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Taiwan Semiconductor Company TSMC Plans To Build A Chip Fabrication Facility In China Is At Receiving End Of Opposition From Critics.

By Ramish Zafar

The Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company’s (TSMC) Plans To Build A Chip Fabrication Facility In China Is At The Receiving End Of Opposition From Critics. They allege that the company should stop building the facility due to its compliance with the U.S. government. The company is building a chip manufacturing facility in China’s Nanjing province, with the plant set to churn out semiconductors built on the mature 28nm process node. This is expected to aid TSMC in gaining market share for mature processes, which chipmakers across the globe currently underserve.

TSMC Should Not Be Allowed To Build China Facility Due To Threat To Local Chip Sector Believes Analyst

The opposition to the fab’s Chinese facility is on two fronts. The first of these is based on patriotism, with some arguing that TSMC has worked against Chinese national interest by following American sanctions. These sanctions, levied by the United States Department of Commerce, stop the company from supplying chips built on leading-edge semiconductor process to Chinese entities with ties to the country’s military.

They have targetted Chinese telecommunications firm Huawei Technologies Ltd. and more recently stopped TSMC from supplying processors to Chinese supercomputing entities. During TSMC’s latest earnings release, chief executive Dr. C.C. Wei outlined that the Nanjing plant has an installed capacity of  20,000 wafers per month. He added that TSMC is open to the idea of expanding the facility’s output if its customers demand so.

Comments against the plant were made by the chairman of China’s Information Consumer Alliance, Xiang Ligang. He believes that since the facility will not produce chips using the latest technologies, TSMC is “dumping” older process nodes in China. This practice will hurt the country’s local chipmaking ecosystem, believes the analyst, as TSMC’s presence, will take away orders from China’s own foundries such as the Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC).

He went on to state that TSMC does not provide high-end wafers to China as it ships them to the U.S. and complies with the sanctions. This prevents China from accessing chips made on the advanced processes, and since the country is already capable of producing chips on the mature nodes, it does not provide any benefit to the local chip industry. 

This news was originally published at WCF Tech.