TSMC will begin production on US soil at its Arizona facility in 2024. Of late, Apple has been pushing for the latter to benefit from the company’s latest innovations. Despite its omnipotence, TSMC doesn’t seem to have much of a choice due to US protectionist policies but also geopolitical uncertainty that poses some threat to Taiwan’s independence. In this context, in the next few hours, US President Biden, accompanied by the CEO of Apple, Tim Cook, but also of NVIDIA, Jensen Huang, and the CEO of AMD, Dr. Lisa Su, to be present to attend a ceremony in Arizona announcing the acceleration of the deployment of TSMC on American soil. An important signal confirming a return of Made in US chips.
The Arizona foundry that was supposed to produce in 5nm has now been “upgraded” to the 4nm process and TSMC has formalized the construction of a second fab at the Phoenix site to produce 3nm (N3) chips. If you also add the capacities of Intel, but also of Samsung, who are building a state-of-the-art factory in Texas for 2024, this is a real turnaround that we are experiencing with a strong relocation of production capacities to America, especially in the West with what is also happening in happening in Europe.
Headed towards the return of Made in US for the majority of chips?
Aerial view of the construction of the TSMC factory in Phoenix (May 2022)
Within a few years, Americans regained control of their silicon supply chain. Projections suggest that by the end of 2024, the United States will be free from dependence on Asian manufacturing hubs. It did so with billions in subsidies approved to speed up the construction of new factories, but also by threatening import taxes on foreign companies that didn’t want to locate their production in the Americas.