TSMC and its partners plan to send several hundred additional workers from Taiwan to help install chip production tools and other equipment at its Fab 21 in Arizona. The primary goal of deploying these workers to the U.S. is to boost productivity and compensate for delays that have already occurred in installing cleanroom tools and infrastructure systems processes, reports Nikkei.
Negotiations are underway between TSMC, its partners, and the U.S. authorities to expedite the application process for non-immigrant visas in an effort to dispatch more than 500 skilled workers by July. The workforce being sent from Taiwan will include contract technicians and workers with practical experience in a variety of specialties, such as installing wafer fab tools and making them work in concert as well as building mechanical and electrical systems for chip fabs, the report said.
A significant number of managers have already been dispatched from Taiwan to monitor and streamline the build process. Still, it looks like it is not enough to monitor and supervise, and TSMC wants people with hands-on experience to set up the cleanroom at Fab 21.
"It is challenging and costly for Taiwanese cleanroom builders to communicate with foreign construction workers in an unfamiliar environment," a TSMC contractor is reported to have said. "Sending experienced construction contractors and their workers who worked with the chip suppliers before from Taiwan could save lots of time and costs."
TSMC admitted to Nikkei that it is negotiating with the U.S. government to dispatch additional specialists to the U.S., to help at "a critical phase, handling all of the most advanced and dedicated equipment in a sophisticated facility." The foundry did not confirm the exact number of experienced workers to be sent to Taiwan, but indicated they will assist 12,000 workers currently on site, not replace them.
It should be noted that typically advanced wafer fab tools from companies like ASML, Applied Materials, KLA, Lam Research, and Tokyo Electron are installed together with specialists from these companies.
Despite the intensive efforts, the construction of Fab 21 has already faced delays, and its costs exceeded expectations due to labor shortages and other issues. Construction of TSMC's Fab 21 phase 1 in Arizona was completed in mid-2022and the company began moving in production equipment in December 2022. Typically it takes about a year for a fab's cleanroom to be equipped, so the company hoped that its chip plant would come online in early 2024. Meanwhile, Nikkei says the delays are so severe that TSMC now expects the fab to start making chips in late 2024.
TSMC's Fab 21 phase 1 will produce chips using TSMC's N5 family, which now encompasses such production nodes as N5, N5P, N4, N4P, and N4X nodes. TSMC's Fab 21 phase 2 will be used to make 3nm-class chips based on a variety of TSMC's N3 nodes, including N3E, N3P, N3AE/N3A, and N3X.
