It's interesting to me that this is in Phoenix. Does that mean good things for the city? I thought they were in a desert and running out of water, and not well positioned for climate change. On the other hand, maybe with more solar panels, electricity and manufacturing will be cheaper there in the future?
There's no problem with residential water use in Phoenix. There are still farms that could be shut down if water is needed.
The biggest problem seems to be parochial NIMBYs. People don't like that TSMC needed to bring in Taiwanese workers to staff up the plant. They are currently posting AI generated renderings of factories with billowing smoke stacks when talking about the proposed Amkor semiconductor packaging plant in Peoria.
It’s also worth nothing that the TSMC plant is basically as far north as it’s possible to be while still counting as part of the (huge) Phoenix metro area. The vast majority of the 5 million residents of that metro area are nowhere near the plant and very unlikely to be affected by it in any way.
Water in the fabs gets mostly recycled. There’s an old slidedeck from Intel’s Chandler (Phoenix metro area suburb) fab about it. This includes discharging what isn’t recycled to refill ground aquifer.
From what I understand, the area is more seismically stable, so the special building structures and equipment for more seismically active places are not needed.
There is the presence of ASU. The ASU president had been hired a while back to implement a very different kind of university system focused on broadening (not gate keeping) higher education and building up innovation. This includes both improving graduation rates in the traditional tracks and expanding non-traditional educational tracks. I don’t know if all those were considered by TSMC; they like hiring engineers straight out of college and training them in their methods.
Phoenix the city is limited by its existing water rights but the geographical area isn't really that constrained; water rights are just held by private parties, particulaly farmers. ~70% of all water used in the state is used in agriculture. Industrial and residential consumers simply have to purchase those rights if they want to continue to expand in the area and chip making is a high value add industry.
Is there any historical reason why farming is a big industry in a state associated with deserts? Did manufacturing never take root there until after WW2 when air conditioning became more affordable?
Looks like the fab requires about 40,000 acre-ft/yr of water. If they really do start running out of water, adding desal of AZ's brackish aquifers would cost the fab about $20m/year. Not really worth it for farming, but completely fine for a fab.
I live here and we are definitely looking toward impending water shortages, and no one care at all. Nestle is in the process of building a 200 acre coffee creamer factory. The major flower delivery services grow their flowers here. We have tons of cotton and alfalfa fields. There are 100s of golf courses and in the wealthier areas everyone has a lush green lawn.
Your comment was posted in January 2025, after 2024 was the "hottest year on record" with numerous climate-related disasters (hurricanes, droughts) hitting with unseen regularity.
No information, but at least it doesn't mislead into thinking there are 4nm transistors, or transistor gates, or some discrete feature of any sort that's that small.
German TSMC fab will produce 16nm there, not 4nm though. Useful for the auto industry but much lower margin and less strategically important than 4nm fab in the US.
Strategic for that same German auto industry, though. I assume that the Covid disruption to the supply of boring but essential microcontrollers for cars was a wake-up call.
Speaking of the leading edge, though: while industrial policy, like other kinds of investment, is easier with the benefit of hindsight, there must be some regret at having let Global Foundries drop out of the peloton.
That's still nice, especially considering that it’s somewhere between Haswell and Broadwell from 2014.
Maybe not the kind of progress or initiative that gets headlines, but neither is it trying to push as far as what Intel has been trying to do for the past few years.
What Europe wants is not necessarily profitability but rather resilience. You can't leave this kind of decision up to the irrationality of market forces. So—you're correct, germany (or the EU) should subsidize chips if they want to weather the future.
chip fabs are big and contain a lot of things like pumps (and even a few very exotic lasers). but they're not power-intensive the way a steel plant is - or even a datacenter.
IIRC, this isn't happening because Europe doesn't have a large enough industry to purchase chips at the scale required to have such a huge investment.
This one in USA is for political reasons and likely will be feasible only if US manages to preserve the global political order.
Maybe Europe could have had force having a latest node FAB by banning exports of EUV machines and have factories built in Europe through flying Taiwanese engineers to build and operate it and call it huge success like USA is doing now.
I don't know if its worth the cost though. Sure it is good to have it bu in USA's case they even haven't built the industry around it, they will produce the chips in USA, call it "Made in America", collect the political points and ship the chips to the other side of the planet for further processing.
Is it really that big of a deal to have European machines being operated by the Taiwanese in the USA to print chips that need a visit to China to become useful? If the global world order collapses, will the 330M Americans be able to sustain the FAB? If it doesn't collapse, will that be still a good investment considering that Taiwanese have the good stuff for themselves and integrated into the full chain without flying parts across the world?
That narrative doesn't make sense, making Taiwanese build and run a factory in USA is not much different than an oil rich Arab country luring a western institution opening a campus in their desert. Its good to have but it doesn't make you a superconductor superpower.
