TSMC's construction on its latest semiconductor fabrication facility in Arizona is progressing at breakneck speeds. Thanks to the photographic reporting skills of Matt Schrader on Twitter, we can now witness the incredible construction rate for what will soon become one of the most advanced silicon fabrication facilities across the world.
The construction grounds literally went from tumbleweeds to factory shells in under six months, spelling a good pace for the factory's expected spin-up in early 2024. That's what a cool $10 to $12 billion can do, as you can see when you expand the below tweet.
They continue to not be messing around at the TSMC fab site in Phoenix. Less than half a year later. https://t.co/bdGqWDpCFC pic.twitter.com/Ov5GVlumprJune 11, 2022
Naturally, Qualcomm and Nvidia are also prospective clients for TSMC's chips; the former is all but a given, especially considering how it recently moved production of its Snapdragon chips from Samsung to TSMC. It's hard to imagine the company going with another foundry for its upcoming Nuvia Arm-based chips as well, with which the company wants to officially go toe-to-toe against the Intels and AMDs of the world. Nvidia still hasn't confirmed that its next-gen consumer GPUs will use TSMC's manufacturing, but its monstrous, data center-focussed Hopper does.
The Arizona fab is of strategic importance for TSMC's bid to increase its 5 nm output beyond the 25% already planned for 2022. Intel has also become a customer of the Taiwanese manufacturer — Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger recently visited Taiwan in a bid to secure additional capacity for the company's silicon designs.
It's also a bid for the company to insulate its IP and production capacities from geopolitical concerns, considering the proximity of China — where some believe the country should seize TSMC for its treasure trove of technological innovation.
