will improve supply certainty and help protect complex global supply chains that rely on semiconductors,” Wei said.
In the letter, Wei told customers TSMC would suspend wafer price discounts through the whole of next year, starting on Dec. 31.
“We believe that this modest action is the least disruptive option to supply chains so that TSMC can deliver on our mission of providing leading semiconductor technologies and manufacturing capacity in a sustainable manner,” Wei said.
While most chipmakers have hiked prices by 30 or 40 percent to reflect surging raw material costs and volatile foreign-exchange rates, TSMC has tried to keep prices stable.
Separately, United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電) yesterday said it would invest more to expand capacity at its factories in Tainan over the next 3 years, in addition to the NT$350 billion (US$12.27 billion) it has spent on capital expenditures over the past decade.
UMC is to spend US$1.5 billion on new facilities and equipment this year, mainly on increasing its 28-nanometer chip capacity, it told investors in January.
CLASH OF WORDS: While China’s foreign minister insisted the US play a constructive role with China, Rubio stressed Washington’s commitment to its allies in the region The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday affirmed and welcomed US Secretary of State Marco Rubio statements expressing the US’ “serious concern over China’s coercive actions against Taiwan” and aggressive behavior in the South China Sea, in a telephone call with his Chinese counterpart. The ministry in a news release yesterday also said that the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs had stated many fallacies about Taiwan in the call. “We solemnly emphasize again that our country and the People’s Republic of China are not subordinate to each other, and it has been an objective fact for a long time, as well as
‘CHARM OFFENSIVE’: Beijing has been sending senior Chinese officials to Okinawa as part of efforts to influence public opinion against the US, the ‘Telegraph’ reported Beijing is believed to be sowing divisions in Japan’s Okinawa Prefecture to better facilitate an invasion of Taiwan, British newspaper the Telegraph reported on Saturday. Less than 750km from Taiwan, Okinawa hosts nearly 30,000 US troops who would likely “play a pivotal role should Beijing order the invasion of Taiwan,” it wrote. To prevent US intervention in an invasion, China is carrying out a “silent invasion” of Okinawa by stoking the flames of discontent among locals toward the US presence in the prefecture, it said. Beijing is also allegedly funding separatists in the region, including Chosuke Yara, the head of the Ryukyu Independence
GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY: Taiwan must capitalize on the shock waves DeepSeek has sent through US markets to show it is a tech partner of Washington, a researcher said China’s reported breakthrough in artificial intelligence (AI) would prompt the US to seek a stronger alliance with Taiwan and Japan to secure its technological superiority, a Taiwanese researcher said yesterday. The launch of low-cost AI model DeepSeek (深度求索) on Monday sent US tech stocks tumbling, with chipmaker Nvidia Corp losing 16 percent of its value and the NASDAQ falling 612.46 points, or 3.07 percent, to close at 19,341.84 points. On the same day, the Philadelphia Stock Exchange Semiconductor Sector index dropped 488.7 points, or 9.15 percent, to close at 4,853.24 points. The launch of the Chinese chatbot proves that a competitor can
‘VERY SHALLOW’: The center of Saturday’s quake in Tainan’s Dongshan District hit at a depth of 7.7km, while yesterday’s in Nansai was at a depth of 8.1km, the CWA said Two magnitude 5.7 earthquakes that struck on Saturday night and yesterday morning were aftershocks triggered by a magnitude 6.4 quake on Tuesday last week, a seismologist said, adding that the epicenters of the aftershocks are moving westward. Saturday and yesterday’s earthquakes occurred as people were preparing for the Lunar New Year holiday this week. As of 10am yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) recorded 110 aftershocks from last week’s main earthquake, including six magnitude 5 to 6 quakes and 32 magnitude 4 to 5 tremors. Seventy-one of the earthquakes were smaller than magnitude 4. Thirty-one of the aftershocks were felt nationwide, while 79
RSS