Last Wednesday U.S. President Joe Biden signed an executive order meant to address a global chip shortage impacting industries ranging from medical supplies to smartphones to electric vehicles and game consoles. The order includes a 100-day review of other key effected by the chip shortage. The long-term review will allow for policy recommendations to strengthen supply chains.

The semiconductor supply chain had taken a hit early in the Covid pandemic since much of the world’s chips are manufactured in places like China and Taiwan.

There must have been talks behind the scene as today we're learning today from a Taiwanese report that Apple supplier TSMC will be accelerating the layout of its new plant in Arizona, and it has recently continued to recruit employees to the U.S. station.

The latest internal rumors indicate that the Arizona plant area is twice as large as the current total area of ​​TSMC Southern Branch.

It was revealed to employees that in the future, six factories will be built in the local area to achieve the company's goal of building a "Mega Site" in the United States.

The total investment for TSMC to build six new fabs in the United States in the future will be NT$1 trillion (US35.9 billion?), and the total monthly production capacity will be up to NT$1 trillion. It can reach more than 100,000 advanced wafers, which will make TSMC the largest non-American semiconductor factory with the largest production capacity and the most advanced technology in the United States, surpassing rivals such as Samsung.

The Taiwanese report reiterated that "US President Biden signed an executive order on February 24, hoping to strengthen the security of the supply chain of key US industries, including defense, communications, energy, transportation and other industries, while working closely with allies or partners with common values. TSMC is going full tilt to meet the needs of the U.S. government and industry.

Whether the mega move will assist Apple in any way is unknown at this time. However, if Beijing should ever give the order to crack down on Taiwan to kill it's independence like they did with Hong Kong, having a Mega Plant in Arizona would ensure that processors for Apple iDevices and Macs could be met. 

Shorter term, Digitimes is reporting today that TSMC is poised to scale up its 5nm process manufacturing capacity to 105,000 wafers monthly in the first half of 2021, up from 90,000 units in fourth-quarter 2020, with plans to further expand the process capacity to 120,000 units in the second half.