Three contract workers died, and one more is in intensive care after an accident at the construction site for TSMC’s 2nm Fab 22 in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, reports Taiwan’s Central News Agency. The Southern Taiwan Science Park (STSP) Bureau suspects the cause was a broken bolt on a steel connection plate that sent the workers and steel components tumbling. Steel hoisting on the project has been halted, and the STSP has sent labor inspectors to investigate. The accident is not the first of its kind but rather follows at least a half dozen others since September 2024 at TSMC construction sites in Taiwan, according to local reports. Each of those earlier accidents killed one worker.
Local police said that the men were welding a steel beam on an upper floor and fell with it, while the STSP said the workers were performing steel-structure hoisting and installation when a third-floor connection-plate bolt apparently broke.
10 emergency vehicles were sent to the site with 22 personnel, and all four men involved in the incident were taken to the hospital. On-site medical staff gave first aid, but three of the workers died despite resuscitation efforts, and the fourth was moved to intensive care. The workers were employed by a contractor working on the fourth phase of the complex’s construction, and TSMC said the area was within that contractor’s scope of work.
According to the report, TSMC stopped the related construction work on its own and is working with authorities and supervising the subcontractor’s follow-up.
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The Fab 22 complex, located in Kaohsiung’s Nanzi District, is part of the science park and is being built to accelerate 2nm manufacturing. TSMC entered high-volume 2nm, or N2, manufacturing in the fourth quarter of 2025, including at Fab 22. The complex has five phases planned, with a total investment TSMC puts at more than NT$1.5 trillion, or about $46 billion. The accident happened on the construction side, not in a producing fab. Kaohsiung’s deputy mayor said construction on Phase 4 began in August 2025, with operations expected in the fourth quarter of 2027.
Business Today reports that TSMC fab construction has increased, from four fabs a year in 2017–2024 to nine a year in 2025 and 2026. The deaths come as the company plans for 13 new leading-edge and advanced-packaging fabs in Taiwan, with company-wide capex of $60 billion to $64 billion this year.
The faster pace has encouraged the addition of a contractor’s safety record as a weight in selection and a plan for a Taiwan Semiconductor Construction Engineering Safety Association with construction partners. TSMC Chairman C.C. Wei said at last year’s shareholders meeting that safety cannot be compromised, and the company’s 2025 annual report said it will keep investing in fabs across several locations in Taiwan “with a strong emphasis on construction site safety.”
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Cliff Hou, TSMC senior vice president and deputy co-COO, told Business Today that increased worker count and overlapping construction have raised the risk, requiring careful supervision, and that TSMC’s contractor lost-time injury rate had fallen about 42% from last year’s high as of late May, when the publication toured the Nanzi site to see the overhaul. It’s too early to call the program a failure, with the cause as yet unknown.
The accident comes less than a week after an explosion killed two people at Intel’s chip plant in Israel, though that was an operating fab rather than a construction site. Both accidents come as chipmakers race to meet demand, with global chip sales passing $1 trillion through August, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association.
The STSP’s findings will determine what penalties, if any, will fall under Taiwan’s Occupational Safety and Health Act, while it assists the victims’ families. No date has been given at this time for that or for the Phase 4 steel hoisting restart. Nor has TSMC commented on any schedule impact.
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