US President Biden, President-elect Trump could BOTH visit TSMC's Arizona fab opening ceremony

US President Biden and President-elect Trump are rumored to BOTH be attending TSMC's upcoming opening ceremony for its semiconductor fab in Arizona in the first week of December.

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TSMC hasn't confirmed the news just yet, but DigiTimes is reporting that Taiwan Minister of Economic Affairs Kuo Chi-hui recently revealed that TSMC will have a "very good ceremony" in December 2024. After the previous star-studded entrance ceremony, "it was reported that the President of the United States will attend the December event".

DigiTimes notes that now that the 2024 US elections are over and President Trump has won, that he "may also participate". TSMC is not just one of the key players, but the Taiwanese giant isthe key player in semiconductor dominance for the United States.

• Read more: AMD should be TSMC's next huge customer for Arizona: HPC AI chips made in the USA in 2025

Without TSMC (both in Taiwan and its new semiconductor fabs opening in the US) then tech giants like Apple, AMD, Intel, NVIDIA, Qualcomm, and others would have no home to have their bleeding-edge chips made at.

Now that President-elect Trump has the elections won, he can start making his power moves with companies like TSMC opening up new semiconductor fabs on US soil. It will definitely be interesting if both President Biden and President-elect Trump attend the TSMC Arizona opening ceremony, that's for sure.

Insider Tim Culpan teased a few weeks ago now that production is already in the planning phase for AMD's next-gen HPC chips to kick off at TSMC's 5nm process node, with tape out and manufacturing starting in 2025. Apple is the first customer of TSMC's fresh new fab in Arizona, which will be producing some of the A16 processors that go inside of the new iPhone 16 family of handsets.

• Read more: Apple making some iPhone chips at TSMC in Arizona: milestone for USA
• Read more: TSMC's new Arizona, USA plant achieves yields 'on par' with plants in Taiwan
• Read more: Intel trying to recruit senior engineers from TSMC Arizona
• Read more: TSMC to begin pilot program at its Arizona, USA for mass production end of 2024
• Read more: TSMC's second fab site in Arizona, USA celebrates its 'topping out' milestone
• Read more: Taiwan says TSMC's engineers in the US are 'babies' for leaving Taiwan

In the latest information he received, Culpan reports that Apple projects shipments of the A16 processor before the end of 2024, a "symbolic move" adds Culpan (he's right) that allows TSMC to ship ahead of the "early 2025" schedule. TSMC is in discussions with multiple clients to tape out chips from its fab in Arizona, with AMD "likely to be next" and making it the second customer, but it's also "possible another chip designer will land there first".

This could be NVIDIA or Intel.

For years and years, I've been writing about anything and everything Made in the USA, and this is another fantastic for the United States and its self-reliance on the semiconductor industry (where right now, the US is at the mercy of Taiwan and South Korea).