By Ben Blanchard
TAIPEI (Reuters) -TSMC, the world's largest contract chipmaker, will decide this week whether to invest in chip designer Arm Holdings' blockbuster initial public offering (IPO), Chairman Mark Liu said on Wednesday.
Speaking on the sidelines of the SEMICON Taiwan summit, Liu said his company was still evaluating the matter and, when pressed on when a decision may come, he added "this week".
"Arm is an important element of our ecosystem, our technology and our customers' ecosystem. We want it to be successful, we want it to be healthy. That's the bottom line," Liu said.
On Tuesday, SoftBank Group's Arm Holdings launched the roadshow for its IPO as the chip designer tries to convince investors it is worth as much as $52 billion in this year's biggest share sale.
Arm has already signed up many of its major clients as cornerstone investors in its IPO, including Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), Nvidia, Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL), Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD), Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) and Samsung Electronics (KS:005930).
Speaking about Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd's (TSMC) plant in the U.S. state of Arizona, where it is investing $40 billion in a massive project, Liu said he had no concern over its ability to be successful.
"I just came from Arizona last month. Any project of that new fertile ground will have some learning curve. In the past five months the improvement has been tremendous. I’m sure it will be a very successful project," he said.
In July, TSMC said production due to start next year at its first chip fabrication facility, or fab, in Arizona would be delayed until 2025 due a shortage of specialist workers.