Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. is considering building a third plant in Japan that would make advanced 3-nanometer (3nm) chips, according to people familiar with the matter, potentially turning the East Asian nation into a major global chipmaking hub.
The go-to chipmaker for Nvidia and Apple has told its supply chain partners it’s mulling construction of a third factory, code-named TSMC Fab-23 Phase 3, in Kumamoto Prefecture, the people said, asking not to be named as the information is not public. TSMC is in the process of building one fab in Japan for less advanced chips, and plans for a second facility have been reported earlier. It is unclear yet when the company would start construction of the third fab.
The 3nm process is the most cutting-edge chipmaking technology commercially available right now, though by the time TSMC’s potential fab is up and running, the technology would likely to be one to two generations behind that. If the plan is realized, it would be a major win for Japan, where Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s administration has been providing trillions of yen in subsidies to lure investments from domestic and foreign semiconductor companies.