Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. on Tuesday formally introduced plans to construct a second fab in Japan. The fab will probably be run by Japan Superior Semiconductor Manufacturing (JASM), a majority-owned TSMC subsidiary, and can make chips on 6 nm and seven nm-class course of applied sciences, which can make it probably the most superior semiconductor manufacturing facility for logic chips in Japan.
JASM is presently gearing as much as begin working its first fab in Japan. This semiconductor manufacturing facility — set to be formally opened on February 24 — will have the ability to course of as much as 55,000 300-mm wafer begins per thirty days (WSPM) utilizing TSMC’s 40 nm, 28 nm, 22 nm, 16 nm, and 12 nm-class course of applied sciences. This fab is about to serve wants of JASM’s minor buyers, equivalent to Sony, Toyota, and Denso, and different Japanese firms, equivalent to automakers.
The brand new N6 and N7-capable fab will probably be positioned adjoining to JASM’s upcoming fab in Kumamoto Prefecture, Japan. This facility will enhance capability of the positioning to over 100,000 300-mm wafer begins per thirty days when it begins operations by the tip of calendar 2027, in keeping with TSMC. Capability of the fab could also be adjusted based mostly on demand and different elements.
The preliminary Fab 23 that’s coming on-line within the coming weeks or months was designed to deal with wants of Japanese firms like Sony and Toyota and make sure that they don’t run into shortages of varied commodity chips important for his or her merchandise but not requiring superior course of applied sciences. The second fab, which is about to undertake 6 nm and seven nm class course of applied sciences will have the ability to produce significantly extra refined processors and can convey these manufacturing nodes for the primary time in Japan. Primarily, the announcement of the brand new fab signifies that JASM is poised to slowly by absolutely meet up with TSMC’s modern fabs in Japan.
To construct the brand new fab, homeowners of JASM will make investments extra cash within the enterprise and their complete investments within the website will exceed $20 billion with ‘robust assist from the Japanese authorities,’ TSMC stated. Because of this, JASM will have the ability to produce chips for a variety of functions, together with automotive, industrial, shopper and HPC-related functions.
Below the brand new funding settlement JASM’s possession will probably be divided as follows: TSMC will maintain the biggest stake at 86.5%, adopted by SSS at 6.0%, DENSO at 5.5%, and Toyota at 2.0%.
