TSMC chips Archives - Gizmochina

‘It’s Not a Skilled Labor Shortage, It’s Poor Management’: Workers at TSMC’s Arizona Plant Speak Out Against Delays and Safety Violations

Oğuz Çakır — Thu, 24 Aug 2023 11:04:45 +0000

TSMC is building new factories in several countries to meet the growing demand for semiconductors. For example, they have plans to open new plants in India and Germany to increase its production capacity. One of these factories is currently being built in Arizona, USA. However, the construction is not going as smoothly as the Taiwanese manufacturer had hoped, and it keeps getting postponed. TSMC said before that they don’t have enough trained workers, which is causing the delay. But new information says the delay is because of bad management, not because there aren’t enough skilled workers. Here are the details…

Workers at TSMC Arizona Plant Say Poor Management Is Putting Safety at Risk

TSMC is currently building a high-tech chip factory in Arizona, USA. The project is expected to cost $40 billion and aims to be one of the world’s top chip-making facility. Construction started in 2021 and was supposed to finish in 2024. However, it’s now expected to start making chips in 2025 due to a shortage of skilled labor. At least, that’s what we thought. According to a report by Business Insider India, two current workers claim that operational mismanagement and administrative chaos have contributed to the delay in the factory’s construction.

We have heard many different things about what’s happening at TSMC’s factory in Arizona. For example, we recently shared news that American workers were not happy about 500 workers coming from Taiwan to speed up the work. However, the American workers allege that TSMC has been providing them with inadequate information and resources, and that the construction site is filled with safety violations.

A pipe cutter who has been working in construction for a long time and wishes to remain anonymous had this to say: “It’s not like we’re against the Taiwanese workers or anything. We’re against TSMC. TSMC is the problem. They keep saying we’re slowing them down, but they’re not giving us the information we need. Most of us are capable of doing it if you gave us the correct information.” Another person working at the plant as a welder made similar statements.

‘I would not want to be in these buildings after they’re fully complete’

One of the “I would not want to be in these buildings after they’re fully complete.” One worker mentioned that building code violations were common. He said, “Sometimes we’ll have to do work two or three times because they’re like, ‘Well, this is how we do it in Taiwan.’ So we build it exactly how they want it, but then as soon as it’s put in, we’re not going to sign off on it because it’s illegal. It’s against international building code.” These statements are particularly critical because if they are proven true in a potential inspection, TSMC could risk wasting years of effort.

After complaining about one safety issue for two straight weeks, he said, he spoke with a company safety representative. “He literally told me to my face that we’re only here for insurance purposes — they won’t let us do anything,” he said, referring to the company’s desire to meet baseline safety requirements. “And that’s when I gave up.”

TSMC has denied the allegations of poor management and safety violations. The company says that it is committed to providing a safe and healthy work environment for all of its employees with this words: “TSMC is deeply committed to workplace safety in the operation of all our facilities, along with each of our active construction projects, including TSMC Arizona,”

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TSMC’s New $3.3 Billion R&D Center to House Over 7,000 Employees, Focus on 2nm and 1.4nm Technology

Oğuz Çakır — Mon, 31 Jul 2023 12:18:16 +0000

When we think of the most important companies in the tech world, names like Apple and Samsung come to mind. However, TSMC is just as important, even if it’s not as visible. The company produces chips for many of the products we use today, from cars to smartphones, and serves as the backbone of the tech world.

Moreover, the Taiwanese manufacturer has no intention of resting on its “back”, is constantly innovating. For example, the company recently started working on a more advanced version of its 3nm process. Now, has also opened its new “Global Research and Development Center”. Here are the details…

New TSMC Center to Focus on 2nm and 1.4nm Technology

TSMC has opened its new global R&D center on July 28th. The center, which is located in Hsinchu, Taiwan, will focus on the development of 2nm and more advanced process technologies. The president of TSMC, Dr. C. C., said at the opening that this new center shows how dedicated TSMC is to staying in Taiwan. He also mentioned that the center will help the company keep leading in the worldwide chip-making industry.

TSMC Chairman Mark Liu echoed Wei’s comments, saying that the new center will help TSMC to “actively develop technologies leading the global semiconductor industry.” He also said that the center will explore fields such as 2nm, 1.4nm, and even more advanced new materials and transistor structures.

The cost to the company for the stunning facility is US$3.3 billion to build and equip. However, TSMC believes that this investment will pay off in the long run. The worldwide semiconductor industry is always changing. To keep up with these changes, TSMC needs to invest in research and development. This facility is also very important for Taiwan because it will employ more than 7,000 people.

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TSMC’s Kumamoto Plant: Chip Orders Exceed Production Capacity, Even Before Mass Production

Oğuz Çakır — Mon, 26 Jun 2023 11:22:15 +0000

TSMC is the world’s largest chipmaker. They make chips for a wide range of industries, from smartphones to cars to data centers. Their chips are in almost every piece of technology we use in our daily lives. This makes TSMC very busy, and they are constantly producing chips. However, even this is not enough, as the production capacity of their new Kumamoto factory is already fully booked before it has even started mass production. Here are the details…

TSMC and Sony Partner to Meet Growing Demand for Automotive Chips

TSMC is always looking for ways to meet the ever-increasing demand for its chips. To do this, the company not only upgrades its existing production facilities, but also builds new ones. One of these new facilities is the Kumamoto factory in Japan. The Kumamoto factory cost TSMC more than $8.6 billion to build. It is scheduled to start mass production in 2024 and will employ around 1,700 people. The project is so big and important that it was a collaboration between TSMC and Sony Semiconductor Solutions.

