Taiwanese foundry leader TSMC recently announced its plan to acquire a factory of Taiwan’s flat panel maker HannStar Display for NT$ 4.84 billion (US$164 million), with an aim to rapidly expand its capacity, the Commercial Times reported on August 25. With an area of 297,015 square meters, the new facility - originally allocated for HannStar’s 6G TFT-LCD panel production - is currently under construction. This is the fourth time TSMC has acquired properties in Southern Taiwan, with the investments totaling over NT$10 billion (US$345.7 million). Besides HannStar, TSMC also bought facilities from other Taiwanese companies such as E-Ton Solar, Optimax Technology and Gudeng Precision Industrial Co,.
Meanwhile, TSMC’s Fab 18 in Tainan has completed construction and is projected to mass produce chips using 5nm technology in the first quarter of 2021. TSMC stated 5nm technology will account for 8% of its wafer foundry this year. MIC (Market Intelligence & Consulting Institute), a government think tank and IT research institute in Taiwan, recently also revised upward shipment value growth forecast for the Taiwanese semiconductor industry in 2020 to 12.3%. TSMC’s robust growth is attributed to strong demand for CPU (Central Processing Unit) and GPU (Graphic Processing Unit) based on 5nm technology and the increased demand for 5G applications, and high-performance computing and work from home devices. The company’s fab18 is expected to begin the fourth to six phases of construction for 3nm chip production soon. TSMC’s 3nm chips are projected to start trial production in the second half of 2021 and mass production in the first half of 2022.