Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. production has stopped due to some defective chemical. TSMC is the manufacturer of various chipsets which are usually used on iOS and Android devices. It is a production house for different chipset makers such as Huawei, Apple, Qualcomm, Nvidia, and MediaTek.
Today it marks the second production problem in the last six months halting the chipset development process. TSMC is suffering from weak demand due to the global slowdown in smartphone sales. Notably, the company expressed concerns over the low sales of Apple iPhone and other premium smartphones. It even cited the current US-China trade war as a primary culprit behind the weak sales. This latest glitch will create a troublesome environment for TSMC to process orders timely.
According to our sources, TSMC production problem is linked to some defective chemical shipment which is used in the manufacturing of wafer yield in chipsets. A photoresist chemical which is crucial in the chipset development has disrupted the manufacturing process.
Majorly the production at Fab 14B site in Southern Taiwan has been affected due to the bad chemical. Huawei’s chipset arm HiSilicon are among the customers who will now face some production problems. Nvidia is also going to face some production hurdles after recent TSMC factory glitch. In an official statement, the company said that they are investigating the cause of the problem and responding to customers.
Last year, TSMC encountered a similar situation when a computer virus made them stop production for three days in August. At the time, Apple’s advanced chips production was hindered due to an unforeseen situation. Currently, we are not completely sure whether the recent production issue at TSMC will affect Huawei’s upcoming smartphones or not.
