News

The world’s largest chipmaker is set to more than triple its previously announced $12 billion investment

Back in May 2020, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSMC), by far the world’s largest producer of microchips, announced its intentions to build its newest $12 billion factory in Phoenix, Arizona, having been evaluating US locations since 2019.

Now, TSMC has announced a significant upscaling of these plans, announcing its intention to increase its total investment in the facility to around $40 billion.

According to sources speaking to Japanese news media Nikkei, TSMC was initially planning to use the new fab to produce 20,000 wafers per month but is now planning to double that capacity through the new investment.

The new facility will also create more advanced chips than previously hoped, include 5nm and 4nm chips. A second planned facility, the details of which have yet to be announced, will also create cutting-edge 3nm chips by 2026.

The announcement came in conjunction with the Arizona facility’s official ‘tool-in’ ceremony today, where the first piece of equipment is installed on the shop floor, with US President Joe Biden notably in attendance.

The investment by TSMC represents a major win for President Biden’s semiconductor strategy, which aims to shrink the US’s reliance on China and Taiwan for semiconductor manufacturing.

Earlier this year, the President passed the Chips and Science Act, earmarking $52 billion in subsidies for US-based chipmakers, spurring a flurry of speculation about multi-billion-dollar investments from TSMC, Intel, and others.

President Biden was not the only high-profile guest at the ‘tool-in’ ceremony included TSMC founder Morris Chang and several high-profile customers, including Apple CEO Tim Cook, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang, and Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra.

“Bringing TSMC’s investment to the United States is a masterstroke and a game-changing development for the industry,” said Huang in a pre-prepared statement.

But despite all this optimism about TSMC increased US capabilities, it is worth noting that the US will be far from weaned off its reliance on Taiwan for semiconductor production. Even if the new fab quickly reaches its full capacity, domestically made chips in the US will still only account for only around 15% of the country’s demand, leaving the US still largely at the mercy of the geopolitical tides lapping the shores of Taiwan.

How will the increase in domestic chip manufacturing capabilities impact the US telecoms industry? Find out from the experts at next year’s Connected America conference live in Dallas, Texas

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Vodacom launches National Relay Service to boost digital inclusion

The post TSMC to pump $40bn into Arizona chip fab first appeared on Total Telecom.

Network builder Cityfibre has today announced that they’ve formally submitted a Competition Act complaint to the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and Ofcom against Openreach (BT), which accuses the operator of “undertaking an aggressive strategy to foreclose infrastructure competition in the UK fibre broadband market“. At present Cityfibre is investing an estimated £2.4bn in equity […]

News

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) had accused AT&T executives of leaking financial data to analysts

This week, AT&T has reportedly agreed to pay the SEC $6.3 million to settle a lawsuit relating to the misconduct of three of its executives.

The case, initiated back in March 2021, saw the SEC accuse AT&T executives Christopher Womack, Kent Evans, and Michael Black of selectively leaking private information to a number of analysts ahead of its earnings announcement in April 2016.

The SEC holds that these individuals made phone calls to around 20 analyst firms, revealing information that prompted the analysts to reduce revenue estimates for the operator for Q1 2016.

As a result, AT&T subsequently beat the analysts’ consensus forecast when its financial results were announced in April; the SEC argues the move effectively shielded the company’s share price from dropping too sharply.

In the US, companies are barred from disclosing non-public information privately. This forms the keystone of the SEC’s argument.

AT&T had attempted to have the lawsuit dismissed earlier in the year, but saw their appeals rejected in September.

Now, the company has agreed to settle, saying it “neither admitted nor denied liability”.

According to the filing, Womack, Evans, and Black have each also agreed to pay an individual fine of $25,000 without admitting or denying wrongdoing.

Want to learn all the latest from the US market? Join us in Dallas, Texas next year for the inaugural Connected America event

Also in the news:
SKT takes its Ifland metaverse platform global
CMA probes Apple and Google over browser “duopoly”
Vodacom launches National Relay Service to boost digital inclusion

The post AT&T pays $6.3m to put SEC lawsuit to bed first appeared on Total Telecom.

The UK telecoms regulator, Ofcom, has today issued an update on its position with respect to whether the upper 6GHz radio spectrum band (6425 to 7125MHz) should be released for use by either higher-power licensed 5G mobile networks (mobile broadband) or lower-power Wi-Fi (e.g. home WiFi). At present, there is known to be “intense and […]

Broadband ISP and mobile giant Virgin Media and O2 (VMO2) have today published the results of a new Assembly Research study, which examined the value of telecoms services in the UK compared to other major countries and found that “typical UK prices for fixed and mobile services are amongst the lowest in Europe“. The ongoing […]

Mobile network operator and broadband ISP Vodafone UK – supported by partnerships with Dell, Intel, Samsung, Wind River, and Capgemini – has today announced that they’ve achieved another “European first” by rolling out 4G and 5G OpenRAN (O-RAN) technology to 16 mobile masts in urban parts of Devon (England). At present, if a Mobile Network […]

Network builder and broadband ISP Lit Fibre, which aims to reach 500,000 UK homes by 2026 with their new 10Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network, has today confirmed that they will aim go live in the West Midlands (England) towns of Aldridge, Erdington and Kingstanding from spring 2023. The provider, which began their rollout last year […]

Rural UK ISP Gigaclear has announced that their gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network is being extended to cover 3,500 homes and businesses in two neighbouring communities – the village of Aspley Guise and town of Woburn Sands – on the border between Buckinghamshire and Bedfordshire. The provider’s network, which has already covered 360,000 premises (up […]

The Leicestershire County Council (LCC) in England has secured £1.55m of public funding from the UK government’s £5bn Project Gigabit programme in order to help it connect 43 public sectors sites (e.g. schools, council offices, GPs etc.) in rural areas to a new gigabit-capable full fibre broadband and Ethernet network. The GigaHubs deployment contract, which […]

The large town of Eccles, which is home to a population of around 40,000 in the City of Salford area (Greater Manchester), has today been announced as the next UK location to benefit from ISP Freedom Fibre’s ongoing rollout of a new gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network. At present the provider, which is being support […]