AMID A CHIP shortage that has hobbled producers of everything from toys to wind turbines, chipmakers are on a spending spree. On January 13th Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the world’s biggest contract manufacturer, said it would spend up to $44bn on new capacity in 2022. That is up from $30bn last year, triple the number in 2019 and ahead of earlier plans to spend over $100bn in total over the next three years. Intel, an American rival, plans to burn through $28bn this year. On January 21st it said it would build two big new factories in Ohio by 2025 at a total cost of $20bn. An option to build six more later would take the overall price tag to $100bn. Samsung of South Korea, TSMC’s closest technological rival, has hinted that its capital spending for 2022 will surpass last year’s $33bn. Smaller firms, such as Infineon in Europe, are also splurging.
IC Insights, a research group, reckons that, across the industry, capital spending rose by 34% in 2021, the most since 2017. That torrent of money is welcome news for the industry’s customers, who have been struggling with shortages for over a year. For the industry itself, it is the latest iteration of a familiar pattern. Bumper…