Early on Tuesday, a 6.4-magnitude earthquake struck southern Taiwan, leading to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co ordering an evacuation of some of its factories.
The epicenter of the earthquake was the city of Chiayi, close to Tainan, where TSMC operates its most advanced chip plants which supply vital mobile and AI processors to companies such as Apple and Nvidia, among others.
TSMC moved workers out of some plants located in the island’s central and southern regions that met evacuation criteria, it said in a statement.
All employees of companies located in the Southern Taiwan Science Park, where TSMC is present within the Tainan Science Park, were evacuated as per standard emergency procedures, according to a spokesperson for the Southern Taiwan Science Park, reported Nikkei Asia.
“Personnel within the Tainan Science Park have been evacuated,” the director said, according to Nikkei Asia. “Currently, there are no reports of injuries.”
In related developments, as ChannelNews reported here, TSMC, along with Samsung, are seeing an increasing number of restrictions placed on the sale of their most advanced chips.
The US has broadened the licensing requirements for contract chipmakers and packaging and testing suppliers seeking to export chips under the 14- or 16-nanometer level and which exceed a threshold of 30 billion transistor counts.
The global semiconductor market was valued at A$1.01 trillion in 2024, according to the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics, up 19% year-on-year.
The 10 top global semiconductor companies are already cutting billions of dollars in planned capital spending. Investment plans for each of the company’s fiscal 2024 show an aggregate 2% decrease year-over-year to A$199.21 billion, an approximately A$15.36 billion decrease from their May estimates.