3 ms·
Besides the fact that the AZ plant does not produce TSMC's bleeding edge process (3nm) but the older 4nm, the product from that fab can't be delivered directly
by mandevil 2y ago
Besides the fact that the AZ plant does not produce TSMC's bleeding edge process (3nm) but the older 4nm, the product from that fab can't be delivered directly to a customer. Every wafer at that plant has to be shipped back to Taiwan for packaging and can only then be delivered to a customer.
So a blanket tariff would definitely apply even to the production of that plant. Which is why lots of CEO's (including Tim Cook) are trying to suck-up to Trump right now, to get an exception made for their imports.
- indrora 2y agoTSMC can work with partners for packaging (TI and IBM come to mind)
- mandevil 2y agoPackaging is not trivial. I don't think either of those companies has been near the frontier for packaging in ... more than a decade? Two decades? This would be something where it would take a lot of time and throwing away badly packaged wafers to create the experience necessary. TSMC is probably better off doing it themselves in a new build versus working with partners who are so far from their level.