TSMC is already buying equipment for two CoWoS advanced packaging plants to be built in Taiwan

The world of AI chips hasn't stopped, and won't stop, with advanced packaging production capacity in short supply.

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TSMC's new CoWoS plant in Nanke Chiayi Park is entering the "environmental review stage," reports UDN, with TSMC now purchasing equipment to help speed up the construction of the new CoWoS advanced packaging facility. At the same time, the two new CoWoS advanced packaging factories were planned to be built in Nanke Chiayi Park, but they're "not enough," reports UDN.

TSMC reportedly sent personnel down to southern Taiwan to scout for land for a third CoWoS advanced packaging facility. UDN reports that the Chiayi County Government previously announced that TSMC's new advanced packaging plant will be located in Nanke Chiayi Park, covering an area of around 20 hectares. The first CoWoS advanced packaging plant was planned to take up around 12 hectares of space, will be completed by 2026, and will create 3000 jobs.

• Read more: TSMC to expand CoWoS equipment orders: huge AI chip demand from NVIDIA, Amazon, Meta, Tesla
• Read more: NVIDIA's next-gen R100 AI GPU: TSMC 3nm with CoWoS-L packaging, next-gen HBM4 in Q4 2025
• Read more: TSMC to expand advanced packaging capacity at 3 plants: CoWoS, SoIC, SoW for AI GPU demand
• Read more: NVIDIA and AMD have reserved all of TSMC's CoWOS and SoIC advanced packaging for 2024 and 2025
• Read more: NVIDIA's new Blackwell AI GPUs drives TSMC to increase CoWoS output by over 150% in 2024
• Read more: TSMC rumored to build new CoWoS advanced packaging facility in Japan, only place outside Taiwan

TSMC's official information tells us that the back-end packaging and testing factories include: Zhuke Advanced Packaging and Testing Factory 1, Nanke Factory 2, Longtan Factory 3, Zhongke Factory 5, and Miaoli Zhunan Factory 6. The supply chain has revealed that advanced packaging-related equipment is being supplied to TSMC's Zhunan, Zhongke, and Nanke plants.

NVIDIA's future-gen R100 AI GPU was teased a few weeks ago by NVIDIA, which will be fabbed on TSMC's new 3nm process and CoWoS-L packaging, and it'll pack HBM4 memory which will drop in Q4 2025. TSMC is preparing for the next waves of future-gen AI chips by quickly expanding its CoWoS advanced packaging facilities in the mean time.