TSMC expands in Arizona
- TSMC announced plans to open an advanced chip-packaging plant in Arizona by 2029 to add local packaging capacity. - The company also unveiled its A13 roadmap targeting 2029 production and said it will delay High-NA EUV tool deployment through 2029. - The moves expand U.S. semiconductor supply-chain footprint while signalling disciplined capital choices over rushing into costliest lithography gear ( ).
TSMC plans to open an advanced chip-packaging plant in Arizona by 2029, adding a missing step in its U.S. production chain. (reuters.com) The company laid out the plan on April 22 in Santa Clara, where executives said the Arizona site would handle advanced packaging for chips that combine several pieces of silicon in one product. Reuters reported TSMC had said on a January earnings call that it was applying for permits for its first advanced-packaging plant in an existing Arizona facility. (reuters.com) TSMC also used its 2026 North America Technology Symposium to introduce A13, a next-generation manufacturing process scheduled to enter production in 2029, one year after A14. TSMC said A13 shrinks chip area by 6% versus A14 and keeps design rules backward-compatible so customers can move designs more quickly. (tsmc.com) At the same event, Chairman and Chief Executive C.C. Wei said TSMC will hold off using ASML’s High-NA extreme ultraviolet lithography tools through 2029 because the machines are too expensive for now. Bloomberg reported the decision would delay deployment of the newest generation of chipmaking gear even as TSMC remains ASML’s largest customer. (bloomberg.com) Packaging is the stage after wafer fabrication, when chip pieces and memory are connected into one finished package; that step has become critical for artificial-intelligence processors from companies such as Nvidia. Reuters reported advanced packaging has become a bottleneck for AI chips, making local capacity in Arizona as important as the fabs themselves. (reuters.com) Arizona was already central to TSMC’s U.S. buildout before this week’s announcement. TSMC said in March 2025 that it would raise its planned U.S. investment to $165 billion, adding three new fabs, two advanced-packaging facilities and an R&D center in Phoenix. (tsmc.com) The company says its first Arizona fab started high-volume production on N4 technology in the fourth quarter of 2024, its second fab is targeting N3 volume production in the second half of 2027, and a third fab broke ground in April 2025 for N2 and A16 technologies. TSMC’s Arizona site page says the broader plan now includes six wafer fabs, two advanced-packaging facilities and an R&D team center. (tsmc.com) TSMC’s technology roadmap also shows it is trying to push chip performance without adopting every new tool as soon as it appears. In the same symposium materials, TSMC said N2U is planned for 2028 production, A12 is planned for 2029, and larger CoWoS packaging formats for AI chips are also on the way in 2028 and 2029. (tsmc.com) For the U.S., the Arizona packaging plant would mean more of the chip-making process happens domestically instead of sending wafers abroad for the final assembly steps. For TSMC, the 2029 target keeps expanding Arizona while the company spaces out some of the industry’s costliest equipment bets. (reuters.com; bloomberg.com; tsmc.com)
