[German]According to press reports, the production facilities of the iPhone chip manufacturer TSMC were infected by a virus on Friday (August 3, 2018). The problem should be solved by today's Sunday.
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Taiwan located TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited) manufactures computer chips for Apple, AMD, Nvidia, Qualcomm, Broadcom and other industrial customers. Last Friday, fabs from TSMC were infected by malware (virus), as Bloomberg reports here and Reuters here. TSMC reported that a number of tools (in production) were infected by malware on Friday. Reuters zited a statement from TSMC, that says:
"TSMC has contained the problem and found a solution, and recovery of the tools is in progress."
Rumors about a hacker attack are incorrect, says TSMC. In a statement TSMC says:
The degree of infection varies by fab. Certain fabs returned to normal in a short period of time, and we expect the other fabs will return to normal in one day.
According to Reuters, TSMC has not responded on requests. What exactly happened remains in the dark so far, it reminds me of WannaCry. Chief Financial Officer Lora Ho told Bloomberg that this was the first case at TSMC where production was affected by a virus.
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