By Amy Edelen | Phoenix Business Journal
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. is pushing back the production start date at its Arizona computer chip factory by a year, citing a shortage of skilled labor, the company said on its second quarter earnings call Thursday.
TSMC was anticipating that it would begin its N4 semiconductor processing at its first Arizona fab by 2024, but it’s lacking the workers to install equipment at the site, which is currently under construction in north Phoenix.
“Our fab in Arizona started construction in April 2021 with an aggressive schedule. We are now entering a critical phase of handling and installing the most advanced and dedicated equipment,” Mark Liu, chairman of TSMC, said on the earnings call. “However, we are encountering certain challenges, as there is an insufficient amount of skilled workers with those specialized expertise required for equipment installation in a semiconductor grade facility.”
TSMC is working to improve the situation, including “sending experienced technicians from Taiwan to train local skilled workers for a short period of time,” Liu said.
A TSMC spokesperson told the Business Journal last month the company and its suppliers are bringing in temporary workers from Taiwan to Arizona to accelerate the project because unique expertise is required for its highly-sophisticated facility systems and some construction activities.
At the time, TSMC did not disclose the exact number of temporary workers heading to the Valley or whether there have been any changes to the construction timeline for its Arizona plant, which is estimated to cost $40 billion and is one of the largest foreign direct investments in state and U.S. history.
Liu said on the earnings call that TSMC is facing higher building costs for its fabs in the U.S., Europe and Japan. He attributed the higher costs to a smaller fab scale and an earlier stage semiconductor ecosystem in the three countries compared with Taiwan.
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