According to the Economic Daily News in Taiwan, China, the TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company) Longtan fab construction plan, which was shelved for three years, has reached a key milestone. The draft "Longtan Campus Expansion Plan of Hsinchu Science Park" has been successfully reviewed and approved, removing a major hurdle for TSMC's return to the Longtan project.
The current Longtan Campus expansion plans to cover a land area of approximately 104 hectares, with a total development cost of about TWD 95.628 billion, equivalent to approximately CNY 20.12 billion. Upon full completion, the project is estimated to generate an annual output value of TWD 550 billion, or about CNY 115.72 billion, and create 4,500 jobs. In terms of the timeline, the project aims to complete the environmental impact assessment and land development permit review by the end of 2028, and commence the design and construction of public works in the park in 2030.
Supply chain sources indicate that the core positioning of the planned Phase III of the Longtan Park is to implement advanced processes in the angstrom era below 1.4nm (A14), with an initial plan to build three wafer fabs. The first fab is targeted to be completed around 2030, entering the preparation stage for mass production. The total investment scale for the entire project is estimated to exceed TWD 1 trillion, equivalent to approximately CNY 210.4 billion.
The Phase III of the Longtan Park project has experienced numerous setbacks. The Hsinchu Science Park Administration initially planned a development area of 158.59 hectares, of which 88% of the land needed to be expropriated from private owners, triggering strong opposition from local residents. Affected by the resistance to land expropriation, TSMC announced in October 2023 that it would temporarily suspend its move into Longtan, shifting the focus of advanced process capacity expansion to regions such as Kaohsiung at that time.
Three years later, the plan has been significantly adjusted: the development area has been reduced to 104 hectares, the area for private land expropriation has been compressed, and communication with the local community has been re-established, before TSMC re-expressed its intention to move in.
Compared with the plan from three years ago, the industrial positioning of the current Longtan site has also undergone significant changes. The Longtan site will focus on angstrom-era wafer manufacturing; advanced packaging capacity, on the other hand, will mainly be expanded at the two major bases in Chiayi and the Southern Taiwan Science Park (STSP).
According to TSMC's technology roadmap, A14 (1.4nm) is expected to commence mass production in 2028, with the first batch of A14 capacity located at the Phase 2 P1 Plant of the Central Taiwan Science Park (CTSP) expansion. Longtan is not the first mass production base for A14, but rather resembles a second wave of advanced process capacity reserve in response to the explosive demand for AI computing power.
AI chips continue to drive the demand for advanced wafer capacity, and TSMC continues to deploy angstrom-level process capacity at multiple locations on the island. The restart of the Longtan project means that another piece of the puzzle has been added to TSMC's advanced process capacity expansion map. The subsequent progress of land expropriation and environmental impact assessment, as well as the A14 process yield and the landing of customer orders, are worth continuous tracking.
*Disclaimer: This article is created by the original author. The content represents their personal views. We repost it solely for sharing and discussion, which does not mean we endorse or agree with it. If there are any objections or copyright infringements, please contact us for deletion!