Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., whose No. 1 customer is Apple Inc., said its operations were hit by a computer virus on Friday night. The sole maker of the main processor for Apple’s iPhone said a number of its fabrication tools were infected and some factories are still affected. The virus was not caused by a hacker, the company said in a statement Saturday.
TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, had contained the problem and found a solution. The recovery of affected tools is in progress, the company said. The degree of infection varied from factory to factory.
“Certain factories returned to normal in a short period of time, and we expect the others will return to normal in one day,” the company said in its statement.
Chief Financial Officer Lora Ho earlier told Bloomberg News by phone the company had taken emergency measures to deal with the incident and some production lines had already returned to normal.