TSMC Begins Kumamoto Plant, Targets Dec 2024 Shipments

On April 19, JASM, a subsidiary of chip foundry "one brother" TSMC, has signed a land use agreement with Juyang Town, Kumamoto Prefecture, Japan, and will start building a factory in Juyang Town on April 21. Shipping starts in December.

Japan's Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. said the world's largest contract chipmaker aims to start shipments from the plant in December 2024, a development that will help ease a global semiconductor shortage. TSMC, Sony Corporation and major Japanese auto parts maker Denso will join the Japanese government in investing a total of $8.6 billion in the platform.

JASM is a subsidiary of TSMC in Kumamoto, Japan, and Sony Group and Denso Co., Ltd. are also among its shareholders.

JASM plans to employ about 1,700 people for the new Kumamoto plant, of which about 320 are dispatched from TSMC, of which 10 engineers dispatched by TSMC have arrived in Japan from Taiwan, China ahead of schedule in March. At the same time, Sony Group will also dispatch about 200 people, and the remaining about 1,200 vacancies will be recruited through direct corporate recruitment or labor dispatch.

Yuichi Horita, head of JASM, said Kikuyo's location in the heart of the Kyushu region and the full support of the prefecture and town were the main reasons for setting up the factory there.

Speaking of the reason why TSMC set up a factory in Japan, Horita Yu has always said, "Japan has customers with stable demand, and there are many related manufacturers, and it has advantages in the supply chain. I look forward to it becoming one of the world's semiconductor production centers in the future."

Japanese media said that as an “incentive” for TSMC to set up a factory in Japan, it is expected that Japan's Kumamoto will provide TSMC with preferential measures such as subsidies and tax reductions, but the specific incentives are still unclear.

Hota Yuichi said that the new plant will start construction on April 21, and the target is to start shipping in December 2024. The Kumamoto factory has a construction area of about 72,000 square meters. In addition to the factory building, it will also have offices. It is expected that JASM's headquarters in Kumamoto may be transferred to the new facility after completion.