asia.nikkei.com, Mar. 30, 2021 –
HSINCHU, Taiwan -- The head of the world's biggest contract chipmaker has said the rush by major economies to onshore semiconductor production is "unrealistic" and that expanding capacity would not help alleviate the global chip shortage.
"It's economically unrealistic for all the countries to build additional chip production capacity," Mark Liu, chairman of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., told reporters on Tuesday.
"It makes sense that all the major economies hope to bring the chips for infrastructure or defense uses onshore, but to bring a full supply chain back and try to be fully self-reliant is totally not efficient. ... At the end of the day, that additional capacity could become non-profitable capacity."