TSMC to phase out 6-inch wafer business in 2 years

Taipei, Aug. 12 (CNA) Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) has decided to phase out its 6-inch wafer business within two years and continue to consolidate its 8-inch wafer resources in a bid to optimize its operations and improve efficiency.

The world's largest contract chipmaker said the decision was made based on the market needs and the company's long term development strategies, while the firm is working closely with its clients to go through the transition period, ensuring them the chipmaker will try its best to meet their demand and continue to create value to its business partners and the market.

The chipmaker said the decision to phase out the 6-inch wafer business will not impact its sales guidance for this year.

In an investor conference held in mid-July, TSMC forecast its sales for 2025 will grow about 30 percent from a year earlier in U.S. dollar terms, an upgrade from an earlier estimate of 24-26 percent, citing strong global demand for artificial intelligence applications.

Currently, TSMC runs four 12-inch gigafabs, four 8-inch wafer fabs and one 6-inch wafer fab in Taiwan. TSMC and its subsidiaries owned production capacity of 17 million 12-inch equivalent wafers in 2024.

While TSMC did not disclose what will happen to the phased-out 6-inch wafer plant, local news media reported earlier Tuesday that the chipmaker will transform the facility into an advanced IC assembly site to meet growing demand for AI applications.

Meanwhile, TSMC said a two-day board meeting that wrapped up Tuesday has approved capital appropriations of around US$20.66 billion to meet long-term capacity plans.

The capital appropriations were planned for purposes such as the installation of advanced technology capacity, installation of advanced packaging, mature and specialty technology capacity, fab construction and installation of fab facility systems, TSMC said

The board meeting also approved a plan for the chipmaker to issue up to NT$60 billion (US$1.998 billion) worth of unsecured corporate bonds in multiple offerings in the local market to finance the company's capacity expansion and green initiatives, TSMC said.

To lower foreign exchange hedging costs, TSMC said, the board meeting approved a capital injection of up to US$10 billion into TSMC Global, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the chipmaker.

In addition, TSMC obtained the greenlight from the board to issue NT$5 in cash dividend per share for its earnings per share of NT$15.36 in the second quarter of this year, when the chipmaker posted a new high of NT$398.27 billion in net profit on the back of strong demand for high performance computing (HPC) devices, smartphones, Internet of the Things and consumer electronics gadgets.

The second-quarter cash dividend payout stayed unchanged from the first quarter's.

The ex-dividend date is set for Dec. 11, and cash dividends will be issued on Jan. 8, 2026, according to the chipmaker.

TSMC Chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家) is expected to receive NT$34.12 million from the 6.83 million shares he owns.

The National Development Fund, TSMC's largest shareholder, is set to receive NT$8.27 billion in cash dividends, holding 1.65 billion shares, or a 6.38 percent stake.

In 2019, TSMC became the first Taiwanese company to issue quarterly cash dividends instead of annually. Analysts believe this change encourages investors to hold the stock longer.