The Kaohsiung City Government yesterday said it was working on procedures to cope with a major adjustment by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) to make advanced chips — likely 2-nanometer — at a new factory in the city, rather than legacy chips.
In April, TSMC said it was considering whether to make more advanced semiconductors in Kaohsiung, other than 3-nanometer chips — the most advanced chips available now.
It said the cutting-edge semiconductors would be produced at its new factory in Nanzih Technology Industrial Park (楠梓科技產業園區), which it had originally planned to use for 28-nanometer chips.
Photo: Huang Liang-chieh, Taipei Times
TSMC has said it expects its next-generation 2-nanometer technology to enter mass production in 2025 at its Hsinchu and Taichung factories.
The Kaohsiung factory would be the third capable of producing 2-nanometer chips, if the plan is confirmed.
To avoid overcapacity, the world’s biggest contract chipmaker decided not to make 28-nanometer chips in Kaohsiung, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors in April.
TSMC is building 28-nanometer chip capacity at a new factory in Japan and adding 28-nanometer capacity to its fab in Nanjing, China, Wei said, adding that it is also considering building a third fab in Europe to make 28-nanometer chips for vehicles.
TSMC informed the Kaohsiung City Government about its change in plans early this year, Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) told reporters yesterday.
The city government has been closely communicating with the chipmaker to satisfy its needs, which include water and electricity consumption, Chen said.
“The city government will fully support TSMC in making those changes,” he said.
“The industrial park is adjusting related items catering to the operation of this advanced plant and preparing to review the environmental impact comparative analysis report [from TSMC],” the Kaohsiung Economic Development Bureau said in a statement. “The construction work on the new fab is ongoing.”
The bureau declined to confirm a report yesterday by the Chinese-language United Daily News, saying that TSMC planned to further upgrade the Kaohsiung fab for 2-nanometer capacity to meet demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips.
TSMC supplies AI chips to Nvidia Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) among other customers.
AMD chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) arrived in Taipei yesterday on a four-day trip to visit the company’s local suppliers, including TSMC; hardware and component suppliers Pegatron Corp (和碩) and Quanta Computer Inc (廣達); and motherboard makers Micro-Star International Co (MSI, 微星) and Gigabyte Technology Co (技嘉), a source familiar with her itinerary said, asking to remain anonymous.
Analysts said Su’s planned meetings have raised hopes that AMD, one of the world’s foremost semiconductor development companies, will forge closer ties with Taiwan’s semiconductor industry and companies in the AI server supply chain.
Her visit comes less that two months after Nvidia chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) visited Taiwan and stirred up an AI frenzy.
Su is also scheduled to attend a conferral ceremony on Thursday to accept an honorary doctorate degree from National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University.
Additional reporting by CNA
‘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
UNITED: The premier said Trump’s tariff comments provided a great opportunity for the private and public sectors to come together to maintain the nation’s chip advantage The government is considering ways to assist the nation’s semiconductor industry or hosting collaborative projects with the private sector after US President Donald Trump threatened to impose a 100 percent tariff on chips exported to the US, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said yesterday. Trump on Monday told Republican members of the US Congress about plans to impose sweeping tariffs on semiconductors, steel, aluminum, copper and pharmaceuticals “in the very near future.” “It’s time for the United States to return to the system that made us richer and more powerful than ever before,” Trump said at the Republican Issues Conference in Miami, Florida. “They
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