Shulou(Shulou.com)12/24 Report--

Thanks to CTOnews.com netizen BOE Zhou Dongyu for his clue delivery! CTOnews.com, December 18, last week, it was reported that the first plant currently under construction by TSMC in Kumamoto Prefecture will be opened in late February next year, and the second quarter (April to June) will enter the final stage of production preparation.

According to the Nikkei News, Yuichi Horida, president of TSMC's Japan subsidiary (JASM), said that the construction of TSMC's Kumamoto plant was smooth and nearing completion, and that it was ready to start equipment import and installation in October. He expects the TSMC Kumamoto plant to start production in April 2024 and start mass production in the fourth quarter, with a monthly production capacity of 55,000 12-inch wafers.

He also mentioned that supply chain partners have added 120 Japanese companies in addition to TSMC's original suppliers, and the proportion of local purchases in Japan is now about 25%, which is expected to increase to 50% in 2026 and 60% in 2030.

"the TSMC JASM Kumamoto plant, which originally took three years to build, only took a year and a half to complete, and the construction work is going on at an alarming rate," Horida said. " He revealed that at its peak, about 6000 workers participated in the construction of the factory at the same time.

According to public data, the main shareholders of TSMC's Japan subsidiary include TSMC, which owns 71%, Sony, which owns nearly 20%, and Japan Denso (DENSO), which owns about 10%. Kumamoto's first factory plans to produce mature semiconductors such as 12x16 nm and 22x28 nm, with most of the initial production capacity being the digital image processor (ISP) used in Sony's CMOS image sensors. The rest is the electronic microcontroller MCU for Denso OEM, which can achieve a production capacity of about 10,000 pieces per month.

TSMC CEO Wei Zhe Jia said in October that the plant is expected to start mass production by the end of next year, and the Japanese government has decided to provide up to 476 billion yen (CTOnews.com Note: about 23.61 billion yuan) subsidy to the No.1 plant. In addition, TSMC plans to build a second plant in Kumamoto prefecture to produce 5nm chips.

Bloomberg also reported some time ago that TSMC had informed its supply chain partners that it was considering building a third chip plant in Kumamoto prefecture to produce advanced 3nm chips, codenamed TSMC Fab-23 III.

People familiar with the matter said it was not clear when the third plant would be built, but by the time the new plant went into mass production, 3nm might have lagged behind the latest technology by a generation or two.

Related readings:

"it is reported that the number of employees at TSMC's Kumamoto factory in Japan has exceeded 1,000, and plans to put into production next year."

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