The powerful 6.4 magnitudeearthquakethat struck southern Taiwan on January 21 has led to a disruption in production at TSMC.
TSMC evacuated staff from its central and southern production sites and temporarily halted operations as a precautionary step.
Despite this resilience, the earthquake may have affected between 10,000 to 20,000 wafers currently in production.
These facilities are responsible for producing state-of-the-art chips utilizing N3 technology for major clients such as Apple and Intel.
TSMC is expected to update its recovery timeline in the coming days.
The financial implications of this event appear manageable for TSMC.
TSMC is expected to resume full operations relatively quickly.
In fact, overall tool recovery in TSMC’s fabsreachedmore than 70 percent within 10 hours of that earthquake.
Other semiconductor manufacturers in Taiwan are also assessing their operations after implementing precautionary shutdowns, including UMC and Innolux.
Meanwhile, Taiwanese mediareportthat TSMC suppliers have mobilized to get production running as soon as possible.
