Chipmakers Race to Build Factories

[Edgar R. Zakarian]

Hi, 
Just found this very convenient overview of the largest investments for expansions.

Chipmakers Race to Build Factories Amidst Shortages - SiliconExpert

[whm1974]

Isn't there a shortage of Wafers for Die production? No Wafers, no Dies being mass produced.

[Amias]

5 hours ago, whm1974 said:

Isn't there a shortage of Wafers for Die production? No Wafers, no Dies being mass produced.

Literally the fourth listed item down:

 

Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC)

SMIC, China’s largest pure-play foundry, announced in September 2021 its plans to invest $8.9 billion in a new Shanghai-based fab for 12-inch (300mm) wafers. When completed, the new fab is expected to provide more than 100,000 wafer starts per month. This volume would represent a sizable bump in manufacturing capacity.

[whm1974]

14 minutes ago, Amias said:

Literally the fourth listed item down:

 

Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC)

SMIC, China’s largest pure-play foundry, announced in September 2021 its plans to invest $8.9 billion in a new Shanghai-based fab for 12-inch (300mm) wafers. When completed, the new fab is expected to provide more than 100,000 wafer starts per month. This volume would represent a sizable bump in manufacturing capacity.

Any new Fabs for 12-Inch Wafer production in the EU and US?

[Donut417]

4 hours ago, whm1974 said:

Any new Fabs for 12-Inch Wafer production in the EU and US?

The only Fabs I have heard about in the US are from TSMC and Samsung. I think the TSMC facility is going to be doing 3nm production. Not sure what Samsungs plans are. Not sure about the size of the wafers. 

[Arika]

Unfortunately it will be many many many years before we even start to see the benefits of new fabs.

[whm1974]

21 minutes ago, Arika S said:

Unfortunately it will be many many many years before we even start to see the benefits of new fabs.

~Five years?

[Edgar R. Zakarian]

On 12/1/2021 at 3:00 AM, Arika S said:

Unfortunately it will be many many many years before we even start to see the benefits of new fabs.

So if the fabs are up and running in 2024 they will need maybe 1 year to catch up, so in total around end of 2025 everything should be pretty much normalized?
Or what do you think?

[RoseLuck462]

More chips!

[martin_metal_88]

Now let's spread the US plant a bit in the country 

[Mark Kaine]

On 12/2/2021 at 12:50 PM, Edgar R. Zakarian said:

So if the fabs are up and running in 2024 they will need maybe 1 year to catch up, so in total around end of 2025 everything should be pretty much normalized?
Or what do you think?

I wonder if there is really that much demand for this to be worthwhile,  i also wonder why "fabs" have been on decline for decades and there wasn't much of a problem with availability.  In other words when or if  this current "crisis" is overcome in ~2024 then there won't be much of a demand for these new "fabs" (and they'll probably be closed down to cut losses soon after)

 

On the other hand, it objectively makes sense to have fabs spread around different countries - the question is do the chip makers TSMC, Samsung,  etc really want that? I think most probably not, not at least because its very likely cheaper and easier to produce in Asia and thus "makes more sense" to them.

 

This is more a gesture of goodwill than a real effort,  imho, peanuts for them , and they obviously expect to gain something out of it.

 

 

"GF, the largest U.S.-based contract chipmaker, announced it would put $1 billion toward opening a new fab. 

 

 

PS: yeap...this is just some sort of backup insurance plan in case things *don't* go normal again at that point.

 

No one of the big guys wants to make "more" fabs, past 20 years have proven that.

 

[Donut417]

On 12/4/2021 at 3:47 PM, Mark Kaine said:

n other words when or if  this current "crisis" is overcome in ~2024 then there won't be much of a demand for these new "fabs" (and they'll probably be closed down to cut losses soon after)

The new Fabs are being built with the latest manufacturing process. If they close any, it will be those using a older larger process. Even then, demand isn't going down any time soon. More and more stuff uses computers and such need more chips. To be honest TSMC announced the plans for the Arizona fab in like 2019 before the pandemic hit. So they knew they were going to need new production, but because it takes so long to build new facilities they started it back then. The idea is because it takes a few years to build a fab, by the time it came online the demand would have increased so they needed the extra product. Remember demand for chips is always going up. However fabs are expensive and take time to make profit, so companies like TSMC are very cautious about building one, they need to make sure it doesnt take forever to see a return on their investment.  The only reason shortages exist currently is because manufacturing  shut down but demand remained the same or increased. The supply chain could normally survive a small hiccup but due to the length of the shut downs the excess supply ended up being depleted.