On the 3rd, a magnitude 7.2 earthquake struck off the eastern coast of Taiwan, and the world's attention was focused on whether there would be damage to Taiwan's major fabs, known as the world's semiconductor factories.

According to TrendForce, they recently updated the situation of major semiconductor fabs in relation to the Taiwan earthquake, and while the impact on foundry and DRAM production was minimal, some fabs are reportedly recovering from equipment damage.

First, in the case of TSMC, after the earthquake, the initial preliminary investigation found that there were temporary shutdowns in Fabs 2, 5, 8, and 12 due to water volume defects, but these have now been restored, and it appears that only Fab 12 had some water damage to the equipment due to a pipe break.

TrendForce said, “This mainly affects the 2nm process that has not yet been mass-produced, and will have a short-term impact on operations,” adding, “It will potentially require the purchase of new equipment, and expenditures are expected to increase slightly.”

It was found that some of the cooling equipment at the Longtan AP3 and Zhunan AP6 plants, which are responsible for the CoWoS process, were damaged by flooding, but operations were resumed immediately after evacuation and backup facilities were put into operation, so there was no major disruption to operations.

There was no evacuation of employees at TSMC's advanced 3-5nm process fabs, and it is reported that more than 90% of operations resumed within 8 hours of the incident. However, foreign media outlets are reporting eyewitness accounts citing sources, including: △extensive wafer damage in the Shinju fab, △breakage of some beams and pillars in the 3nm fab, △cracks in the R&D lab wall, and △damage to the Shinju fab pipeline.

Despite some damage, there are repeated reports that there is no damage to EUV equipment and processes. Depending on whether there is damage to the 3-5nm advanced processes with tight supply, there is a possibility that it will affect product roadmaps for Apple, Nvidia, and Intel.

Apple is outsourcing all of its AP production to TSMC's 3nm foundry, and as a result, it is speculated that Nvidia's latest Blackwell GPU will be mass-produced using TSMC's 4nm process due to a shortage of 3nm capacity. With Intel, Qualcomm, MediaTek, and others also seeing high demand for TSMC's 3nm-level advanced process, the entire world is paying close attention to the damage caused by the TSMC earthquake.

It was found that Taiwanese semiconductor fabs had emergency shutdowns and suffered damage to some wafers and equipment immediately after the earthquake. The operating rate of mature processes is averaging 50-80%, and the losses were quickly recovered after resuming operations.

However, in the DRAM sector, Nanya's Xinbei Fab 3A and Micron's Linkou Fab were heavily damaged by the earthquake. TrendForce predicts that both fabs will be fully restored within a few days. PSMC and Winbond reportedly did not report any damage.

PSMC said its initial investigation found that some lines at its 8-inch and 12-inch fab in Shenzhou were temporarily shut down due to water capacity defects.

UMC operates seven 6-inch and 8-inch fabs in Hsinchu, which was hit by a magnitude 4 earthquake, and one 12-inch fab in Tainan, which also was hit by a magnitude 4 earthquake, and they primarily mass produce 22-90nm chips. The fab was initially closed and evacuated, and initial investigations reported that UMC’s 8-inch fab in Hsinchu temporarily halted operations due to a water volume defect, but both are now reported to have resumed operations.