TSMC won't decide until 2018 whether it builds US plant

TSMC has teased that it will be shifting some of its manufacturing to the United States in the near future, but now the company has decided it won't make a decision on its shift to the US until next year.

TSMC boss Morris Chang said back in January that it was looking to the US as a new place for a manufacturing plant, but TSMC spokesperson Michael Kramer has now come out and said that the company will decide in the "first half of 2018" if it will invest over $16 billion in a new production facility in the United States.

Kramer told Reuters: "We won't make a decision until next year. We would sacrifice some benefits if we move to the States. But we have flexibility in Taiwan. If an earthquake happened for instance (in Taiwan), we could send thousands of people here as support, whereas it's harder in the States". Reuters points out that TSMC receives around 65% of its total revenue from the US, so building a manufacturing plant in the US makes a whole lot of sense.