A power blackout that affected 5 million households across Taiwan, also affected the science park where iPhone processor firm TSMC is based.

Taiwan has been affected by power outages before, but in this case, the cause was reportedly a malfunction.

According to Nikkei Asia, the Taiwan Power Company says that an unspecified malfunction occurred at its Hsinta Power Plant in Kaohsiung. This directly caused blackouts across southern Taiwan, but subsequent knock-on effects caused outages in northern and central parts of the country.

TSMC is based in the Tainan Science Park, toward the south of the country. Officials at the science park reported that there had been sudden and abnormal voltage changes.

However, the officials are still determining whether the voltage changes have had any impact on the park. Power outages can cause the loss of chips being produced, and it's not clear what TSMC was making at the time.

Some hours after the outage, the local government reported that power had been restored to 75% of households. The process required the Hsinta Power Plant to be disconnected from other power plants, all of which must then be restarted.

"Southern Taiwan will take more time to restore power," said economic minister Wang Mei-Hua said. "Restarting power plants takes some time, too."

Source: Appleinsider