According to Digitimes ,the newly-approved capex will also be used for conversion of certain logic and mature technology capacity to specialty technology capacity, as well as R&D capital investments and sustaining capital expenditures for fourth-quarter 2018.

In January TSMC held a groundbreaking ceremony for its Fab 18 phase 1 production facility. The fab will produce chips using TSMC’s 5 nm process starting from early 2020. When all three phases of the manufacturing facility are completed, its wafer starts capacity will exceed one million 300-mm wafers per year, comparable with other three GigaFabs operated by TSMC.

In a report published by Chinatimes, TSMC has officially begun mass production of their 7nm node at their Fab 15. It is stated that TSMC has already confirmed the production of AMD 7nm GPUs that are part of their Radeon Instinct and Radeon Pro lineups, expected to hit market availability in 2H 2018.

TSMC's board also approved the appointment of Philip Wong as VP of TSMC and head of corporate research. Wong has 16 years of semiconductor industry experience at IBM.