There’s enough money for everything: TSMC’s new investments in the US won’t cancel the company’s projects in Japan and Taiwan

Western media may be more interested in the fate of TSMC’s US project to localize production of advanced chips in Arizona, but the Japanese joint venture JASM was put into operation earlier and in a shorter time frame. TSMC had to deny rumors that the need to invest another $100 billion in the US economy would force the company to cut costs on expanding production in Japan and Taiwan.

Image Source: TSMC

Central News Agency reminds that the first of JASM’s plants in the Japanese prefecture of Kumamoto began producing products last year, and the second plant will begin construction this year. Rumors attribute TSMC’s participation in the construction of the third JASM plant, but they have not yet been officially confirmed. JASM is a joint venture of TSMC, Sony and Japanese auto component manufacturer Denso, which own 70, 20 and 10% of its shares, respectively. Investments from the partners allow them to count on priority execution of orders for the production of chips. Sony, for example, is interested in receiving image sensors for smartphone cameras from JASM. Denso is predictably interested in automotive electronics, and in total, the first JASM plant is capable of producing chips using technologies in the range from 12 to 28 nm.

TSMC’s success in building new plants in the US is largely due to the serious level of subsidies for the projects, which is currently the highest among those announced by TSMC outside its home island. In Dresden, TSMC is also planning to build a contract chip manufacturing facility with the participation of German partners using fairly mature lithography.

The decision to build two chip packaging plants in the U.S., sources say, will not affect TSMC’s partnership with Amkor Technology, which specializes in this type of services. In addition to building additional plants in Japan, the Taiwanese contract giant expects to continue building its most advanced plants in Taiwan. It will expand production of 3-nm chips in Tainan, while 2-nm chip plants will be built in Hsinchu and Kaohsiung, in the northwest and south of the island, respectively. At the same time, TSMC will continue to expand its own chip packaging capacity in Taiwan.