TSMC starts building its own water treatment plant

For over half a year, lots of components and products have been in short supply. There are a variety of reasons for this, including a lack of semiconductor foundry capacity. Last month reports popped up about water issues in Taiwan. The island usually gets a heavy rain season to replenish its reservoirs, but this year has been unusually dry. As a result, companies have been asked to restrict water use.

Chip production uses a lot of water so last month TSMC started trucking in water to meet its needs. As far as we know, Taiwan's drought hasn't affected production yet but it has made logistics a little harder. Now we hear TSMC plans to tackle future problems by building its own water plant.

TSMC to treat industrial wastewater

Water treatment isn't TSMC's core business of course but it seems the company wants to ensure it has a steady supply of water to meet its current and future needs. The Taiwanese giant is building a plant to treat industrial water, so it can be reused for chip production. The water plant will be constructed near TSMC's facilities in Tainan, the home of TSMC's 5nm and future 3nm production capacity.

The facility is expected to be ready before the end of this year. TSMC's water treatment plant is designed to produce 67,000 tons of water per day. For comparison, in 2019, TSMC consumed around 156,000 tons of water per day.

TSMC's wastewater treatment plant will be the first of its kind. It needs to be capable of producing ultra-pure water, free of all ions, particles, chlorine, and silica residue.

TSMC told Nikkei the plant would be the first advanced industrial wastewater treatment center of its kind and could eventually supply around half of the company’s daily water requirements for semiconductor production. Semiconductor manufacturing requires massive amounts of ultra-pure water, which is free of all ions, particles, chlorine, and silica.