TSMC’s Arizona plant has officially delivered its first shipment of semiconductor wafers, marking a major step in the United States’ chip manufacturing ambitions.
According to reports from Taiwan, the facility has successfully produced chips for Apple, NVIDIA, and AMD, using the company’s advanced N4 process node.
Although production started in late 2024, this first wave of wafers-approximately 20,000 units-is a significant milestone. These include NVIDIA’s new Blackwell AI GPUs, which use a custom variant called 4NP. After fabrication in Arizona, the wafers are shipped back to Taiwan for packaging, an essential phase where chip dies are integrated into functional units.
While the Arizona facility handles high-end chip fabrication, the packaging phase remains overseas due to limited local capabilities. However, TSMC is collaborating with U.S. firm Amkor to establish domestic advanced packaging, aiming to eventually eliminate the need to export wafers for this final step.
Packaging remains a critical bottleneck in the semiconductor supply chain, especially for AI-focused chips. TSMC plans to boost its packaging capacity from 75,000 to 115,000 units this year using CoWoS L/S technology. Long-term, packaging capabilities may reach that 75,000 mark again by mid-2025, but the outlook is bullish with surging AI demand.
Alongside NVIDIA, the plant has manufactured Apple’s iPhone processors and AMD’s 5th-gen EPYC data center chips. These high-performance components are part of the first wave of output from the Arizona fab. As global chipmakers seek resilience and geographical diversification, TSMC’s U.S. operations are expected to expand further.
Future upgrades include moving from N4 to 3nm and 2nm nodes, setting the stage for a new era of American-based semiconductor production. Meanwhile, rivals like UMC are also making strides, with reports suggesting collaborations with Qualcomm on wafer-on-wafer (WoW) packaging technology.
For now, Arizona’s output symbolizes a turning point in localized chip production and a promising start for reshoring efforts in the high-tech supply chain.
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