In view of the current economic situation, concerns about overproduction in the chip business are growing. Because a lot has been set in motion over the last two years due to Corona and the lack of chips, the construction boom is underway and many projects will be realized by 2025.
The state-funded industrial technology Research Institute from Taiwan comes to the conclusion that in the next three years at least 41 semiconductor plants will be built or the construction of which will begin. The researchers explain that this corresponds roughly to the capacity that Taiwan is now providing in modern 300 mm wafer factories.
USA leading in Expansion
Nine large complexes, eight 300mm wafer plants and one 200mm plant, are to be built in the USA. This puts you at the top of the list – ComputerBase had already reported extensively on the various staggered construction projects in the USA by Intel, Samsung, TSMC, Texas Instruments, Micron, Globalfoundries and others.
These arise from the high demand, but also due to financial incentives such as the US Chips Act, which assumes a large proportion of the costs. In this respect, the expansion for many large companies is now only logical in order to use state funds, which will probably no longer be available in the future, to make themselves fit for the future. At the same time, they fulfill the political desire to become a little more independent from Asia, a step backwards from globalization to regional production. The EU is also trying to do this.
The other thirty-plus complexes include factories of all kinds, with large ones being set up primarily in Asia. Concern is growing here not only about possible overproduction, but also about the effects on the environment. Because the factories need plenty of water and electricity, large manufacturers have committed themselves to various environmental regulations and long-term climate goals, but TSMC and Samsung, among others, show that this is not always so easy in the business. Many of the efforts and implementations there will still take decades and so far we have not gotten as far as we thought. Many plans extend to 2050 or even beyond.