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TSMC. (Photo: TSMC) |
[Alpha Biz= Paul Lee] A magnitude 7.0 earthquake that struck off the northeastern coast of Taiwan has raised concerns about potential disruptions to the advanced semiconductor manufacturing processes at TSMC, the world’s largest foundry.
Taiwanese media outlets, including China Times and United Daily News, reported on the 29th, citing sources, that some TSMC facilities in the Hsinchu Science Park evacuated employees as a precaution following the earthquake near the Yilan region on the 27th.
While the buildings reportedly did not suffer structural damage, sensitive high-tech equipment may have been affected by even minor tremors. Key semiconductor manufacturing machinery, such as extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography equipment, is designed to automatically halt operation when vibrations are detected to protect the equipment.
At TSMC’s Southern Science Park (Nanke) in Tainan, the earthquake’s impact registered at intensity level 4, which is relatively low. However, because the park houses advanced 3-nanometer (nm) and 5-nm process lines, even minor disruptions in yield could directly affect revenue. (Seismic intensity measures the relative effect of shaking in a location, as opposed to magnitude, which measures the earthquake’s absolute energy release.)
Professor Zhou Zhuohui, a visiting materials science professor at National Tsing Hua University, explained that the earthquake could affect chip production due to pipeline issues in Hsinchu and possible misalignment or power outages in etching equipment used for delicate patterns on silicon wafers. This could impact 100–200 subsequent processes, potentially resulting in the scrapping of entire wafer batches and estimated losses exceeding TWD 100 million (approx. KRW 4.5 billion).
TSMC previously suffered losses of TWD 5.3 billion (approx. KRW 242.2 billion) from a magnitude 6.4 earthquake in Tainan in January.
알파경제 Paul Lee 특파원(hoondork1977@alphabiz.co.kr)
