On November 7, the German government approved Bosch, Infineon and NXP to buy into TSMC's plant in Dresden, Germany, hoping to consolidate the German semiconductor supply chain and avoid the threat of geopolitical turmoil in the German automotive industry and other major industries.

It is reported that on August 8 this year, TSMC officially announced that it and Bosch, Infineon, NXP jointly invested in the European Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (ESMC), ESMC plans to start construction of the fab in the second half of 2024, the goal is to put into production by the end of 2027, is expected to produce 40,000 12-inch wafers per month. It can provide TSMC 28/22 nm planar CMOS process and 16/12 nm FinFET process, and directly create about 2,000 high-tech professional jobs.

The plant is TSMC's first in Europe and its third overseas. TSMC will hold a 70 percent stake and operate the joint venture, with Bosch, Infineon and NXP each holding 10 percent.

Andreas Mundt, head of Germany's antitrust review office, said: "The recent geopolitical turmoil has highlighted the importance of countries consolidating their semiconductor supply chains, especially for German industry."

NXP earlier reported a 0.3 percent drop in annual revenue to $3.43 billion in the quarter ended Oct. 1, but that was $34 million above expectations. The company said mobile phone, industrial, Internet of Things and automotive chip revenue all met or beat expectations last quarter, but communications infrastructure and other chip revenue fell short. In the latest quarter, EPS reached $3.70 on an adjusted basis.

After the European Chip Act was passed last year, the European Union vowed to double the semiconductor production capacity in Europe by 2030. As Europe's largest economy, Germany is actively attracting global semiconductor manufacturers to enter, attempting to use the European Chip Act 43 billion euros (about $45.9 billion) subsidies to strengthen Germany's semiconductor manufacturing strength.

TSMC has previously announced the construction of a 10 billion euro plant in Dresden, of which 3.5 billion euros will be invested by TSMC, and another 5 billion euros will come from German government subsidies and Bosch, Infineon and NXP.

In addition to TSMC, Intel also announced a €30bn investment in two plants in Magdeburg, the largest single foreign direct investment in German history. GlobalFoundries has announced an investment of €1bn to €2.4bn to more than double the capacity of its Dresden plant.