MediaTek CEO says some phone manufacturers want chip production moved from Taiwan

MediaTek CEO Rick Tsai notes that with the tensions in place between the U.S., China, and Taiwan, some phone manufacturers are hoping to move the source of their important chips out of Taiwan. The latter is home to the world’s biggest foundry, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (TSMC). MediaTek’s chip designs come to life at TSMC’s fabs. But the executive worries that some device manufacturers do not want to risk having their chips sourced from a potential hotspot like Taiwan.

Most of MediaTek’s cutting-edge SoCs are made by TSMC but its older smartphone chips are manufactured by GlobalFoundries which has fabs in the U.S. and Singapore. This would appear to give manufacturers some kind of diversification away from Taiwan. However, no one is making cutting-edge process-leading chips in the U.S. or Singapore and unless this gets corrected (there is speculation that TSMC will move 3nm production to its U.S. factory once it opens in 2024), there will be concern about fireworks between China, Taiwan, and the U.S. when the discussion is about the most advanced chipsets.