Thursday, May 27th 2021
Second TSMC Fab Worker Detected with COVID-19, Chip Shortages on the Anvil?
Taiwan's most valuable company, and chipmaker of the world, TSMC, confirmed that at least two of its fab workers have been diagnosed with COVID-19, but maintains that it doesn't affect operations at the plants. Most regions around world, including Taiwan, are bracing for successive waves of the disease, and a spread of COVID at TSMC could spell big trouble for the tech-giants dependent on the company for contract-manufacturing of their cutting-edge logic chips. Taiwan has been mostly spared from the Corona epidemic, but is now experiencing its largest wave of COVID-19 infections, with its medical infrastructure under strain. The latest outbreak has the potential to throw operations at TSMC off gear, affecting the supply chains of tens of billions of Dollars worth devices and vehicles around the world.
TSMC maintains an internal epidemic prevention committee, which has conducted contact-tracing of the the two employees, and discovered 10 contacts. Some of these have been sent to home-isolation, while others are closely monitoring themselves for symptoms. TSMC pledged that it will monitor the health of its employees on a daily basis. It has also completed the disinfection of the affected employees' workplace, and public areas visited by them. It once again emphasized that the incident will not affect company operations.
Taiwan is experiencing a spike in new COVID-19 cases since around May 10, sending more of the country's workforce on home-isolation or quarantine. Most countries hit by spikes in COVID cases have had to institute lockdowns to curb spread of the disease. For Taiwan, this means either factories being shut, or working under-capacity. The prospects of both of which could horrify TSMC's clientele that include AMD, Apple, Qualcomm, and Intel. Pat Gelsinger last week stated that the company received its first 7 nm wafers from TSMC, and could be exploring the fab for its next-gen products.
Source:
Taiwan News
TSMC maintains an internal epidemic prevention committee, which has conducted contact-tracing of the the two employees, and discovered 10 contacts. Some of these have been sent to home-isolation, while others are closely monitoring themselves for symptoms. TSMC pledged that it will monitor the health of its employees on a daily basis. It has also completed the disinfection of the affected employees' workplace, and public areas visited by them. It once again emphasized that the incident will not affect company operations.
46 Comments on Second TSMC Fab Worker Detected with COVID-19, Chip Shortages on the Anvil?
The problem is the spread of the virus outside of work.
www.abc.net.au/news/2021-05-25/china-offers-vaccines-to-taiwan-to-fight-covid-19/100163176
Would you take the PRC vaccine which even the WHO said didn't provide enough protection against the virus to be an effective vaccine?
A company as large as TSMC has nothing to worry about, I have heard of far worse situations here in California where businesses with under 200 employees have had whole departments taken out for nearly a month This shit can really hurt small businesses.
I have no idea how many people there are and how close together they are when they arrive / leave work but that's likely where the virus CAN spread between workers: there's also the possibility of it being spread during their lunch / dinner breaks.
This was only a matter of time. It was a ticking time bomb.It is rather amazing some days.We'll see in a few weeks.Not in Taiwan, until just recently.
Hope the two employees are doing alright, and it hasn't spread too much/at all.
Side note: I'm really glad I got my Ryzen 5 3600 in August. It was $180 then.
www.reuters.com/world/china/taiwan-says-china-blocked-deal-with-biontech-covid-19-shots-2021-05-26/
To be honest I don't completely buy the idea that Taiwan is behind in its vaccination efforts because of China, in East Asia Japan is similarly in the single digit percentage of vaccinated people despite the incoming Olympic Games and S. Korea is faring little better.
Taiwan was given 700k doses of AZ from WHO through covax, that's it, until tomorrow when 150k doses of Moderna arrives.
None of that is going to put a dent in a population of 23million+.
Taiwan is expecting to have the first local vaccine ready by July.
www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4211537
Terry is going to try to get Taiwan some more vaccines.
www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4211354