The U.S. government has shed some light on TSMC’s plans concerning the new Fab 21 complex near Phoenix, Arizona and revealed the foundry’s plans to eventually build chips on its A16 (1.6nm-class) and N2 (2nm-class) process technologies in America by the end of the decade. Also, TSMC and the U.S. government today finalized funding of TSMC’s Fab 21 under the U.S. CHIPS and Science Act.
TSMC and the U.S. Department of Commerce finalized the deal under which the contract chipmaker gets $6.6 billion in direct funding and $5 billion in loan guarantees under the CHIPS and Science Act to build its Fab 21 site in Arizona. The whole campus will require funding of approximately $65 billion, includes three fab modules, and will be completely built by the end of the decade. The fabs will create over 6,000 direct manufacturing jobs and over 20,000 accumulated construction jobs.
While the formal sign-off of the agreement between TSMC and the Commerce Department is important, the preliminary roadmap outline for Fab 21 is definitely no less so. For now, TSMC is committed to make chips on its most advanced production node announced to date — A16 — in the U.S., albeit at least about three years after it enters mass production in late 2026 in Taiwan.