Taiwan’s GlobalWafers Co. Ltd. plans to start building its new $5 billion plant in Texas in November, said the company’s chairwoman and CEO on Tuesday.
In June, the company said it would build the plant to make 300-millimeter silicon wafers, which are used in semiconductors. This was a change from an earlier plan to invest in Germany, which did not work out.
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Doris Hsu, the company’s chairwoman and CEO, told reporters in Taipei that the ceremony to start building was likely to happen around the end of November.
The United States has been trying to get foreign tech companies to make things in the country, and the government is happy that GlobalWafers is investing there.
In January, U.S. The Chips and Science Act was signed into law by President Joe Biden. It gave the government the right to give about $52 billion in subsidies for U.S. semiconductor production and research, as well as a $24 billion investment tax credit for chip plants.
Hsu said that they had received plans to build a factory from both the U.S. and other countries. He said that government subsidies were important, but they were not the only factor.
“We got proposals for government subsidies from both the U.S. and other countries, but our evaluation is based on the overall score. The Chips Act is a very important factor, but it’s not the only one,” she said.
Related: Asian currencies remain muted as the USD holds, while the Taiwan Dollar falls.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (TSMC), a big supplier to Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) and the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, started building a $12 billion semiconductor factory in Arizona last year.
Tuesday, the market as a whole went up 0.6%, but the shares of GlobalWafers that were traded in Taipei ended the day down 1%. So far this year, the shares of the company are down 48%.
