TSMC said in a statement that to meet market demand, it had decided to enhance the plant’s capabilities and increase monthly production capacity to 55,000 12-inch wafers
World’s largest chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) has announced expansion plans for the chip plant it is building in Japan with an additional investment of $1.6 billion.
TSMC is building the Japan plant along with Sony Group. The company said that Denso would invest $350 million for a more than 10 percent equity stake in the Japanese plant.
TSMC said in a statement that to meet market demand, it had decided to enhance the plant’s capabilities and increase monthly production capacity to 55,000 12-inch wafers, putting the new total cost at around $8.6 billion.
It was originally due to have a monthly production capacity of 45,000 12-inch wafers.
“Through this partnership, we contribute to the stable supply of semiconductors over the medium to long term and thus to the automotive industry,” Denso’s CEO Koji Arima said.
The $7 billion factory in southern Japan was announced in November and construction is scheduled to start this year, with production beginning by the end of 2024.
TSMC last year pledged to spend $100 billion over the next three years to expand chip capacity and is building a $12 billion chip fabrication plant in the U.S. state of Arizona.
