TSMC Adds Two Advanced Packaging Fabs at Chiayi Science Park
Alina Collins
TSMC broke ground on its third and fourth advanced packaging fabs at Chiayi Science Park; once all four are running, the site is expected to generate over NT$300 billion (~US$9.35 billion) in annual output — a sign that advanced packaging is shifting from bottleneck to industrial scale.
What exactly is being built?
On July 13, Taiwan's science minister Wu Tsung-tsong announced at a groundbreaking ceremony that TSMC will add a third and fourth advanced packaging fab at Chiayi Science Park.
This marks the park's second phase of expansion — the first fab is already in mass production, and the second is expected to follow shortly.
This means → Chiayi is moving from a two-fab pilot to a four-fab full buildout, roughly doubling capacity.
How big are the numbers at full capacity?
When all four fabs are operational, the park expects annual output exceeding NT$300 billion (~US$9.35 billion).
The expansion will also create more than 9,000 jobs.
In plain terms = one science park, four packaging fabs, nearly ten billion dollars a year in output — that is a substantial industrial cluster by any measure.
Why is TSMC racing to expand advanced packaging?
Chiayi is one of TSMC's key advanced packaging sites, focused on ramping CoWoS — chip-on-wafer-on-substrate, a technology that stacks multiple chips onto a single wafer.
The driver is straightforward: demand from AI chip designers like Nvidia consistently exceeds supply, and packaging capacity has been the chokepoint.
This reflects a broader shift — the bottleneck in the AI compute race is no longer just chip design; it is who can package chips faster and in greater volume.
What to watch next?
This groundbreaking is the latest step in TSMC's systematic capacity expansion driven by AI demand.
The key question: whether all four fabs can come online as planned — that will be a critical milestone for this advanced packaging capacity cycle.
This means → if the four fabs ramp on schedule, the supply-demand squeeze in advanced packaging could ease; if they slip, the delivery bottleneck for AI chips persists.
Content is for reference only, not financial advice.