The rumors of a Sony-TSMC chipmaking partnership have been true. Nikkei reports Sony and TSMC are teaming up to construct a semiconductor manufacturing facility in Kumamoto, Japan that may sort out “strong global market demand” for specialised chips. That is, it could handle chip shortages which have plagued everybody from automotive makers by means of to telephone manufacturers. The deal has TSMC creating an area subsidiary, Japan Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing, the place Sony may have a minority stake of roughly $500 million.

This fab would not be used to make cutting-edge chips on 5-nanometer and smaller processes. Instead, it could begin out with 22nm and 28nm elements. That could sound outdated (even Intel’s 14nm CPUs have been round for a number of years), however they may very well be excellent for duties the place price and reliability are extra necessary than uncooked efficiency, like automobiles and industrial tools.

As with many chip scarcity options, you will not discover the affect for some time. Sony and TSMC solely anticipate to start out development of the manufacturing facility someday in 2022, and the plant will not begin manufacturing till someday earlier than the top of 2024. The preliminary crunch that prompted the trouble could have been solved by then. Nonetheless, this might assist the tech business sustain with demand and forestall any future disaster from hobbling complete economies.