Chip giant Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co has restarted work at its manufacturing sites following the island’s strongest earthquake in 25 years, which killed 9 and left 50 people missing.
Wednesday’s quake had raised fears of disruptions to global chip supplies as TSMC produces a major share of the world’s most advanced semiconductors, and counts Apple and AI chip leader Nvidia among its customers
TSMC said its initial checks showed that safety systems at its Taiwan-based chip fabs were operating normally. Some fabs were evacuated but all personnel were safe and had returned to their workplace shortly after the quake, it said.
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Operations were partially impacted by the damage caused to a small number of tools at certain facilities, the company said, adding that those did not include critical chip-making machines such as its extreme ultraviolet lithography ones.
These tools are produced by Dutch firm ASML Holding and could cost upwards of $150 million.
Certain production lines in areas that faced greater impact were likely to take more time to return to fully automated production, the company said.
TSMC said its overall tool recovery of its fabrication facilities exceeded 80% as of Thursday. New fabs such as the Fab 18 in Tainan were expected to reach full recovery later in the day. The company’s US-listed shares were up 1.39%.
- Reuters with additional editing by Sean O’Meara
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