Latest TSMC outage to hit automotive MCU hardest

The power outage this week at TSMC’s P7 plant is expected to affect customers Renesas, NXP and Sony to varying degrees, according to market research firm TrendForce.

The plant suffered a power outage due to accidental severing of a power cable during construction on Wednesday. Power was restored on the same day.

TrendForce expects the disposal of the damaged wafers would cost TSMC between US$10 million to US$25 million. This is less than 0.1% of TSMC’s annual revenue.

Fab14 P7 manufactures 45-nanometer (nm), 40-nm, 16nm and 12nm products using 12-inch wafers, the market research firm said.

It mainly manufactures automotive microcontroller unit (MCU) and CMOS image sensors, TrendForce said, for customers such as Sony, Renesas and NXP.

Sony’s 40nm CMOS image sensor manufactured at the line are supplied to premium smartphones. Fortunately for the Japanese company, it also manufactures the products in its own fab so the short-term impact will be minimal, the market research firm said.

But impact on MCU will be more severe. Renesas’ 12-inch fab in Naka is yet to recover from a fire that broke out last month. Renesas had requested that TSMC handle more volumes for MCU production. NXP had also saw its fab in Austin, Texas halted for a month since February, though it has resumed operation in early March.

TrendForce expects the power outage incident at TSMC’s fab will likely exacerbate the shortage of automotive MCUs going forward.