By Amy Edelen | Phoenix Business Journal
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. is on track to begin production at its Arizona chip factory in the first half of 2025, the company said on its Oct. 19 earnings call.
TSMC is receiving “strong support” from local, state and federal governments for its two fabs under construction in north Phoenix and continues to “develop positive relationships and work closely with local trade and union partners,” C.C. Wei, CEO of TSMC, said on the third quarter earnings call.
“We are making good progress on the fab infrastructure, utilities, and equipment installation issues in our first fab, and the situation is improving,” he said. “We have also begun early preparation for our Arizona fab operations and hired close to 1,100 local TSMC employees so far.”
A TSMC spokesperson confirmed the 1,100 employees Wei referred to on the call are based in the Phoenix area.
In 2021, TSMC broke ground on its $40 billion chipmaking facility, which has an average of 12,000 construction workers on the site every day. It could eventually build out the site to include six fabs that would provide “the most advanced chips made in the U.S.,” the Business Journal previously reported.
The company expects to employ more than 4,500 workers at its Arizona campus, where it will manufacture 3-and 4-nanometer semiconductor chips.
To date, TSMC has hired more than 2,000 employees for its Arizona fab, some of whom relocated with their families from Taiwan. Hundreds of U.S. workers completed months-long training in Taiwan, the Business Journal previously reported.
TSMC is confident it has enough workers to support the ramp-up of its first fab in Arizona, Wei said on the earnings call.
“We continue to target volume production of N4 process technology in first half 2025 and are confident that once we begin operations, we will be able to deliver the same level of manufacturing, quality and reliability in Arizona as from our fabs in Taiwan,” Wei said.
In July, TSMC pushed back the production start date of its Arizona fab by a year until 2025, citing a shortage of skilled labor. The company and its suppliers brought in temporary workers from Taiwan in efforts to accelerate construction on the site.
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