Chinese newspaper vents anger at TSMC over new Arizona fab, calling it a ‘dark turn’ for the global semiconductor industry
- The Chinese government has stayed silent over the TSMC plant in Arizona, but has repeatedly voiced opposition to US restrictions on its chip industry
- TSMC’s US$40 billion commitment in the US state came four months after President Joe Biden signed the US Chips and Science Act into law
Chinese nationalist tabloid Global Times has blasted the investment by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) in Arizona as “a dark turn” in the global semiconductor industry, and accused Washington of tricking the world’s most advanced chip maker into setting up a wafer fab in the US.
In an editorial on Friday, the newspaper, which is affiliated with the official People’s Daily, said TSMC’s decision to invest in cutting-edge technology in the US showed that Washington had tricked it, and that the US was stealing from the world’s most important technology in “our Taiwan region” – a reference to Beijing’s claim of sovereignty over the self-ruled island.
The Chinese government has remained silent over the new TSMC plant in Arizona, but Beijing has repeatedly voiced opposition to Washington’s restrictions on China’s chip industry. Due to restrictions from Taipei and Washington, TSMC is not allowed to invest in advanced chip capacity on the Chinese mainland. The company’s factory in Nanjing, the capital of China’s eastern Jiangsu province, only produces mature node chips.
In contrast, TSMC’s investment in Arizona, including a 3-nanometre wafer foundry and an upgraded 4-nm fab, will be engaged in advanced chip production. The Taiwan foundry plans to triple its original investment in the US state to US$40 billion from US$12 billion. In a ceremony this week to mark the first installation of equipment in the Arizona fab, US president Joe Biden declared that “American manufacturing is back”.
TSMC’s US$40 billion commitment, the largest foreign direct investment in Arizona’s history, came four months after Biden signed the US Chips and Science Act, which earmarked US$53 billion in subsidies for domestic chip manufacturing projects and local semiconductor research and development.
The Global Times reprimanded the US and Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party for “hollowing out” Taiwan.
“We must ring the alarm bell louder … the US may pressure chip makers in other countries as it did to TSMC,” the editorial reads. The US is like a bull in a China shop, smashing market rules into pieces, it added.
