Unofficial privileged information indicates that NVIDIA and TSMC would be negotiating the possibility of manufacturing Blackwell generation GPUs in Arizona. The companies would take advantage of TSMC’s new Fab 21 facility, recently expanded by CHIPS Act investment.
Customers and politicians in the US should be especially pleased with local production of Blackwell GPUs, even more so after the severe investment that the current administration has made seeking greater independence for the country in the semiconductor area. This change, however, would generate an extra cost in manufacturing NVIDIA chips.
TSMC’s Fab 21 is fully capable of manufacturing components at 4nm and 5nm. Therefore, there would be no problem making Blackwell GPUs, manufactured using the Taiwanese company’s customized 4NP (4nm) process. The problem appears in the process known as “packaging”.
Blackwell boards aimed at AI acceleration are “packaged” in advanced CoWoS processes, available only at TSMC facilities in Taiwan. Therefore, after manufacturing the components in Arizona, they still had to be sent to the Asian country for finishing.
Logistically this wouldn’t be a huge problem, since most IA servers are already assembled in Taiwan as well. So the Blackwell plates would need to be sent there anyway. In any case, it would still be an extra cost compared to manufacturing everything in the region at once.
Alternatives to Blackwell in the US
The folks at Tom’s Hardware raise alternative possibilities for full Blackwell manufacturing in the US. One of them would be to wait.
TSMC partner Amkor is preparing to offer advanced “packaging” processes in the country, which would resolve the CoWoS situation only in Taiwan. However, the technology will only be ready to serve Arizona chips in 2027.
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NVIDIA could turn to other “packaging” technologies, such as Intel’s EMIB or Foveros 3D. However, this would involve redesign costs for Blackwell chips, in addition to the fact that the company already had its reasons for opting for CoWoS.
It will probably still be a while before we see an official decision on the matter. We are still in the rumors phase that companies are negotiating the possibility of happening.
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Source: https://www.adrenaline.com.br/nvidia/tsmc-e-nvidia-estariam-negociando-produzir-gpus-blackwell-na-fab-21-do-arizona/
