Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) plans to invest NT$90 billion (US$2.9 billion) to expand its advanced chip packaging capacity in Miaoli County’s Tongluo Science Park (銅鑼科學園區) to cope with customer demand, the world’s largest contract chipmaker said yesterday.
The Hsinchu Science Park Bureau has approved its application to lease land at the Tongluo Science Park, a branch campus of the Hsinchu Science Park (新竹科學園區), for the plant’s construction, the chipmaker said in a statement.
TSMC did not elaborate on the project, including the time frame for its operation, saying only that the investment would create 1,500 job opportunities.
Photo: Reuters
The new investment comes as the chipmaker is having difficulty supplying advanced packaging capacity, especially 3D packaging technology and chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) technology, thanks to robust demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips.
With its leading-edge process technologies, TSMC makes the AI GPU H100 for Nvidia Corp and MI300 GPU for Advanced Micro Devices Inc.
“We cannot fulfill 100 percent of customers’ needs,” TSMC chief executive officer C.C.Wei (魏哲家) told investors on Thursday last week. “We are increasing capacity as quickly as possible.”
The chipmaker plans to double its CoWoS capacity, Wei added, expecting the supply crunch to ease up at the end of next year.
TSMC has said it plans to allocate a small fraction of its capital expenditure budget of US$32 billion to US$36 billion this year to packaging.
A big chunk of the budget would go into the development of leading-edge technologies, including 3-nanometer and 2-nanometer processes, it said.
In addition to pure wafer foundry operations, TSMC operates five advanced chip packaging plants in Taiwan: at Hsinchu Science Park, Taoyuan’s Longtan District (龍潭), Miaoli County’s Jhunan Township (竹南), Central Taiwan Science Park (中部科學園區) in Taichung and the Southern Taiwan Science Park (南部科學園區) in Tainan.
Separately, TSMC said it is taking routine precautionary measures at all its fabs across the nation as Typhoon Doksuri approached Taiwan.
These include “24-hour on-duty personnel and emergency response teams, including water, electricity, mechanical and disaster recovery experts,” the chipmaker said in an e-mailed response to inquiries.
Other measures include inspections of drainage systems and waterproof gates; carrying out pump inventory testing; and minimizing use of temporary installations exposed to strong winds, TSMC said.
Additional reporting by Bloomberg
‘CORRECT IDENTIFICATION’: Beginning in May, Taiwanese married to Japanese can register their home country as Taiwan in their spouse’s family record, ‘Nikkei Asia’ said The government yesterday thanked Japan for revising rules that would allow Taiwanese nationals married to Japanese citizens to list their home country as “Taiwan” in the official family record database. At present, Taiwanese have to select “China.” Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said the new rule, set to be implemented in May, would now “correctly” identify Taiwanese in Japan and help protect their rights, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. The statement was released after Nikkei Asia reported the new policy earlier yesterday. The name and nationality of a non-Japanese person marrying a Japanese national is added to the
AT RISK: The council reiterated that people should seriously consider the necessity of visiting China, after Beijing passed 22 guidelines to punish ‘die-hard’ separatists The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) has since Jan. 1 last year received 65 petitions regarding Taiwanese who were interrogated or detained in China, MAC Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday. Fifty-two either went missing or had their personal freedoms restricted, with some put in criminal detention, while 13 were interrogated and temporarily detained, he said in a radio interview. On June 21 last year, China announced 22 guidelines to punish “die-hard Taiwanese independence separatists,” allowing Chinese courts to try people in absentia. The guidelines are uncivilized and inhumane, allowing Beijing to seize assets and issue the death penalty, with no regard for potential
‘UNITED FRONT’ FRONTS: Barring contact with Huaqiao and Jinan universities is needed to stop China targeting Taiwanese students, the education minister said Taiwan has blacklisted two Chinese universities from conducting academic exchange programs in the nation after reports that the institutes are arms of Beijing’s United Front Work Department, Minister of Education Cheng Ying-yao (鄭英耀) said in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) published yesterday. China’s Huaqiao University in Xiamen and Quanzhou, as well as Jinan University in Guangzhou, which have 600 and 1,500 Taiwanese on their rolls respectively, are under direct control of the Chinese government’s political warfare branch, Cheng said, citing reports by national security officials. A comprehensive ban on Taiwanese institutions collaborating or
STILL COMMITTED: The US opposes any forced change to the ‘status quo’ in the Strait, but also does not seek conflict, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said US President Donald Trump’s administration released US$5.3 billion in previously frozen foreign aid, including US$870 million in security exemptions for programs in Taiwan, a list of exemptions reviewed by Reuters showed. Trump ordered a 90-day pause on foreign aid shortly after taking office on Jan. 20, halting funding for everything from programs that fight starvation and deadly diseases to providing shelters for millions of displaced people across the globe. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has said that all foreign assistance must align with Trump’s “America First” priorities, issued waivers late last month on military aid to Israel and Egypt, the
RSS