TSMC will build 7 new plants this year, to boost its global competitiveness

TSMC has announced that it will build 7 new plants this year, in a bid to "boost its global competitiveness" reports Focus Taiwan.

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The 7 new plants will include 3 new wafer plants, 2 new packaging factories in Taiwan, and two new wafer plants overseas. These new facilities are being built, or about to be built, to meet the fast-growing global demand for high-performance computing devices and smartphones, says Huang Yuan-kuo, head of the FAB18 plant in Tainan, at the TSMC 2024 Taiwan Technology Symposium.

TSMC has had bonkers demand for its 3nm process, but the world's largest contract chip maker expects 3nm orders to explode by 3x this year compared to 2023. TSMC is also boosting its production capacity of speciality technology, with the proportion of speciality technology relative to all mature processes is predicted to increase to 67% this year, compared to 61% back in 2020.

Huang said that the two new wafer plants under construction in Hsinchu and Kaohsiung since 2022 will make 2nm chips, with mass production at both plants expected to start in 2025. The construction of an advanced packaging facility in Central Taiwan started in 2023, while another in Chiayi will begin this year, with mass production of Chip on Wafer on Substrate (CoWoS) and Small Outline Integrated Circuit (SOIC) technologies in 2026.