The chairman of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., parent of the WaferTech chip manufacturer in Camas, said Tuesday that the company no longer is considering expansion of manufacturing in the United States.
“While (overseas expansion) is always on our agenda, it will be hard for us to create economies of scale in the U.S.,” Chairman Morris Chang told reporters in Taiwan on Tuesday after the company’s annual shareholder meeting, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Most TSMC factories in Taiwan are located in two major industrial clusters, where infrastructure such as water and power supplies can be shared among facilities. Resources including engineers and machines are easily reallocated as needed, the newspaper reported. However, building one or two plants in any foreign country, not just the U.S., won’t offer those kinds of synergies, a TSMC executive, who asked not to be named, said earlier.
Although global smartphone and tablet sales have come down from a stage of explosive growth, orders placed with TSMC’s advanced facilities continue rising. TSMC is manufacturing core chips for Apple’s iPhones and iPads at its latest 20-nanometer factory.
Camas Mayor Scott Higgins said he remains optimistic that TSMC will want to expand in Camas at some point. Last year, Higgins held out hope that TSMC could ink a deal to build a new fabrication facility somewhere within 18 months to three years. He had described the possible expansion at WaferTech as “a game-changer,” involving up to $4 billion in capital investment and providing at least 1,000 more jobs. He said the city has adequate infrastructure to accommodate a plant expansion.
“Nothing really changes for us,” Higgins said. “We know all we can do is be ready to move quick when they’re ready to move.”
The WaferTech fabrication plant in Camas, which uses older-generation 200-millimeter wafers, employs about 1,000 workers. The industry’s state of the art is currently the 300-millimeter wafer and a new plant would likely produce chips on next-generation 450-millimeter wafers. Larger sizes allow for more integrated circuits to be packed on a single wafer, reducing manufacturing costs.
Paul Dennis, president and CEO of the Camas-Washougal Economic Development Association, said Tuesday he was not surprised to hear the TSMC chairman’s comments. Talks about expanding in Camas had gone quiet for months, and Dennis saw them as merely speculative to begin with.
The industry has changed, and TSMC is focusing on the next generation of technologies as it aims to outperform such companies as Samsung and Intel, he said. Dennis sees how TSMC could benefit from not building overseas, and he doesn’t share Higgins’ optimism that the company will eventually expand in Camas.
“Largely, that will depend on how competitive could that plant be on the world market,” Dennis said. “Regardless of whether they reinvest in Camas or not, they’re still an important part of our community, and we respect their decision.”
