Phase-six construction of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company's 14th wafer foundry, which will mass produce 20-nanometer quad-core chips, broke ground on Friday in the Southern Taiwan Science Park in Tainan, Taiwan.
The plant will be the first 12-inch fab to mass produce 16-nm FinFET semiconductors in 2014, TSMC said.
The clean rooms of the fifth, sixth and seventh phases of the expansion project will cover over 130,000 square meters. Phase-seven construction is scheduled to begin in the first quarter of 2013.
TSMC has already invested more than NT$450 billion in its operations in Tainan, which include six 8-inch wafer foundries, 14 12-inch fabs and an assembly and test factory.