Monday, September 9th 2024
TSMC Arizona Achieves Yield Parity with Taiwanese Facilities, Production Remains on Schedule
TSMC has reportedly managed to produce yields at its Arizona facility that are on par with yields back home in Taiwan, making its expansion efforts successful. According to Bloomberg, TSMC did a trial production, a multi-month effort, to produce N4 node wafers with low defect rates. With wafers now in TSMC's labs for testing, it is reported that Arizona facility yields have achieved parity with their Taiwanese facilities back home. This indicates that TSMC's efforts to expand in the US are so far considered a success, as advanced chipmaking is a very complex process that is only done by a few makers and in very few locations. With TSMC expanding in the US now and proving that its technology can work on US soil, the company has a green light to start volume production in the first half of 2025.
However, this is only the beginning of TSMC's Arizona expansion. The Taiwanese giant plans to have a second fab operational by 2028 and produce 2 nm and 3 nm chips in the state. Additionally, there will be a third facility for 2 nm and more advanced nodes in Phoenix, bringing the total value of TSMC's US expansion efforts to $65 billion, with $6.6 billion from the CHIPS Act grants and $5 billion in loans from the US government. If upcoming fabs follow the lead of the first facility, US-based production needs will possibly be satisfied.
Source:
Bloomberg
However, this is only the beginning of TSMC's Arizona expansion. The Taiwanese giant plans to have a second fab operational by 2028 and produce 2 nm and 3 nm chips in the state. Additionally, there will be a third facility for 2 nm and more advanced nodes in Phoenix, bringing the total value of TSMC's US expansion efforts to $65 billion, with $6.6 billion from the CHIPS Act grants and $5 billion in loans from the US government. If upcoming fabs follow the lead of the first facility, US-based production needs will possibly be satisfied.
8 Comments on TSMC Arizona Achieves Yield Parity with Taiwanese Facilities, Production Remains on Schedule
99.999999% pure silicon and semiconductors 99.999999999% pure silicon.
Price: up to $5000 for a 300mm wafer
Purity: you say 11N (eleven nines) but I've seen 9N mentioned in several places, the only mention of 11N being herebut that's for polycrystalline Si, which is supposed to be used for semiconductors - huh?
Sources of silica: int's true what you say but there are usable deposits in several other places in the US, Australia, Canada, Russia and elsewhere. China will turn to Russia of course if and when they need more. A lot of info here.
Scale: Spruce Pine Mine produces 10 million tons of silica (SiO2) per year. That yields 4.7 million tons of silicon. A wafer weighs 0.128 kg. The mining capacity is thus 37 billion wafers yearly. The semiconductor industry's capacity is predicted to reach 115 million wafers yearly in 2026, or 15 thousand metric tons, which amounts to 0.3% of silicon production. I here assumed that most of the silicon wasted in the process (cutting, grinding) can be recovered. Sure, the greatest part goes into solar, but solar can use lower purity deposits too - actually it has to because I can buy solar panels full of wafers for ~100 € per square meter, and it would be stupid to use almost all of the precious pure ore for that.
All in all, unless I've missed something gross, the semiconductor industry can't possibly run out of wafer supply at current manufacturing costs (which doesn't mean a stable market price).