Incomplete factory engineering industry supply chains, as well as insufficient manpower, could slow the construction of new wafer fabs in Europe and the US, according to industry sources.
Even in Singapore and Malaysia, new fab construction is also being challenged by insufficient factory engineering sources and engineering manpower locally, the sources said.
Samsung Electronics would be an exception given its engineering construction and project management services in-house, the sources indicated. Affiliate Samsung Engineering allows Samsung to execute new fab projects efficiently, the sources said.
TSMC could be another exception thanks to support from its ecosystem partners worldwide, the sources noted. TSMC has been working closely with its factory engineering service suppliers and other partners as the world’s largest pure-play foundry outlines plans for capacity expansion almost every year, the sources said.
Samsung and TSMC both have plans to build their new leading-edge fabs in the US, also looking for a share of the US$52 billion which the US plans to spend under the Chips Act.
Samsung in late 2021 announced plans to add a second Texas fab, in the town of Taylor, to its existing fab in Austin. “Groundbreaking will be in the first half of 2022 with the target of having the facility operational in the second half of 2024,” the company said in a statement in November 2021. There have been no updates since the announcement.
Construction has already kicked off on TSMC’s Arizona fab, which will be capable of producing 5nm chips. A topping-out ceremony for the fab was held in July 2022. TSMC disclosed previously it expects to enter volume production at the phase-one facility of the fab, designed for a monthly production capacity of 20,000 wafers, in the first quarter of 2024.
Earlier this month (September 2022), Intel held a groundbreaking ceremony for two leading-edge wafer fabs in Ohio. The facilities are to provide additional production capacity for not only Intel’s next-generation products but also Intel Foundry Services (IFS), said the IDM vendor.
Intel laid out its US$20 billion foundry plan in March 2021, aiming to regain its technology leadership. The new fabs in Ohio is Intel’s latest investment. Earlier this year, Intel also committed as much as EUR80 billion (US$88 billion) investment in chip manufacturing in Europe over the next decade, including a mega fab project in Germany.
GlobalFoundries (GF) and United Microelectronics (UMC) both have their fab expansion plans for Singapore. GF is also building a new facility adjacent to its existing Fab 8 in New York, and is partnering with STMicroelectronics to build a new fab in France.
