TSMC has halted production in many of its semiconductor plants in Taiwan following a devastating 7.4-magnitude earthquake that rocked the island earlier today. The pause in production is likely to impact TSMC’s output of Apple silicon chips, Bloomberg reports.
TSMC has confirmed the halt in production in many of its facilities in Taiwan as it swiftly moved to assess structural and other forms of damage following the earthquake. Staff members and engineers were ordered to evacuate from multiple plants, though they are now being instructed to return to their posts as damage assessment is underway.
The temporary production halt and structural damage is likely to have a notable impact on the worldwide supply chain of semiconductor chips including Apple silicon. TSMC is the key supplier for Apple’s chips, and the production pause could cause significant delays for the shipment of certain Apple products in the short term. As noted by Barclays analysts, manufacturing of high-end chips require spotless around-the-clock conditions, and it’s almost certain that the earthquake has damaged certain chips batches beyond repair.
The disruption to the supply chain of semiconductors is likely to affect more companies beyond Apple, as the report notes that Taiwan supplies 80 to 90 percent of the most advanced chips on the market. This extends to high-end graphics processors, which are becoming extremely important for artificial intelligence applications that have exploded in popularity in the past couple of years. The earthquake’s impact has also extended to other semiconductor suppliers in Taiwan like UMC and ASE Technologies which specialize in producing automotive chips.
Apple is ramping up production of the next generation of its custom processors, including the A18 chip destined for the iPhone 16 lineup. The A18 is rumored to be based around TSMC’s improved 3-nanometer node process known as N3E, which is an evolution of today’s N3B process powering the A17 Pro and M3 family of chips.
The earthquake’s impact on the planned production of the A18 is yet to be seen, but Apple could be forced to slightly delay the introduction of the iPhone 16 series just like it did with the iPhone 12 lineup following the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdowns that severely impacted production for nearly a year.
