Atop the newly completed 3.5 million square foot building on 1,100 acres in the Arizona desert north of Phoenix is a microchip wafer and a giant logo with the letters TSMC.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Arizona’s first chip manufacturing plant (Fab) is making history as it is the most advanced chip manufacturing facility in the continental United States. apple I have committed to being part of the site. biggest customer.
CNBC first visited the factory in 2021, shortly after TSMC broke ground. The company initially said the factory would cost $12 billion to build and produce 5-nanometer chips by the end of 2024. Three years later, its price has soared to $20 billion, and full production has been postponed until 2025.
Instead, the factory is conducting pilot production, creating sample wafers and sending them to customers for validation. TSMC has committed to building two more factories on the site by the end of 2010, with a total investment of $65 billion.
TSMC Arizona chairman Rick Cassidy told CNBC during an exclusive first look at the completed factory in November that the project is “nearly set back from the original schedule.”
“When we came to the United States, we knew we were going to go through a learning process,” Cassidy said. “We learned how to work with industry, with and without permits, we learned how to work with trade unions, we learned local labor laws. There was a lot of learning that continued. I overcame it.”
On November 7, 2024, TSMC Arizona Chairman Rick Cassidy gives CNBC’s Katie Tarasoff a tour of the company’s newly completed manufacturing facility. It will manufacture advanced chips there for the first time on American soil.
Andrew Evers
With the help of about 2,000 employees, the factory will produce more advanced chips than originally planned. TSMC says it plans to produce 20,000 4-nanometer chips per month.
According to some sources, the wafers cost more than $18,000. Morgan Stanley report. Prices continue to rise, taking TSMC’s price with it. Stock value associated with it In the last few years.
“We have seen that TSMC can dictate the price to some extent, and everyone will pay that price because what is needed now is reliability and quality,” Futurum said. Group CEO Daniel Newman said.
“Equal to Taiwanese compatriots”
Cassidy said the plant’s yields are expected to be “roughly on par with our Taiwanese brethren.” Still, about 92% of the world’s most advanced chips are currently manufactured in TSMC’s Taiwanese factory, which is far from achieving American independence.
“It is difficult or impossible for the United States, or any country, to be completely self-sufficient in everything needed to manufacture semiconductors,” said Stacey Rasgon of Bernstein Research. “That’s a pipe dream.”
The United States is the birthplace of microchips in the 1950s and now manufactures them, even though it remains the top chip design hub. only 10% It’s not the most advanced chip in the world. When supply chain disruptions collided with surging demand for consumer electronics during the pandemic, the resulting chip shortage exposed the huge risks of relying on outside sources for such critical technology.
If there were an invasion between China and Taiwan, an earthquake, or some other event that affected Taiwan for a period of time, “the entire market, the entire world, could suffer from a lack of availability of cutting-edge nodes,” Newman said. said.
a Deadly magnitude 7.4 earthquake Production in Taiwan was temporarily suspended in April. $92 million loss For TSMC. Arizona buildings are “well prepared” for an earthquake, Cassidy said.
TSMC’s first manufacturing facility in Arizona is scheduled to manufacture advanced chips on U.S. soil for the first time in November 2024.
TSMC
Other concerns surfaced when President-elect Donald Trump announced his opposition to the $52 billion CHIPS Act in October during the campaign. A few weeks later, the U.S. Department of Commerce finalized the $6.6 billion allocated to TSMC from the bipartisan bill.
“Repealing the CHIPS Act would make Americans less safe,” Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said in an interview on CNBC, adding that she does not believe the next administration will repeal the law.
“I don’t think they would do that,” Raimondo said.
Talks with TSMC about bringing advanced chip production to the United States began in 2018 during President Trump’s first term.
Wilbur Ross, then Secretary of Commerce, said, “I set up a telephone conversation with the chairman of TSMC and the top executives of Apple.” “Apple has become a very strong supporter of the idea of TSMC coming in.”
Rose Castanares, a 26-year veteran and current president of TSMC Arizona, also participated in early conversations. Customers “were looking for resiliency in supply,” Castanares said.
Reliance on chips from Asia also complicates America’s push for technological superiority. That’s why President Joe Biden has imposed complex export controls on the semiconductor industry aimed at blocking China’s advances in advanced technology.
In October, some TSMC chips Found on Huawei devicesEven though sales to Chinese companies are prohibited.
“This problem has been around for a long time,” Newman said. “Many complex reroutings are undertaken to distribute goods on the gray market to different countries with limited access to cutting-edge technology and cutting-edge technology.”
TSMC Arizona President Rose Castanares and CNBC’s Katie Tarasoff at the newly completed manufacturing plant on November 7, 2024. For the first time, advanced chips will be manufactured on American soil.
Andrew Evers
workers, water, power
In nearby Chandler, Arizona, intel Two huge factories are also under construction.
US companies have a much different business model, designing and manufacturing their own chips, while TSMC only makes chips for other companies. The relationship between the two companies is strong, Cassidy said.
“We meet [Intel] “I think they’re pretty happy with what we’re doing because we’re helping them get state-of-the-art training,” Cassidy said.
Both companies delay Full production schedule at new Arizona factory. But while TSMC remains the undisputed leader in cutting-edge chips, Intel has stumbled time and time again.
The two sides will also compete for workers, a scarce resource in the U.S. chip industry.
“When we completed construction of this plant, it was the first advanced manufacturing plant that had been built in the United States in at least 10 years. Semiconductors are a very, very tough technology,” said TSMC’s Castanares. “This experience is not here in the United States.”
At the beginning of the project, TSMC sent approximately 600 engineers to Taiwan for training. Jeff Patz, a process integration engineer, spent 18 months there in 2021.
“The purpose was to go and actually make things, right? And learn how it’s made,” Patz said. “I need a kitchen to cook.”
TSMC also brought in experts from Taiwan on a three-year temporary assignment. The company plans to employ at least 6,000 workers by the time all three factories are completed.
“We are actively recruiting engineers at universities in Arizona and across the country,” Castanares said. At Arizona State University, “we even have something called TSMC Day.”
Water is also a rare resource that is needed in abundance.
Taiwan is currently facing its worst drought. almost a centuryTSMC is no stranger to recycling the large amounts of water needed to make chips. TSMC requires 4.7 million gallons of water each day to operate its first plant in Arizona, but by recycling about 65% of that, the company said that demand will be reduced to 1 million gallons per day. Ta.
Also, manufacturing chips requires a lot of electricity.
TSMC has built a solar power plant on site, but it is not enough to cover the 2.85 gigawatt hours per day needed to operate the first plant. This is approximately equivalent to the electricity used by a person. 100,000 US homes. TSMC said it is purchasing renewable energy credits to offset that. But amid a data center boom fueled by artificial intelligence, Arizona’s largest utility company warned that artificial intelligence could lead to a data center boom. Insufficient transmission capacity Before the decade is over.
It’s also when TSMC is scheduled to start production at its third factory in Arizona, which Cassidy said “will probably be 2 nanometers or more.”
TSMC is also expanding its global footprint. The company opened its first factory in Japan in February and broke ground on an $11 billion factory in Germany in August.
Cassidy said TSMC is likely to continue expanding in the United States as well.
“There’s room for a lot of fab,” Cassidy said.
Watch the full video of never-before-seen footage inside TSMC’s Arizona factory.
