Historical partner, TSMC extends its relationship with Apple. In Arizona, Tim Cook, accompanied by President Joe Biden, announced that the production of certain chips equipping the iPhone and Mac will be done on American soil.
This decision took root in 2021, when the Taiwanese smelter announced the opening of a factory for an investment of 12 billion dollars. Today, the latter has risen to 40 billion with the creation of a second manufacture. This will be able to produce 3 nm etching chips by 2026. At present, the founder is concentrating on its first factory which will be able to produce 4 nm semiconductors by 2024. With such investment, the two sites will be able to produce nearly 600,000 wafers per year, more than enough to handle demand in North America.
This double opening delights Joe Biden who indicates that the establishment of TSMC will create thousands of jobs in the State of Arizona, as well as the city of Phoenix where the two sites will be based.
These factories will not only benefit Apple since two other major partners of the Taiwanese founder, AMD and Nvidia, have announced their intention to equip themselves via these two factories, without further details.
Other competing projects
TSMC is only the first company to set up factories in the United States. Intel, another major chipmaker, plans to set up its largest site in Chandler, outside Phoenix. This factory with a campus of 20 billion dollars should be operational in 2024. Another Intel factory should also open in Ohio. Work will begin in 2025 and the announced investment is, for the moment, 20 billion dollars.
Micron, a company specializing in memory and storage, will open a factory in New York, which is expected to cost a trifle of 100 billion dollars. Samsung, already present in Austin, will spend 17 billion dollars to expand its factory and thus hope to compete with TSMC.
The arrival of founders in the United States is not only a desire to get closer to the biggest tech manufacturers. To motivate foreign companies to produce on American soil, Joe Biden gave his agreement to the Chips for America plan in favor of the chip industry, accompanied by an envelope of 52 billion dollars.