Tuesday, August 7th 2018
TSMC Fabs Offline, Hit by a Virus, Production Impacts Confirmed
TSMC is the most popular semiconductor foundry, has been called the "savior of fabless chipmakers," and is also one of Taiwan's most valuable companies. It's also the principal foundry for chipmakers such as NVIDIA and AMD (GPUs). Its most valuable production, however, is that of Apple's A-series application processors that drive the main breadwinners of the company - iPhones. Imagine the cataclysm unleashed if a virus were to spread in the company that contract-manufactures extremely complex chip designs. According to Reuters, that cataclysm is upon TSMC.
According to DigiTimes, a WannaCry-variant ransomware infected not just workstations at TSMC, but also certain fab machines (which are driven by computers). The infection has caused a shutdown of several of TSMC's fabs, including its high-volume 12-inch ones. These machines apparently run on unpatched Windows 7, probably because they're connected to a private network instead of the Internet. TSMC has tasked all of its human resources to disinfect the affected machines. The company hopes to have its fabs fully operational by Monday (13th August), but not before the downtime affects the supply-chains Apple and other high-value clients. An estimated $179 million is wiped from TSMC's Q3 revenues due to this downtime. Although it could affect shipments of APs to Apple, impact on the inventories of Apple products could be minimal, according to market analysts. It remains to be seen if TSMC's other clients see similarly minimal impact; or if TSMC is prioritizing a trillion-dollar client.
Sources:
Reuters, DigiTimes
According to DigiTimes, a WannaCry-variant ransomware infected not just workstations at TSMC, but also certain fab machines (which are driven by computers). The infection has caused a shutdown of several of TSMC's fabs, including its high-volume 12-inch ones. These machines apparently run on unpatched Windows 7, probably because they're connected to a private network instead of the Internet. TSMC has tasked all of its human resources to disinfect the affected machines. The company hopes to have its fabs fully operational by Monday (13th August), but not before the downtime affects the supply-chains Apple and other high-value clients. An estimated $179 million is wiped from TSMC's Q3 revenues due to this downtime. Although it could affect shipments of APs to Apple, impact on the inventories of Apple products could be minimal, according to market analysts. It remains to be seen if TSMC's other clients see similarly minimal impact; or if TSMC is prioritizing a trillion-dollar client.
42 Comments on TSMC Fabs Offline, Hit by a Virus, Production Impacts Confirmed
They do... right?
Edit: Exactly... Why are they using this P-OS.
see how these companies easily LIE in your face....and how you easily believe such nonsense....they simply needs an excuse nothing else
Only the semi-custom chips (PS4 (Pro) and Xbox One (X)) are fabbed by TSMC.
I joked aboutn how this works out in 2 earlier threads and now here it is
In a way it's good it's just ransomware (if that is what it is). If it was a directed thing in the vein of Stuxnet I assume some serious damage could be done.
This is why patches and service packs ARE important.
if there stock falls all that would do if give the board members and there fat cats a cheap fattening of there own portfolios buying there own stock and a deprecated price . its win- win for the rich guys at the top
If they wanted to limit production, they would just do it, admitting you're vulnerable to web attacks as an excuse is stupid.