July 17, 2010

TSMC begins construction of new $9.3b foundry, wants to sate our constant hunger for chips

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TSMC might not necessarily be a household name, but the product of its labors tends to be all over homeelectronics. Aiming to keep that trend going, the Taiwanese chipmaker has just broken ground on its third 300mm wafer plant, located in Taichung's Central Taiwan Science Park. The new Fab 15 will have a capacity of over 100,000 wafers per month -- earning it the prestige of being described as a Gigafab -- and once operational it'll create 8,000 new skilled jobs in the area. Semiconductors built there will also be suitably modern, with 40nm and 28nm production facilities being installed, and lest you worry about such trivial things as the environment, TSMC says it's doing a few things to minimize the foundry's energy usage and greenhouse gas emission. Then again, if you're going to spend nearly $10 billion on something, would you expect anything less?

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