On April 17, Reuters reported that according to recruitment information on Tesla’s official website, the company is recruiting semiconductor engineers for its Terafab super chip factory in Taiwan. Taiwan is home to TSMC, the world's largest chip contract manufacturer, and has a highly specialized workforce with extensive experience in advanced semiconductor manufacturing.
Tesla
Tesla has released recruitment information for nine engineering positions in Taiwan for its Terafab factory, requiring applicants to have more than five years of experience in advanced chip manufacturing processes.The positions describe Terafab as a "vertically integrated semiconductor fab" integrating logic, storage, packaging, test and photolithography mask production.
Several of the positions require experience in advanced chip manufacturing processes below 7 nanometers, and mention 2 nanometer technology. Taiwan's semiconductor industry has profound technological accumulation in these fields. One of the positions also requires familiarity with advanced packaging processes, such as CoWoS and SoIC technologies independently developed by TSMC.
These engineering positions cover multiple core front-end manufacturing steps, including photolithography, etching, thin films, chemical mechanical polishing, as well as yield engineering and process integration.
According to recruitment information, the Terafab factory is expected to support multiple types of chip products, including edge inference processors, radiation-resistant reinforced chips for orbiting satellites, and high-bandwidth memory chips.
When asked about Tesla's Terafab project on Thursday, TSMC said it would not underestimate competitors, but added that "there are no shortcuts" in the industry because it takes two to three years to build a new wafer manufacturing plant.
As of press time, Tesla has not commented on this.