[News] Building a Fab in the U.S. Reportedly Costs Double and Requires Twice the Time as in Taiwan

According to a report from MoneyDJ, citing Semiconductor Digest and Tom’s Hardware, building a semiconductor fab in the U.S. costs twice as much and takes twice as long as in Taiwan, as highlighted by Herbert Blaschitz, Executive Vice President at Exyte, a leading provider of engineering solutions for high-tech facilities.

The report, citing Blaschitz, highlights that one of the major challenges faced by fab construction in Europe and the U.S. is their inability to match the high efficiency of their Taiwanese counterparts.

Blaschitz provides an example of a recently completed large-scale fab in Taiwan, which took approximately 19 months to construct. He declines to specify which facility but notes that it belongs to an American company.

In contrast, building a fab of the same scale in the U.S., from obtaining permits and designing blueprints to initiating production, would take around 38 months, according to the report. In Europe, the process takes approximately 34 months, while in Singapore and Malaysia, it takes about 23 months—only slightly longer than in Taiwan.

The report also points out that the extended construction timeline in the U.S. and Europe is primarily due to lengthy permit approval processes and the inability to maintain round-the-clock construction operations.

On a similar note, as indicated by the report, the construction cost in the U.S. is approximately twice that of Taiwan, even though equipment costs are relatively similar. This disparity arises from higher labor costs, strict regulatory requirements, and inefficiencies in supply chains, according to Herbert Blaschitz, as cited in the report.

Blaschitz points out that modern semiconductor manufacturing plants are massive in both size and investment, as the report notes. Advanced fabs operated by TSMC, Intel, and Samsung Electronics require more than USD 20 billion in investment, with USD 4–6 billion allocated solely for the construction of the facility itself.

Read more

• [News] Two Semiconductor Fab Projects Abruptly Halted?
• [News] These Advanced 12-Inch Wafer Fabs Enter a New Stage

(Photo credit: Exyte)