TAIPEI (TAIWAN) – Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd (TSMC) will give importance to the manufacturing of auto chips if it is able to further enhance capacity, said the island’s Economics Ministry on Monday. This comes after Minister Wang Mei-hua held talks with senior company executives.
According to the ministry, TSMC had informed them on Sunday that they would optimise the manufacture of chips to make it more efficient and prioritise auto chip production in case it is able to increase its capacity.
The largest contract chipmaker in the world, TSMC said that current capacity is full. But it promised the ministry that “if production can be increased by optimising production capacity, it will cooperate with the government to regard automotive chips as a primary application”.
“Other than continuously maximising utilisation of our existing capacity, Chief Executive Officer C C Wei also confirmed in our investors’ conference that we are working with customers closely and moving some of their mature nodes to more advanced nodes, where we have better capacity to support them,” the firm said.
The island has been asked by Germany to coax manufacturers to help ease a shortage of semiconductor chips in the auto sector.