Milestones
- Arizona fab announced15 May 2020Complete.
- CHIPS Act award finalisedNov 2024Complete.
- Fab 1 volume production (N4)Q4 2024Complete.
- Additional $100B US investment announced3 Mar 2025Complete.
- Fab 2 production (N3)Target 2027Not yet reached.
Most important updates
- 18 Dec 2025
- 3 Mar 2025
- 8 Apr 2024
- 20 Jul 2023
- 15 May 2020
Upcoming
- 2027Fab 2 production (N3) (next)
Current obstacles
- Cost and workforceUS factories cost more to build and run. TSMC brought engineers from Taiwan while training locals.
Physics limits
- Chipmaking needs near-perfect conditionsA particle a few tens of nanometres across can kill a chip, so fabs need ultrapure water, filtered air, steady power and vibration-free floors. A brief power dip can scrap every wafer in process.
- Yield is learned one slow cycle at a timeA wafer takes about three months to pass through a thousand-plus steps. Defects are found only by making wafers and tracing failures, so a new fab's yield rises over many cycles, however much money is spent.
How it works
Site
Six fabs, two packaging plants
Fab 1 makes N4 chips. Later fabs on the Phoenix site are planned for N3, N2 and A16, next to packaging plants and an R&D center.
Transfer
Replicating Taiwan fabs
Tools, recipes and procedures are copied from TSMC's Taiwan fabs, and Taiwanese engineers train local staff, so yields can match those at home.
Packaging
Closing the loop in the US
Arizona wafers have mostly gone back to Taiwan for CoWoS packaging. Amkor's planned plant in nearby Peoria is meant to do that step locally.
Update log
Thu 18 Dec 2025
- Minor: PressManufacturing
Mon 3 Mar 2025
- Major: PressManufacturing
Thu 24 Oct 2024
- Minor: PressManufacturing
Mon 8 Apr 2024
- Major: PressRegulatory
Thu 20 Jul 2023
- Major: PressManufacturing
Fri 15 May 2020
- Major: PressManufacturing
About TSMC
TSMC
Chip foundry, N2, A16, CoWoS packaging
TSMC, founded in Taiwan in 1987, builds chips that other companies design. It makes most of the world's most advanced chips, including Apple's, NVIDIA's and AMD's. Its CoWoS packaging is a key bottleneck for AI chips.
- N2 (2 nm class) in volume production since Q4 2025. A16 is planned for the second half of 2026.
- Pledged $165B in total for US factories, packaging and R&D in Arizona.
- Makes nearly all leading AI chips and packages them with CoWoS.
- Founded
- 198739 yrs
- Headquarters
- Taiwan
- Status
- Public
- Listed
- TSM (opens google.com)NYSE
- Valuation
- public
- Staff
- ~83,825Dec 2024
- Works in
- ComputingChip factories (foundries)Manufacturing
- Coverage
- 3 programs · 17 updateslatest 16 Jun 2026checked 25 Sep
- Customers
- Apple (opens apple.com)NVIDIAAMD
- Suppliers
- ASML
- People
- C.C. Wei (opens en.wikipedia.org)Chairman and CEOMorris Chang (opens en.wikipedia.org)Founder (retired)