Chip manufacturer TSMC is negotiating with German partners to build a semiconductor plant in the European country valued at US$11 billion. That’s according to a Monday report from Bloomberg, which cited sources familiar with the matter.
The sources say the deal to build the fab in the Saxony region would include government subsidies and cost between 7 billion to 10 billion euros. They emphasize that the deal has not been finalized and could still fall through. The potential German partner companies and TSMC all declined to comment on the story, with TSMC only saying that it is considering building a plant somewhere in the European Union.
TSMC has recently been expanding its global production capacity, with new plants being built in Japan and the United States. Both the U.S. and E.U. have passed big budget programs aimed at increasing semiconductor production in their countries. The Bloomberg report says the prospective German fab would focus on producing 28-nanometer chips. TSMC Chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) had previously said in a 2021 shareholder meeting that a new European fab would be primarily aimed at producing chips for the automotive sector.