Apple CEO Tim Cook has said the company is “excited” to be the first customer of TSMC’s Arizona chip plants. He made the comment as the company started construction on its third US plant.
TSMC says that the addition of the third plant makes the project the largest single foreign investment in US history …
‘Made in America’ Apple chips
Apple first announced its plan for ‘Made in America’ chips back in 2022, with the news hailed as one of the success stories of the US CHIPS Act. The initiative will see a series of TSMC chipmaking plants built in Arizona, with some of the production reserved for Apple chips.
TSMC deliberately limits its most advanced chipmaking capabilities to its home territory of Taiwan, meaning its US plants can only make chips for older Apple devices. However, the company last month promised to accelerate the pace of development, meaning it will eventually be making chips for products around three generations old, rather than the previous 4-5 years.
Ground broken on third US chip plant
The US Department of Commerce announced that TSMC has now broken ground on the third Arizona plant. Company chairman Dr CC Wei said that the project has now set a new record for inward investment in the US.
We were delighted to welcome U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick to TSMC Arizona, the largest single foreign direct investment in U.S. history […]
As part of our commitment to support the needs of America’s leading innovators in smartphones, high-performance computing, and AI, we recently broke ground on our third fab, which will introduce more advanced semiconductor capacity to the United States.
Cook said Apple was proud to be the first customer for the Arizona plants.
We’re proud to support the high-skilled American jobs of tomorrow. As TSMC Arizona’s first and largest customer, we’re excited for the future of American innovation and the incredible opportunities it will create.
NVIDIA and AMD also announced that they will be buying chips from the plants.
The long-term plan is for three further plants, as well as two chip packaging facilities, ensuring that some older Apple processors can be fully manufactured within the US. The latest A-series and M-series chips will continue to be fabricated in Taiwan.
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Stock construction photo by Saad Salim on Unsplash
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