Apple CEO Tim Cook confirmed yesterday that Apple will make chips in the United States for the first time in nearly a decade. This is a key step for the company to reduce its reliance on Asian manufacturing.
Tim Cook
Tim Cook joined President Joe Biden and executives from other chip companies, including AMD, at a ceremony to symbolically move the first equipment into TSMC’s new $12 billion facility in Phoenix. In his remarks, Tim Cook said Apple will expand its partnership with TSMC when the company’s U.S. plant opens in 2024. For now, TSMC is already producing chips for Apple.
“As many of you know, we partner with TSMC to make the chips that power our products around the world,” Tim Cook said, “and we look forward to expanding that work in the coming years as TSMC establishes new, deeper roots in the United States. “
Tim Cook said the home-grown chips used in most of Apple’s devices will be produced at the Phoenix plant. “Thanks to the hard work of so many people, these chips can be proudly stamped with the ‘Made in America’ label.” Tim Cook said. At first, TSMC’s Phoenix plant will only produce a small number of chips for Apple, using technology that may not be as good as that needed for the company’s 2024 flagship device.
Meanwhile, TSMC projected that when the company’s two planned chipmaker factories in Arizona open, they could bring in $10 billion in annual revenue.
“When the two fabs are completed, we will produce more than 600,000 wafers per year, with annual revenue of $10 billion and more than $40 billion in product sales for our customers,” TSMC CEO Deyin Liu said.
TSMC said yesterday that the company has more than tripled its planned investment in the fabs to $40 billion. The first fab will be operational in 2024, while a second nearby plant will produce advanced chips in 2026.