Sony and TSMC has indicated that the demand for semiconductors will outstrip the supply that can be provided by the TSMC Kumamoto plant. This news has been revealed by Terushi Shimizu, President and CEO of Sony Semiconductor Solutions. The plant has already received a large order from Honda, and the increasing interest in electric vehicles is expected to lead to even more orders. Industry experts believe that the partnership between Sony and TSMC will help the plant reach its full capacity early on.

Moreover, this isn’t the only possible solution. One possibility is that TSMC will build a second wafer production facility in Japan. TSMC’s chairman, Mark Liu, has said that the company is considering this option, but no final decision has been made. If TSMC does decide to build a second plant in Japan, it would likely be located near the current plant in Kumamoto. The Japanese government is eager to attract more investment from TSMC, so it is expected to offer the company substantial subsidies.

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TSMC’s Largest Customer, Apple, Reduces Chip Orders Significantly

Oğuz Çakır — Tue, 21 Feb 2023 15:13:41 +0000

Recently, there have been reports that Apple has reduced its order size with TSMC. The company is the sole supplier of Apple chips, and the reduction in orders is a reflection of the overall weakness of the global economy. It is important to note that the canceled orders were for chips that would be made using TSMC’s N7, N5, N4, and even some N3 nodes. Here are the details…

Apple has sharply reduced the size of the order it has with TSMC

TSMC is the leading company in the chip-making industry and is currently the only company that is mass-producing chips using their respective 3nm process nodes. Samsung is the only other company currently producing 3nm chips but uses a different type of transistor. TSMC’s N3 (3nm) process node is expected to be used for the production of the A17 Bionic, which will be found in the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Ultra, as well as Apple’s M2 Ultra and M3 chips.

Despite TSMC’s continued use of FinFET transistors for its 3nm node, it has still been able to beat out Samsung Foundry when it comes to signing up customers, with big names like Qualcomm, MediaTek, and Nvidia reserving production capacity for 2023 and 2024. In order to give Apple most of the 3nm production capacity later this year, Intel agreed to change its roadmap and delay receipt of its 3nm orders. TSMC’s enhanced 3nm process node (N3E) could be launched this year even though there might not be a big rush for orders considering the cost. It is worth noting that wafer prices have risen sharply over the years. In 2004, 90nm wafers sold for about $2,000, while in 2016, 10nm wafers cost $6,000, and in 2020, the price hit $16,000 for 5nm wafers. Wafer prices for 3nm chips are currently priced in the $20,000 area.

Intel has also announced that it will take process leadership from TSMC and Samsung by 2025, thanks to two developments. It will use RibbonFET transistors, which is another term for the Gate-All-Around (GAA) transistors already employed by Samsung, and it will use a feature known as PowerVia or backside power delivery. This will allow transistors to obtain power from one side of a chip while using the other side to connect to data communication links.

The reduction in orders from Apple with TSMC is a reflection of the overall weakness of the global economy and the hangover from last year’s chip shortage. Despite this, TSMC remains the leading company in the chip-making industry, and its enhanced 3nm process node (N3E) could be launched this year. Additionally, Intel is set to take process leadership from TSMC and Samsung by 2025, thanks to the use of RibbonFET transistors and the PowerVia feature. The chip-making industry is constantly evolving, and it will be interesting to see how these developments will affect the industry in the future.

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TSMC Pushes Back Opening of European Factory by Two Years

Oğuz Çakır — Mon, 20 Feb 2023 19:13:00 +0000

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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TSMC’s 3nm chips to launch in early 2023, 2nm Technology is also On the Way

Anurag — Sat, 18 Jun 2022 07:14:06 +0000

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) on Thursday commenced its 2022 TSMC Technology Symposium, where the company released its chip development timeline as well as its future plans. The timeline reveals that the Taiwan-based chipmaker will introduce its leading-edge 3nm (N3) chips in the second half of this year and will also unveil the 2nm technology sometime in 2025. The new technologies will be used to make advanced CPUs, GPUs, and SoCs.

The 3nm nodes will come in a total of five 3 nm-class nodes, dubbed N3E, N3P, N3S, and N3X. These N3 variants are claimed to offer improved process windows, higher performance, increased transistor densities, and augmented voltages for ultra-high-performance applications. All these technologies will feature the TSMC’s proprietary FINFLEX architectural innovation that offers great flexibility to chip designers and allows them to precisely optimize performance, power consumption, and costs of Chips.

As AnandTech rightly points out, N3 is made for developed for brands like Apple which could take advantage of the increase in the performance, power, and area (PPA) delivered by leading-edge nodes.

If we talk about the 2nm technology, It will offer a remarkable improvement over the N3, with a 10-15% speed increase at the same power, or a 25-30% power reduction at the same speed, unleashing new standards of Efficient Performance.

N2 will come with the GAAFETs (gate-all-around field-effect transistors) to deliver a full-node improvement in performance and power efficiency. The N2 technology platform will feature a high-performance variant in addition to the mobile compute baseline version and comprehensive chipset integration solutions.

The first N3 chips are expected to enter into production in the coming months and will arrive on the market in Q1 2023. N2 is scheduled to begin production in 2025.