TSMC: Trump notwithstanding, new factories in the U.S. remain unlikely
TSMC operates WaferTech, a 20-year-old chip factory in Camas. Long-sought expansion now appears very unlikely.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. says it would require "a lot of sacrifices" to build more factories in the United States, regardless of what incentives president elect Donald Trump might offer.
TSMC is a contract manufacturer, building chips for other electronics companies. It operates one U.S. factory, the 20-year-old WaferTech facility in Camas.
TSMC designed WaferTech's 260-acre campus to accommodate multiple additional factories, called fabs in the chip industry's parlance. But WaferTech experienced a series of organizational and logistical setbacks in its early years, and additional work never materialized.
WaferTech remains one of Clark County's largest employers, though, with more than 1,000 people working at the site. And civic leaders have long harbored hopes TSMC might yet expand in Camas.
Not likely, longtime TSMC chairman Morris Chang told investors on a conference call after the company reported quarterly earnings last week.
"I do not rule it out, but I see a lot of sacrifices that we and our customers will have to make if we do that," Chang said.
TSMC has clustered its leading-edge fabs together in Taiwan to pool resources, including engineers, who commute between the facilities.
"Now if we have a plant in the U.S., we won't be able to do that anymore," Chang said. He added that TSMC has thousands of vendors nearby in Taiwan.
"These are things that we're going to lose if we set up a plant in the U.S.," he said. "And if we lose these things our customers will lose too."
TSMC has said in the past that it is unlikely to expand in the U.S., but this is its fullest public explanation of why it will not.
Elsewhere in the call, Chang praised Trump's goal of creating more jobs in the U.S., and took credit for "hundreds of thousands" of American jobs at fabless semiconductor companies who outsource their manufacturing to TSMC.
The semiconductor industry is watching the Trump administration closely, not just for his approach to trade and jobs but also for his tolerance for Chinese investment in the U.S. chip sector.
A panel commissioned by the Obama administration just issued a report warning that "a concerted push by China to reshape the market to favor their needs threatens the competitiveness of U.S. industry and the national and global benefits that an innovative U.S. industry brings."
Lattice Semiconductor, Portland's largest tech company, is currently trying to sell its business to investors in China. That transaction is under review by federal regulators, and members of Congress have asked the feds to block it.
While Chang said he embraces the report's recommendations, he said he's skeptical any U.S. administration would follow advisory recommendations, and indicated it's even less likely given the pending change in administrations.
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