TSMC, one of the world’s largest semiconductor manufacturers, has postponed its plans for a new factory in Europe due to the changing supply and demand of automotive semiconductors. Originally set to open earlier, the European factory will now be delayed for at least two years, and it’s not expected to be completed until 2025.
TSMC Pushes Back Opening of European Factory by Two Years
TSMC had been exploring the possibility of establishing a special process fab in Europe focused on automotive technology, based on customer needs and the support of governments in various countries. However, with the current correction of the semiconductor economy, major foundries are now dispatching more production capacity to produce automotive chips, resulting in an improvement of the chip shortage and even a balance between supply and demand.
The delay in TSMC’s European factory could mean that European automotive chip customers will continue to stay in TSMC’s Taiwan plant, or even move to new plants in Japan and the United States, which would help TSMC use the production capacity of its overseas plants. Meanwhile, Japanese officials are encouraging TSMC to set up a second fab in Japan, supported by the introduction of extreme ultraviolet light (EUV) machines. This could allow TSMC’s Japanese plant to support more advanced process needs of local and international automotive semiconductor customers.
Industry analysts believe that this shift could be beneficial for TSMC, especially given the fluctuating economic climate and high inflation pressure, which make the cost of setting up factories in Europe much higher than in the United States and Japan.
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(source)
