TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company) is reportedly dealing with the quality of its silicon wafers causing suspended production at one of its plants. Impact is to chips having 16/12nm features and major vendors such as NVIDIA are reportedly affected.
Translated from Chinese:
TSMC (2330) Nanke 14 Factory today (28th) reported the use of substandard chemical raw materials, causing paralysis of tens of thousands of wafer production. In this regard, TSMC confirmed and pointed out the detailed quantity and damage caused. Subsequent statistics and processing are underway and will not change the financial forecast for this quarter.
TSMC's Fab 14 B plant in Nanke has a problem with wafer quality defects today, mainly because TSMC imports a batch of substandard chemical materials, which causes wafers to be defective in the production process, but the problem is in the production process. It is impossible to check out that the number of wafers affected by the film has exceeded 10,000 pieces, and the production line has been temporarily suspended. Since 14 customers cover NVIDIA, MEDIATEK, Huawei Hisilicon and other heavyweight customers, the market is concerned about whether the operation is affected.
Also at Hard|OCP.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Dr Spin on Tuesday January 29 2019, @09:25AM
Have the wafers become North Korean spies?
Defection does not mean "become defective"!
Warning: Opening your mouth may invalidate your brain!