TSMC iPhone, Mac production lines hit by gas contamination

TSMC processors

Gases used in TSMC's production of processors for the Mac, and the iPhone, have reportedly been contaminated.

As TSMC expands its operations in Taiwan, and also in Arizona, its existing "Fab 18" plant in southern Taiwan has been delayed by the incident. The company reported gas contamination, and said that it does not expect a significant impact from the problem.

According to Reuters, an unspecified number of processor production lines were affected.

"To ensure that there will be no issues with production quality, TSMC is currently carrying out stringent follow-up operations," a spokesperson told Reuters.

Processing plant Fab 18, in Taiwan's Tainan region, is a 3-nanometer facility. It's previously been reported that Apple has bought the plant's entire production capacity for its iPhone, iPad, and Mac devices.

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4 Comments

22july2013

said about 2 years ago

The Nikkei article cited in the Reuters article says that there will "not be a significant impact on operations." Why wasn't this important fact reported? Was this article designed to scare people unnecessarily? It sure scared me at first glance. But after reading Nikkei, I realized it's a nothing burger.

Gas contamination is a real thing, but it's usually measured in parts per million or parts per billion. So the contaminated gas was probably only 99.99999% pure.

lkrupp

said about 2 years ago

Sell, Sell, SELL! before the AAPL apocalypse. First came the floods but we didn’t care about the human misery as long as TSMC wasn’t affected and production continued. Now comes another ‘catastrophe’ that might/may/could slow production. SELL!

mknelson

said about 2 years ago

22july2013 said:

The Nikkei article cited in the Reuters article says that there will "not be a significant impact on operations." Why wasn't this important fact reported? Was this article designed to scare people unnecessarily? It sure scared me at first glance. But after reading Nikkei, I realized it's a nothing burger.

Gas contamination is a real thing, but it's usually measured in parts per million or parts per billion. So the contaminated gas was probably only 99.99999% pure.

Sentence # 3 in the article above: "The company reported gas contamination, and said that it does not expect a significant impact from the problem."