Elon Musk’s Terafab chip manufacturing complex expects to increase its production capacity to process 1 million silicon wafers per month by 2032. About 700 thousand wafers are expected to be used for the production of memory chips, and another more than 300 thousand – for the production of logic chips.
Image source: SpaceX
How writes German publication ComputerBase, Terafab representatives introduced semiconductor equipment suppliers to production development plans. It is not yet clear how the project will be able to achieve the stated volumes in six years.
The declared memory production capacities are comparable to Samsung’s current production capabilities. The South Korean company processes about 650-700 thousand silicon wafers every month to make DRAM. At the same time, Terafab plans to produce not only memory, but also logic chips at one enterprise.
The Terafab complex is being built in Grimes County, Texas, with the participation of Tesla, SpaceX and Intel. Within one enterprise it is planned to combine the production of photo masks, lithography, packaging and testing of chips. The products are intended to be used in Tesla Optimus humanoid robots and SpaceX space data centers.
Mass production of the chips is planned to begin in the third quarter of 2028. Musk himself admitted that the schedule is extremely tight and the launch could be pushed to the fourth quarter, but third-party analysts called it quite feasible. The project’s research center expects to receive the first operational test chips in May or June 2027.
The initial investment in the construction of the complex is estimated at $16.8 billion. ComputerBase doubts that this amount is enough to create a production facility of the declared scale. The publication notes that Samsung has spent hundreds of billions of dollars developing memory production capacities comparable to those planned for Terafab.
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