Apple and NVIDIA First Customers of TSMC’s Arizona Fab

Apple and NVIDIA will be among the first customers of TSMC’s swanky new $12 billion semiconductor fab in Arizona, USA. Apple will be the first major player to kick off mass-production in the fab, and will be closely followed by NVIDIA. Both companies plan to produce some of their inventory in Arizona, and ramp proportionately up as the fab grows in capacity.

The plan with TSMC’s Arizona fab was to originally make 5 nm and 4 nm EUV chips, with an output of 20,000 wafers a month, but the company now expects to deploy a more advanced node to keep up with what will be considered cutting-edge when the fab goes live (think 2 nm-class); and also double the output to 40,000 wafers a month. The capacity should ensure Apple and NVIDIA make their most cutting-edge chips on the node (away from Asia), so there could be tighter export controls, and build supply-chain resilience in the face of security problems arising in the Taiwan straits.