TSMC Reportedly Considering Expansion of Japanese Fab

[T0@st]

TSMC's Japanese facilities are set to fabricate "mature-technology chips" (28 nm and 22 nm) once construction at the site concludes next year—this $8.6 billion fab on Kyushu Island is proving to be a promising prospect for company leadership back in Taiwan. A Reuters report suggests that more ambitious plans are afoot for Japan as a key production base—two anonymous insiders claim that problems encountered at the Arizona plant have caused a shift in focus onto other global TSMC sites.

There is potential for further expansion and upgrades in Kikuyo, Kumamoto Prefecture—TSMC has reportedly taken an "increasingly optimistic view" of Japan's work culture, relatively cheap-to-build facility and a co-operative government. A smooth ramp-up of the first fabrication facility is the primary goal in 2024, but adjusted plans could add more capacity. The insiders think that a second site is also a possibility, with consideration for more advanced chip making.



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[AusWolf]

I didn't know 28 and 22 nm chips were still being manufactured!

 

[cvaldes]

I didn't know 28 and 22 nm chips were still being manufactured!

Old semiconductor nodes are heavily used by all sorts of industries. You just don't hear about it because some tech journalist's article isn't going to get a bunch of pageviews when he/she writes about some chip that controls anti-lock brakes in a car or helps spit out popcorn from your microwave with a one-touch button.

Most likely you have *TONS* of old node chips in a wide variety of consumer electronics at home, work, school, and your vehicles. If it plugs into wall electricity, it doesn't need peak performance-per-watt characteristics.

Nothing new about repurposing old foundry lines. The semiconductor industry has been doing this for decades, ever since they set up the second node. A lot of technologists can't see the forest for the trees.

 

[Wirko]

TSMC is actually pushing its customers towards the 28 nm node, not away from it.

TSMC to Customers: It's Time to Stop Using Older Nodes and Move to 28nm

www.anandtech.com

 

[cvaldes]

Yeah, some people here don't realize that when some chip company moves their advanced node from 7nm to 4nm, that the 7nm foundry has to do something to make up for what it costs. These lines really need to run 24x7 for about ten years to be worthwhile. At one point in history, the 45 nm node was cutting edge.

They just think that you just leave the 7nm node at the curb and the garbage truck will haul it away.

That's not how the semiconductor industry works. Too often in these tech Q&A forums, there are people with zero business knowledge. They can recite all the specs from the latest CPU and maybe even those from twenty years ago, but they don't actually understand the technology business (or any big business for that matter).

 

[AusWolf]

Yeah, some people here don't realize that when some chip company moves their advanced node from 7nm to 4nm, that the 7nm foundry has to do something to make up for what it costs. These lines really need to run 24x7 for about ten years to be worthwhile. At one point in history, the 45 nm node was cutting edge.

They just think that you just leave the 7nm node at the curb and the garbage truck will haul it away.

That's not how the semiconductor industry works. Too often in these tech Q&A forums, there are people with zero business knowledge. They can recite all the specs from the latest CPU and maybe even those from twenty years ago, but they don't actually understand the technology business (or any big business for that matter).

I just thought factories could be repurposed for newer nodes. I know that not every chip in the world has to be built on cutting edge 4 nm, but I thought 22 nm was a bit old to still be made. 12-16 nm sure, but... nevermind. I'm not a businessman, nor a chip manufacturer, so how would I know these things? Not understanding absolutely everything isn't a bad thing, as we all come here to learn, right?

 

[cvaldes]

I just thought factories could be repurposed for newer nodes. I know that not every chip in the world has to be built on cutting edge 4 nm, but I thought 22 nm was a bit old to still be made.

New fabs are now approaching something like $10 billion. The sites are designed and built from the ground up for the specific process node. It's not like a $50 toaster oven that you plug into a wall socket. Even about ten years ago a new fab was a billion. The costs have gone up astronomically so now more than ever there's a lot of consideration about what a node will be doing when it's second or third best a handful of years after starting.

Apple has been pre-paying for years, providing cash for these new fabs, basically helping financing them. That's why they soak up the majority of TSMC's capacity on the latest and greatest node. They have first call to use the line.

Most readers here should know about this, it is repeatedly described by tech media over years and years. That's why TSMC's Arizona fab is a big deal. Same with the one in Germany. It's not like they can tell Arizona to piss off, pack everything up on trucks (uh, lorries), and move it to Utah.

Remember, these fabs don't even like to take breaks. It takes time/money to recalibrate the equipment, now more than ever. They want these lines to run 24x7 for years and years, not just one smartphone or GPU generation.

 

[AnotherReader]

I didn't know 28 and 22 nm chips were still being manufactured!

TSMC's 28 nm is actually their last decent node before FinFET. They killed 20 nm pretty quickly once FinFET got up to speed. Even in Q1 of 2021, 29% of revenue was generated from nodes older than 28 nm and 14% of revenue was due to 90 nm and older nodes. For context, TSMC announced volume production using the 90nm node in late 2004 which means products started shipping in 2005. One of the products that used this process was the Radeon X1900, the last Radeon before the 290X to beat Nvidia on the same node.