TSMC’s Arizona plants will enable Apple chips for older devices to be made in the US for the first time, but things haven’t exactly been going to plan.The latest development is that a group of the company’s US workers have filed a lawsuit accusing the Taiwanese company of ‘anti-American discrimination’ … A quick recap on the story so far TSMC’s announcement that it was building a chip fabrication plant in Arizona was hailed as a major success for the US CHIPS Act – intended to free the US from dependence on China for advanced chip supplies, and to generate jobs for US workers. Apple proudly announced that it would be buying American-made chips for some of its devices.The gloss soon began to wear off, however.
The plant will only be able to make larger process chips, only suitable for older Apple devices, and it wasn’t long before TSMC demanded bigger subsidies and fewer rules.The project is behind schedule, and over budget, with production already pushed into 2025, from 2024.There is talk of US-made chips costing more than those made in Taiwan, which could mean Apple would buy fewer of them than originally expected.
US job creation was first thrown into doubt when TSMC decided to bring in around 500 Taiwanese workers to speed up construction work. The battle over this quickly turned ugly, with almost half of the company’s hires being brought in from Taiwan.Latest claim of anti-American discrimination Now even one of the company’s own HR execs claims the company is illegally discriminating in favor of Taiwanese staff, according to a report.The company is also accused of holding local meetings in Mandarin rather than English to deliberately exclude American workers.
TSMC has not yet responded to the lawsuit, and declined to comment on it, issuing instead a generic statement about its values. You’re reading 9to5Mac — experts who break news about Apple and its surrounding ecosystem, day after day.Be sure to check out our homepage for all the latest news, and follow 9to5Mac on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to stay in the loop.
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