As the world's largest and most advanced wafer foundry company, TSMC's main factories were located at home, but under well-known pressure, TSMC had to announce that it would build a factory in the United States, and the scale of investment was getting higher and higher.

TSMC originally planned to build only one chip plant in the United States with an investment of US $12 billion and start producing 5nm technology in 2024, but the plant has been expanded and the mass production process has been upgraded from 5nm to 4nm.

Next, TSMC will build a second wafer plant in the United States to directly produce 3nm technology.The investment of the two factories is US $43.5 billion, with RMB close to 300 billion yuan.

Although the United States has introduced more than $50 billion in semiconductor industry subsidies, not much will fall into the hands of TSMC, which will lead to higher costs. CFO mentioned earlier that American factories may cost four to five times more than local factories.

These costs mainly include factory infrastructure construction, as well as labor costs, license costs, occupational safety and health regulations costs, inflation costs in recent years, and personnel and learning curve costs.

TSMC originally expected that the final cost of chips made in the United States would only be 50% higher, but they obviously miscalculated, founder Zhang Zhongmou said in a conversation with the author of "Chip War" today.He underestimated the cost of making chips in the United States, not just by 50%, but by 100%.

He underestimated the cost of making chips in the United States, not just by 50%, but by 100%.