Posted on Wednesday, April 17 2013 @ 14:02 CEST by Thomas De Maesschalck
X-bit Labs
writes TSMC has not yet made any final decisions about building a manufacturing plant in the US. Building a fab in the US has a couple of advantages, but there are disadvantages as well, so TSMC is insure whether to proceed with the plan or not.
“There has been no decision. Building a new fab is a big decision. A new fab now costs $5 billion. We have 20 fabs in Taiwan, and that’s an advantage because when a machine goes down in one plant we can ship one over from another. You can’t do that for a fab in the U.S.,” said Morris Chang, chief executive officer of TSMC, in an interview with EETimes web-site.
Back in November it transpired that an undefined company had hired Deloitte, a worldwide consulting and financial adviser, to scout for a location in Rensselaer, Saratoga and Utica counties with water, power and gas supply to operate a 3.2 million square feet of buildings with 1000 employees, 40% of which are college-graduated engineers. Among other locations, Deloitte also explored Luther Forest Technology Campus, where Globalfoundries’ Fab 8 is located. The buildings involved in code-named project Azalea will have a total footprint of 3.2 million square feet and be up to 180 feet tall, “with potential to expand”, according to the Business Review web-site. The project would cost several billions of dollars.
