In the recent years, TSMC has radically changed its strategy of making chips only in Taiwan and initiated expansion overseas. As a result, the company is now building up fabs in Germany, Japan, and the U.S. However, the world's top contract chip will charge its customers a premium if they want their chips to be made outside of Taiwan.
"If my customer requests to be in some certain area, then definitely, TSMC and the customer had to share the incremental cost," said C.C. Wei, chief executive of TSMC, at the earnings call with analysts and investors (via SeekingAlpha). "We do encounter some kind of higher cost in the overseas or even recently, the inflation and the electricity. We expect our customers to share some of the higher cost with us, and we already started our discussion with our customers."
