TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — TSMC’s advanced packaging plants AP8 in Southern Taiwan Science Park and AP7 in Chiayi are set to enter production in the second half of this year, Commercial Times reported Tuesday.

Industry sources said the world’s largest contract chipmaker plans to focus its advanced packaging efforts on its system-on-integrated chips, or SoIC. In addition to AMD, Nvidia’s recently announced Rubin AI chip, its first GPU to adopt a chiplet design, will also be integrated.

Market experts said that SoIC will be the next major focus in advanced packaging. Unlike traditional systems-on-a-chip, or SoCs, which integrate several functions into a single package, SoIC allows chips to be linked together, reducing internal wiring complexity and lowering costs, they explained.

AMD was the first to adopt this technology, with Apple expected to follow suit in the second half of this year with its M5 chip, per Commercial Times. Rubin will adopt SoIC, with the GPU and I/O die manufactured separately. These components will then be integrated using SoIC advanced packaging.

Research firms said that TSMC’s SoIC capacity will reach 15,000–20,000 wafers per month by the end of this year, doubling next year. However, equipment suppliers said this depends on Rubin GPU’s tape out, when the final chip design is sent to a foundry.

Sources added that the company plans to relocate workers from its 8-inch fabs to support these new facilities. As of the end of last year, TSMC’s workforce had nearly reached 80,000 employees, with plans to hire 8,000 more this year to reach its 100,000-employee goal.