What works in Taiwan doesn’t always work in Arizona, a chipmaking giant learns

BUSINESS / Companies

What works in Taiwan doesn’t always work in Arizona, a chipmaking giant learns

The Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company facility in Phoenix. The tech giant modeled its facility in Phoenix on one at home. But bringing the company's highly complex manufacturing process to America has been a bigger challenge than it expected. | Cassidy Araiza / The New York Times

By John Liu
The New York Times

Aug 10, 2024

PHOENIX – Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., one of the world’s biggest makers of advanced computer chips, announced plans in May 2020 to build a facility on the outskirts of Phoenix. Four years later, the company has yet to start selling semiconductors made in Arizona.

The Taiwanese company’s presence in the state was viewed as an all-around win: It would boost advanced chipmaking in the United States and help diversify TSMC’s manufacturing away from Taiwan, an island democracy that is the focus of increasingly aggressive geopolitical claims by China. TSMC has committed $65 billion to the project, and in April, the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden announced that the company would receive a $6.6 billion grant funded by the CHIPS and Science Act.

American officials have long been concerned about the country’s reliance on TSMC. U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina M. Raimondo has said America buys 92% of its “leading edge” chips from Taiwan. The TSMC factory in Arizona stands as a test of American efforts to diversify its reliance on chips produced overseas.