TSMC in Arizona

[eece_ret]

Question to ponder. TSMC is building a fabrication facility in Arizona. 
How finished of a product leaves a fab? 
ie.  What do they deliver to nvidia, amd, apple...  

Wafer?
Cut wafer (ie bare chips)?
Who does the binning and QA?  
Who affixes the chip to the package (completing the "chip", making it ready for install)

 

If not TSMC (finishing) then who?  Do we have those facilities in the US?  
Is this arizona fab gonna just ship wafers back to Taiwan/Vietnam (iirc intel does a lot in vietnam)

[trag1c]

Too my knowledge they finish the process whether that be attaching the die to a black QFN chip package or attaching it to a substrate. Don't know if they complete this at the same facility or not. There's a company that sets up Group chip manufacturing much like they do for PCB's where they setup a panel with a dozen other customer designs on it. From what I was reading when I was looking into it you specify what package you would want your chip in and what not. I can't remember the name of the company though but the group buys were for TSMC and Global foundries and then you can select which process you would want.

[HelloitsLuke]

Hello there. I studied quite a bit of microelectronics and also work at a semiconductors company:

 

To answer your question simply: TSMC does up to the packaging and bare level testing, while AMD/Nvidia/Apple do their own separate testing

 

Longer answer:

In the semiconductor process, there are what's called the front end and back end processing.

Wafer making, doping, etching, and polishing are some of the front end processes, which TSMC does.

 

To note: TSMC does not make any designs, noting them as a "pure-play" foundry. Their customers, like AMD, are what's called a fabless company, because they only design and let TSMC do all the labor (apart from final testing).

 

 

Things like dicing, bonding, packaging, assembly and testing are processes in the back-end.

Once the wafers have undergone all the front-end process, companies typically outsource their back-end process elsewhere called OSAT.

But since TSMC is such a large conglomerate, they have their own back-end factories back in Taiwan.

 

To summarize, the fab in Arizona is most likely a front-end fab and the wafers are shipped back to Taiwan for cutting, assembling and testing, then to their respective customers for final verification as chips.

 

[Drama Lama]

12 hours ago, eece_ret said:

Is this arizona fab gonna just ship wafers back to Taiwan/Vietnam (iirc intel does a lot in vietnam)

The TSMC fab in Arizona is more intended for military and other specialized uses not mass market production because it has a relatively small production capacity compared to TSMC‘s Megafabs and by the time building is finished the process nodes ( N5 ) won’t be the newest anymore.

12 hours ago, eece_ret said:

If not TSMC (finishing) then who?  Do we have those facilities in the US?  

Intel might have some facilities. And i  know that Global foundries shipped their chips first to Germany for binning.

[HelloitsLuke]

11 minutes ago, Drama Lama said:

The TSMC fab in Arizona is more intended for military and other specialized uses not mass market production because it has a relatively small production capacity compared to TSMC‘s Megafabs and by the time building is finished the process nodes ( N5 ) won’t be the newest anymore.

Intel might have some facilities. And i  know that Global foundries shipped their chips first to Germany for binning.

TSMC does have back-end facilities in Hsinchu back in Taiwan. Although it is very much possible that they outsource the back-end to a nearby facility in the US, as you mentioned Intel/GlobalFoundries.

[Drama Lama]

3 minutes ago, HelloitsLuke said:

possible that they outsource the back-end to a nearby facility in the US, as you mentioned Intel/GlobalFoundries.

The primary motivation for the fab is not to make chips that average joe buy at Best Buy but rather critical infrastructures and military so it would make sense that they would do it in the US but I also wouldn’t be surprised if the back-end gets outsourced to Taiwan Vietnam or even China ( that would be funny ).

[HelloitsLuke]

3 minutes ago, Drama Lama said:

The primary motivation for the fab is not to make chips that average joe buy at Best Buy but rather critical infrastructures and military so it would make sense that they would do it in the US but I also wouldn’t be surprised if the back-end gets outsourced to Taiwan Vietnam or even China ( that would be funny ).

Funny you mentioned china because TSMC WILL have fabs in China!

Sauce:

https://www.eetimes.com/tsmc-applies-to-build-wafer-fab-in-china/

https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/China-tech/China-hires-over-100-TSMC-engineers-in-push-for-chip-leadership