Backside Power Becomes Foundry Battleground as TSMC Weighs a Second US Fab Campus
Intel, TSMC and Samsung are converging on backside power delivery as AI accelerator packages climb toward 3,500-4,000 watts, while TSMC weighs a multi-fab Texas campus and ASML plans at least 80 EUV tools for 2027.
Advanced packaging has become the new dividing line between foundries as AI accelerator power envelopes blow past what conventional frontside power delivery can support. Package power for data-centre AI parts has climbed from roughly 500 watts in the A100 generation to an expected 3,500-4,000 watts for Rubin Ultra-class products due in 2027, pushing supply current into the thousands of amperes. Intel Foundry estimates that raising a single compute package from 1 kW to 5 kW increases power delivery network I2R losses from 89 watts to 2,222 watts, cutting the share of input power actually reaching the transistors from 66.0 percent to 41.8 percent.
That arithmetic is why Intel, TSMC and Samsung are all moving toward backside power delivery, where current no longer has to cross the full metal interconnect stack before reaching the transistors and no longer competes with signal lines for routing resources. The shift turns the substrate, the power delivery network and the assembly process into the competitive differentiator rather than the transistor node itself, and it pulls equipment and materials suppliers into the same race.
Capacity is expanding in parallel. TSMC is reportedly weighing a new manufacturing campus in Texas that could add tens of billions of dollars to its US expansion and create a second major American production hub alongside Arizona, with Singapore also in talks, as AI chip demand continues to strain advanced-node capacity. Elon Musk separately confirmed that Terafab, the chipmaking venture backed by SpaceX and Tesla, is in discussions with TSMC, following a report that the foundry is looking at running new chip factories in Texas.
Lithography supply remains the other binding constraint. ASML plans to produce at least 80 extreme ultraviolet tools in 2027 and is investigating a further capacity increase of about 30 percent in 2028 to satisfy massive global AI infrastructure capital expenditure, according to DIGITIMES. At the same time, executives from Nvidia and Tesla have said China could close the lithography gap by 2030 as it pursues indigenous advanced systems, which adds long-term uncertainty to the equipment landscape even as near-term tool supply stays sold out.