TSMC chip plant construction halted by discovery of archaeological ruins

Ancient ruined architecture? What's Intel's Itanium doing in Taiwan?

Construction of TSMC's advanced chip packaging facility in Chiayi County, Taiwan, has hit a roadblock after "archaeological ruins" were discovered at the site.

As reported by the Taipei Times newspaper, work on the facility – which began last month – has been halted until a plan to preserve the historic discovery is formulated. The plant was scheduled to start mass production in 2028.

It's not uncommon for construction work to be paused by the discovery of archaeological remains. That said, it could prove problematic for advanced chip designers reliant on TSMC's chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) packaging to build ever larger, more capable processors using multiple dies. Nvidia and AMD, two leading suppliers of AI hardware, employ CoWoS extensively in their products.

The surge in demand for accelerators by Nv and AMD amid the AI boom has put increased pressure on TSMC's packaging plants, and by last summer, TSMC's then-chairman Mark Liu warned the foundry could only meet about 80 percent of CoWoS demand. By this spring the foundry revealed it was fully booked on advanced packaging orders until 2025.

As such, TSMC has been racing to bring additional capacity online, including at least one facility in Miaoli County and two plants in Chiayi. However, as anyone who's followed the semiconductor industry will know, these facilities don't crop up overnight and can take years to complete.

It's not clear what the discovery of the ruins will mean for the Chiayi site going forward. According to Taiwanese media, and as we said, it's not usual for ruins to be discovered within Taiwan's many science parks and the impact of the archaeological find will likely depend on how large they are.

TSMC reportedly has committed to complying with the law and is working with the Southern Taiwan Science Park Bureau on a new plan for the facility, which may involve beginning work on the second Chiayi CoWoS plant before the first is completed.

The Register reached out to TSMC for further comment.

It should be noted that TSMC isn't the only foundry operator with experience with advanced packaging. Samsung has I-Cube and H-Cube for 2.5D packaging and X-Cube for 3D packaging. Meanwhile, Intel's foundry division has employed its own 2.5D and 3D packaging tech for its internal products, including several built on TSMC nodes, for years, and now plans to offer it as a service to third-parties. ®