Next to the human drama that occurred with last weeks earthquake in Taiwan, technology (and other) companies are hurt as well. Chipmaker TSMC, responsible for many CPU/SoC/GPUs is affected as well. In specific there is damage to Fab 14, and that damage is worse than originally expected.

The 6.4-magnitude earthquake on February 6 killed 116 people and injured many more, with significant damage also caused to manufacturing facilities. TSMC is also one of two chip fabricators for the iPhone 6s, and is expected to be the sole manufacturer of the A10 chip for the iPhone 7.

TSMC originally estimated that more than 95% of foundry machines could be restored to normal conditions in 2-3 days following the earthquake. Machines at Fab 6 and Fab 14B have already been fully restored, the company said reports digitmes.

Despite the earthquake, TSMC said it is confident of hitting target consolidated revenues of NT$198-201 billion (US$5.9-6.0 billion) for the first quarter of 2016.

Panel maker Innolux indicated that the earthquake did not damage 3.5G and 4G factories, but did affect 5G and 6G factories at STSP, with restoration estimated to take a week. Innolux has shifted partial production from factories at STSP to a factory in northern Taiwan to minimize the impact on shipments, the company said.

In a bid to minimize the impact of earthquakes, the STSP administration will cooperate with the National Center for Research on Earthquake Engineering under the government-sponsored National Applied Research Laboratories to set up an earthquake early warning system and disaster information and analysis mechanism.

Taiwan Earthquake Impacts TSMC chip production