Even under President Biden, Taiwanese company TSMC agreed to build three chip manufacturing plants in Arizona. The first of them is already producing 4-nm products, the second is ready for equipment installation, and the start of construction of the third became known only this week.
Image Source: TSMC
The Taiwanese contract manufacturer announced the start of the corresponding phase of its business development plan in the US in conjunction with a visit to the construction site by US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. The company used this opportunity to call its project the largest foreign investment in US history. Recall that TSMC expects to spend at least $165 billion in total on the construction of six silicon wafer processing plants and two chip packaging plants in Arizona over the next few years.
The scale of TSMC’s American chip factory construction is, however, not that large in the global context, as the company is currently building 24 plants in various countries, 15 of which are concentrated in Taiwan. Moreover, local laws prohibit the company from offering advanced lithography outside the island at the same time as Taiwan. The exported technologies must be at least one generation behind those used in Taiwan’s best plants. It remains to be seen whether the American authorities, interested in eliminating this artificial lag, will be able to persuade Taiwan to lift this restriction.