Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) has broken ground on the third semiconductor manufacturing facility at its campus in Phoenix, Arizona.
Under the Investment Accelerator Program, the third fab will manufacture semiconductors used in artificial intelligence, data centers and smartphones.
The fab is part of TSMC’s $100 billion investment that is expected to create 40,000 construction jobs over the next four years and tens of thousands of high-tech jobs. TSMC will build chips for tech giants like AMD, Apple and Nvidia.
The announcement of the third fab comes as the Taiwanese government plans to issue tighter controls over exports of advanced process technologies as well as outbound semiconductor investments.
According to a report from Economic Daily, the legal measures will enforce the “N-1” technology restriction, which will bar TSMC from exporting its latest production nodes. However, it may not apply to TSMC, which is building at least three fabs in the U.S., two fabs in Japan and one fab in Germany.
The N-1 policy will apply to TSMC’s planned production in the U.S. but one leading edge node, TSMC’s N3P, will start producing chips on its N2 fab process later this year, which will become its flagship.
