Taiwan earthquake briefly halts chip factories that power the global economy
Source: NPR
April 3, 2024 4:06 PM ET
The powerful earthquake that struck Taiwan on Wednesday temporarily paused chipmaking at factories along the island's west coast, briefly putting the tech industry on edge. And that's because of just how dependent the global economy is on semiconductor chips produced in Taiwan.
An estimated 92% of the world's most sophisticated chips are manufactured by one company: the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.
The quake, with a magnitude of 7.4, struck off the east coast of the island on Wednesday. TSMC's factories, known as chip fabs, are arrayed along the western coast of the Taiwan Strait, about 90 miles away from the earthquake's epicenter. TSMC said in a statement that some of its fabs were briefly evacuated on Wednesday for inspections but workers later returned. They are expected to resume chip production throughout the night, according to TSMC.
The company said initial inspections show that there are no major issues at any of the chip sites. "A small number of tools were damaged at certain facilities, partially impacting their operations. However, there is no damage to our critical tools," a TSMC spokesperson wrote in a statement to NPR.
Read more: https://www.npr.org/2024/04/03/1242564161/taiwan-earthquake-semiconductor-chips-tech
More single points of failure.
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