Major Apple supplier TSMC on Tuesday said it would more than triple its planned investment at the Taiwanese chipmaker’s new Arizona plant to $40 billion, among the largest foreign investments in U.S. history.
Steve Holland and Jane Lanhee Lee for Reuters:
Mark Liu, chairman of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd, known as TSMC, estimated annual revenue of $10 billion when the two planned chip fabrication plants open, adding that customers would have annual sales of $40 billion from products using chips made there.
Apple Inc, Nvidia Corp, and Advanced Micro Devices Inc, all major TSMC customers, said they expected their chips to be made in the new plants.
“We work with TSMC to manufacture the chips that help power our products all over the world. And we look forward to expanding this work in the years to come as TSMC forms new and deeper roots in America,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a speech.
The plant, scheduled to be operational in 2024, will make a more advanced chip than initially announced.
MacDailyNews Take: TSMC’s most important customer is Apple. Apple’s most important supplier is TSMC. Diversifying production for a crucial industry, especially one that is currently sequestered on a disputed island that lies 100 miles off the coast CCP-controlled China, couldn’t be more important.
Note that we do expect TSMC’s Arizona operation to fabricate older generation Apple Silicon chips for entry-level iPhones, iPads, and Macs, not the latest Apple Silicon, which will still be stamped in Taiwan. Arizona will, for the foreseeable future, be at least one step behind TSMC’s most modern processes in Taiwan. Evan as such, it’s an important fail safe. If, God forbid, Taiwan evaporated with the Arizona plant(s) operational, we could all survive just fine on previous generation (or even older) Apple Silicon while contingencies were made.
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And the water for this plant will come from where?