Someone to Install Equipment
Taiwan’s TSMC, the world’s No. 1 foundry company, has decided to delay the start of its local plant in Arizona, the U.S., which was scheduled for 2024. TSMC’s delay is due to the difficulty of finding skilled labor in the U.S. market.
This has come as a big disappointment for the Biden administration, which has been pushing to rev up semiconductor production in the United States, analysts say. The U.S. still holds an irreplaceable position in the most value-added segments of the semiconductor supply chain (design, fabless, and semiconductor manufacturing equipment). However, the proportion of semiconductors manufactured in the U.S. in the world’s total shrank from 40 percent in 1990 to 12 percent in 2022.
In response, the Biden administration has made increasing U.S. semiconductor production a de facto national priority, enacting the U.S. CHIPS and Science Act in August 2022. The bill allows the U.S. government to spend US$280 billion on semiconductor manufacturing and basic science research over the next five years. Of that amount, US$52 billion will be used for giving grants, corporate tax breaks, and R&D support to domestic and foreign companies that produce advanced semiconductors and manufacturing equipment in the United States. Its intent is to attract the semiconductor manufacturing sector (foundry companies) to the United States.
According to TSMC Chairman Mark Liu, production of advanced semiconductors at the Arizona plant will begin in 2025, one year later than originally planned. “This is because the Taiwanese foundry giant was unable to find workers with the specialized skills needed to install equipment in a semiconductor factory,” Liu said. Liu added that TSMC was working to improve the situation by sending skilled technicians from Taiwan to the United States to train local workers.
TSMC first announced its intention to build two semiconductor fabs in Arizona in April 2020 during the Trump presidency. In 2022, it announced it would increase its investment in the project to US$40 billion, more than triple the investment in its original plan. One plant was expected to go live by 2024 and the other by 2026.
Samsung Electronics is building a foundry in Taylor with US$17 billion in addition to the two semiconductor fabs it runs in Austin, Texas. Also, SK hynix plans to build an advanced packaging plant in the United States. Packaging is the final step in semiconductor manufacturing.