U.S. commerce secretary visits TSMC Arizona for 3rd fab groundbreaking

Washington, April 29 (CNA) Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. broke ground on its third semiconductor manufacturing fab in Arizona on Tuesday, U.S. President Donald Trump's 100th day in office, and it got a visit from U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick.

Lutnick visited TSMC's semiconductor fabrication facility in Phoenix where the company broke ground on a third fab facility, the U.S. State Department said in a press release issued later Tuesday.

In the statement, Lutnick emphasized the importance of TSMC's investments in the United States, saying: "We are at TSMC Arizona to celebrate the return of American manufacturing."

During the visit, TSMC Chairman and CEO C.C. Wei (魏哲家) welcomed Lutnick and highlighted the progress made in its Arizona operation, according to the press release.

To support the needs of America's leading innovators in smartphones, HPC and AI, "we recently broke ground on our third fab, which will introduce more advanced semiconductor capacity to the United States." Wei said.

TSMC's major customers in the U.S. also expressed support for the project. Apple Inc. CEO Tim Cook said that as TSMC Arizona's largest customer, "we're excited for the future of American innovation and the incredible opportunities it will create."

Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), founder and CEO of Nvidia, also said AI is revolutionizing every aspect of the technology stack, and Nvidia AI supercomputers are at the foundation.

"We're proud to produce our technology in Arizona, bringing AI infrastructure manufacturing back to America," he said.

Also, AMD Chair and CEO Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) said TSMC has been a key partner of her company for many years and AMD's deep collaboration with TSMC's R&D and manufacturing teams has enabled AMD to consistently deliver leadership products,

TSMC, the world's largest chipmaker, said in March it would invest an additional US$100 billion in the U.S. to build three new chip manufacturing plants, along with two packaging facilities and a major R&D team center.

TSMC is already investing US$65 billion in Arizona to build three advanced wafer fabs.

The first fab in Arizona has started production using the 4-nanometer process, while the second fab, which will use the more sophisticated 3 nm, 2 nm, and A16 processes, is currently under construction and is expected to begin production in 2028.

The third is expected to begin production by 2030, using 2 nm or more advanced processes, the company said in April 2024.