Posted on Wednesday, December 14 2011 @ 21:47 CET by Thomas De Maesschalck
EE Times
writes TSMC has reserves a 50 hectare (about 120 acres) plot of land at the Central Taiwan Science Park in Taichung, Taiwan where it could built a 450mm wafer fab. The projected cost of this plant would be $26 billion, nearly three times as much as TSMC's Fab 15 Gigafab currently being built on the science park.
The report referenced TSMC as saying Tuesday (Dec. 12) that the earliest it would start building the fab would be 2015 to 2016 but that once the 450-mm diameter wafer size becomes mainstream it planned to also build 450-mm wafer fabs in Hsinchu and Tainan.
TSMC is expected to bring up 450-mm wafer processing at two of its established wafer fabs, built for 300-mm wafer processing, before building a dedicated 450-mm wafer fab.
