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TSMC begins producing 4-nanometer chips in Arizona, Raimondo says

Daniel Nenni

Admin
Staff member
Logo of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), in Hsinchu

The logo of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) is pictured at its headquarters, in Hsinchu, Taiwan, January 19, 2021. REUTERS/Ann Wang/File Photo

WASHINGTON, Jan 10 (Reuters) - Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co has begun producing advanced four-nanometer chips for U.S. customers in Arizona, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo told Reuters, a milestone in the Biden administration's semiconductor efforts.

In November, Commerce finalized a $6.6 billion grant to TSMC's U.S. unit for semiconductor production in Phoenix, Arizona.
"For the first time ever in our country's history, we are making leading edge four-nanometer chips on American soil, American workers -- on par in yield and quality with

Taiwan," Raimondo told Reuters in an interview saying it had begun in recent weeks.

"That's a big deal -- never been done before, never in our history. And lots of people said it couldn't happen," Raimondo said of the previously undisclosed production start.

A spokesperson for TSMC, the world's largest contract chipmaker and a major supplier to Apple (AAPL.O), opens new tab and Nvidia (NVDA.O), opens new tab which reports earnings next week, declined to comment Friday.

In April, TSMC agreed to expand its planned investment by $25 billion to $65 billion and to add a third Arizona fab by 2030.

Congress created a $52.7 billion semiconductor manufacturing and research subsidy program in 2022. Commerce convinced all five leading edge semiconductor firms to locate fabs in the United States as part of the program.

Raimondo told Reuters earlier that Commerce had to convince TSMC to boost its U.S. plans.

"It didn't happen on its own... We had to convince TSMC that they would want to expand," Raimondo said.

TikTok and its Chinese parent company ByteDance appealed to the justices over a law that orders ByteDance to sell off TikTok in the next nine days or see it banned in the U.S.

TSMC will produce the world's most advanced two-nanometer technology at its second Arizona fab expected to begin production in 2028. TSMC also agreed to use its most advanced chip manufacturing technology called "A16" in Arizona.

The TSMC award from Commerce also includes up to $5 billion in low-cost government loans.

Raimondo wants the United States to make 20% of world's leading-edge logic chips by 2030 -- up from the 0% before TSMC began production in Arizona.

In April, Commerce said TSMC expects to begin high-volume production in its first U.S. fab by the first half of 2025.

Last month, Commerce finalized an award of $407 million to help fund Amkor Technology's planned $2 billion advanced semiconductor packaging facility in Arizona, which is set to be the largest of its kind in the U.S.

Amkor's Arizona plant when fully operational will package and test millions of chips for autonomous vehicles, 5G/6G and data centers. Apple will be its first and largest customer with the chips produced at a nearby TSMC facility.

 
Progress! I can assure you N3 will follow. N3 will be the most used node in the history of TSMC, absolutely.
 
Progress! I can assure you N3 will follow. N3 will be the most used node in the history of TSMC, absolutely.
It is certainly shaping up to be so. N3 represents the most mature, most process efficient, highest yield FinFET process on the market.

While both N2 and 18A appear to offer increases in density and somewhat better PPA metrics (although not drastically so), they both look like MUCH more complex processes involving more passes utilizing more expensive equipment ..... ie more expensive in process time and capital equipment.

It seems inevitable that the march of Moore's law has drastically slowed down. This will have a profound effect on the entire semiconductor market for decades to come. Without the ever-increasing transistor budget that has been the cornerstone of the performance increases of generation over generation processors, I think we will now be seeing many more niche variations of processors designed specifically for a type of computing task.

More research into chiplets and packaging will be needed to reduce latency in designs as well as increasing bandwidth across many cores.

More variations of cores will emerge I believe. Intel now has 3. P Core, E Core, and LPE Core. If you add in AI core and GPU Core, that makes 5 today.

My contention is that we will see different BOM of cores for different purposes moving forward .... and more core variants .... say a "super P core" having a ton of cache and high clock speeds for single threaded work (as an example).
 
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This is great for America and will help provide options for Semi Fab workers. Fabs are incredible drivers of local and national economy
 
Kind of Funny considering America drove it away and now someone else is selling us our own medicine and we are hyping it 🤣

By "we" you mean the Environmental Protection Agency"? Because semiconductor manufacturing was very dirty back then and polluting Silicon Valley and other US based sites. If so, yes, I agree.

When I first went to Hsinchu I looked up the hotel (Hotel Royal) where I was staying. The picture showed a bright and sunny day with blue skies. When I got there however I did not see a blue sky, ever. That is how bad the pollution was.

Today Intel and TSMC are much better at it and getting greener everyday so I am in full support of onshoring semiconductor manufacturing. But let's not rewrite history. Nobody stole semiconductors from the US. It was just not environmentally/economically feasible at the time.
 
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