The media, citing insiders, report that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. is currently studying the possibility of building a third plant in Japan.

The mentioned company, in case of construction of a new factory in the specified country, will establish the production of 3-nanometer chips. If this potential scenario is realized, Japan could become the world center of making microcircuits.

The media reports that the Taiwanese manufacturer has notified supply chain partners about exploring the possibility of building its third Japanese plant, codenamed TSMC Fab-23 Phase 3. Insiders, whom journalists referred to, shared information that Kumamoto Prefecture is being considered as the site of the construction of a new factory.

Currently, the 3-nanometer process is the most advanced chip manufacturing technology, which has a high level of availability regarding the necessary financial costs. At the same time, the factor of constant development of the technology sector should be taken into account, which in the case of a potential third TSMC factory in Japan means that by the time the plant is launched, the mentioned making methodology may be outdated. However, this does not mean a critical lag behind advanced solutions. Experts note that if the Taiwanese manufacturer still approves the decision to build the plant, this will become a reasonable reason for statements about the victory of Japan, whose government provides subsidies in the amount of trillions of yen for luring investments from local and foreign semiconductor companies. As part of the relevant efforts, Tokyo managed to establish cooperation with Micron Technology Inc., Samsung Electronics Co., and Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp.

Also, the Japanese government is currently providing support to a local startup Rapidus Corp., which plans to launch the production of cutting-edge 2-nanometer chips.

The media reports that the preliminary cost of the project for the construction of a plant for making 3-nanometer microcircuits is 20 billion. Currently, there is no information about how much TSMC plans to spend in this case. The standard practice of the Japanese government provides that public expenditures cover about 50% of the cost of such projects.

TSMC is currently building a factory in Kumamoto Prefecture. As part of this project, investment funds were received from Sony Group Corp. and Denso Corp. Preliminary information indicates that making chips as advanced as 12 nanometers will be launched at this production facility at the end of 2024. There is also data that TSMC will build a second factory next to its first plant in Kumamoto, where manufacturing of 5-nanometer microcircuits will be launched in 2025.

As we have reported earlier, TSMC Third Quarter Revenue Exceeds Forecasts.