TSMC Delays Arizona Fab Deployment to 2025, Citing Shortage of Skilled Workers
TSMC said Thursday it will have to delay mass production at its Fab 21 in Arizona until 2025 because cleanroom tool installation is being delayed due to a shortage of appropriately skilled workers. The company also confirmed that it has sent hundreds of people familiar with its factories from Taiwan to Arizona to help with the installation.
TSMC Chairman Mark Liu said during an earnings call with financial analysts and investors, “The lack of skilled workers with the necessary expertise to install equipment in semiconductor-grade facilities is a constant challenge. are facing,” he said. . “We are working to improve the situation, including sending experienced technicians from Taiwan to train local skilled workers for a short period of time, but the N4 process technology production schedule has been postponed until 2025. I expect it will.”
Construction of TSMC’s Fab 21 Phase 1 began in April 2021 and reached completion by mid-2022, a little behind schedule. In December 2022, TSMC will begin delivering equipment. It usually takes about a year to install a factory clean room. Why did TSMC expect the chip manufacturing plant to be up and running by early 2024? Apparently, some difficulties were encountered in installing the production tools at Fab 21, as local employees were unfamiliar with TSMC’s requirements.
As it turns out, these setbacks were so severe that TSMC now expects it will take another year to start mass production at its factories, moving the start date from early 2024 to 2025. As of now, over 18 months away, TSMC still has no plans. The company has not even bothered to provide guidance on when Fab 21 Phase 1 mass production will begin in 2025, only stating that it will begin at some point later in the year.
The impact of TSMC’s Fab 21 launch delay on US customers is not yet clear. The megafab-class facility isn’t as big as TSMC’s flagship gigafab in Taiwan, so the impact in terms of wafer start-ups won’t be as great as if one of the larger fabs were delayed. Fab 21’s latest estimate is to reach 20,000 wafer starts per month, which is about one-fifth of the giga fab’s capacity. So while the loss of capacity is significant, it’s not significant to TSMC’s overall production allocation. TSMC expects to be at full capacity in 2024, but there may not be much capacity left to make up for the surplus.
Perhaps of greater concern, Fab 21 was being built (and subsidized) to allow TSMC to produce sensitive US-based chip designs in the US. Less sensitive chips could be assigned to other factories in Taiwan (capacity permitting), but that’s not a good substitute for chips that must be manufactured in the US. A one-year delay for Fab 21 is likely to hit those plans hard, but it will be up to TSMC buyers (and their government customers) to accept the delay or explore alternatives.
Finally, returning to the topic of skilled workers, TSMC told Nikkei late last month that it was “to provide non-immigrant visas to Taiwanese experts in the United States to assist with the response at a critical stage. We are in talks with the government,” he said. All state-of-the-art, purpose-built equipment is housed in sophisticated facilities. ” according to Nikkei news, a team of 500 technicians were dispatched from Taiwan and arrived with hands-on expertise in various fields. This expertise includes the installation of wafer fabrication tools and their synchronized operation, especially the construction of fabrication machinery and electrical systems.
source: TSMC, Nikkei newspaper