To be fair, the USA does have many of the key companies and technologies that make these ICs possible in first place so it's not exactly like that but in the case of TSMC it kind of is.
Says the US who can't manufacture anything modern unless they urge a Taiwanese manufacturer using European lithography machines to make chips. Let's please not do this senseless patriotism that so en vogue in the US right now.
They do in Dresden Germany, but not nearly as cutting edge as the ones in US and Taiwan. US is a more useful strategic ally for Taiwan than EU. Not to mention the more expensive energy in Germany vs the US.
EU finds out the hard way that not having had energy independence plus a weak/non-existent military relying mostly on the US, has costly second order externalities that voters never think about or factor in their decisions(I'm European).
The best way to have peace is to always be ready for war. Being a non-armed hippie pacifist nation sounds good in some utopic fantasy world like the Smurfs, but in reality it only invites aggression from powerful despots like Putin and Xi and even your strong ally, the US, can exploit your moment of weakness and security dependence on it, to push its own agenda and trade terms on you.
That's true, but there is a large financial cost to always being ready for war. The US has spent 80 years being the "policeman of the world" for good or bad. Lots of bad decisions but the world also takes for granted the open seas, etc. that come at a great cost to Americans in reduced social services like health insurance and higher education.
well, EU are enjoying NATO Protection (what I mean nato is only few nato country that really spend money on their military)
some country didn't spend as much even almost downscale its military and you expect the same benefit while didn't want any cost associated with it, how it make sense and fair for everyone???
TSMC also builds facilities in europe but they are not as advanced. Europe's strategic budget to finance such moves is much smaller. And this is purely strategic, these plants are a technology transfer program meant to de-risk the Taiwan/SK issue getting ugly. From an economic point of view, production in Asia is cheaper.
Many commenters on HN have this weird idea that if Taiwan is slightly ahead of competition, US would defend Taiwan against a country with nukes. Or that TSMC superiority is Taiwan's national security issue.
Not on the I want it to fail side but my main question is why we put this water intensive industry in Arizona instead of further east where water is less stressed as a resource?
Seems like it would be way better off being somewhere in the eastern half of the country or at least not in the Southwest.
They could do that -- then equity would correct investors would be like wait what. Exec and employee comp would decrease. Pressure to deliver consistent returns is real assuming its a material cost difference.
According to TSMC:
"To achieve our goal of 90% water reclamation, We will build an advanced water treatment facility (Industrial Water Reclamation Plant) at our Phoenix operation with a design goal of achieving “Near Zero Liquid Discharge”. This means the fabs will be capable of using nearly every drop of water back into the facility."
Now you can and absolutely should (IMO) make the argument that the fabs are far more important than the agricultural use in the area which is far more wasteful. But someone has to step up and do that and none of the politicians in the area seem to have been willing to make a commonsense decision and say: we're done growing crops in the desert when we've got endless better options.
The point here would be that after N years, US workers at the site would gain enough insights to replicate the processes with American companies? Because otherwise what's the point? Will TSMC allow that? Because to just have more internal "normal" jobs in the US is a small gain. There is a big ST site here in Catania, while they produce many chips most of the workers are blue collars.
This redundancy makes me worried that the US will view Taiwanese sovereignty as disposable. While the US has given much for the defence of Ukraine, it’s always been careful to make sure it’s not enough for Ukraine to win but only enough to make it expensive for Russia hopping they’ll reconsider. Russia has won there and I suspect they’ll joe be willing to let China have the islands now too.
The proper word is "reunite", as it was agreed with the US
It sure gonna hurt the US Military industrial complex, no war = no money
"1982 U.S.-PRC Joint Communiqué/Six Assurances
As they negotiated establishment of diplomatic relations,
the U.S. and PRC governments agreed to set aside the
contentious issue of U.S. arms sales to Taiwan. They took
up that issue in the 1982 August 17 Communiqué, in which
the PRC states “a fundamental policy of striving for
peaceful reunification” with Taiwan, and the U.S.
government states it “understands and appreciates” that
policy. The U.S. government states in the 1982
communiqué that with those statements “in mind,” “it does
not seek to carry out a long-term policy of arms sales to
Taiwan,” and “intends gradually to reduce its sale of arms
to Taiwan, leading, over a period of time, to a final
resolution.” The U.S. government also declares “no
intention” of “pursuing a policy of ‘two Chinas,’” meaning
the PRC and the ROC, “or ‘one China, one Taiwan.’”"
I know Intel has also opened a site nearby. Rumor is that many of the TSMC staff, having seen the lifestyle of American engineers in Arizona have started quietly applying with Intel.
No that’s not the goal — having the fabs onshore means US intelligence agencies and executive/legislative branch will have access. This is contra to Taiwan where the Taiwanese government oversees this access.
Some people might like the sound of this, some might hate it, but day to day, there are significant portions of the US gov workforce who deal with counter espionage, corporate safety, and of course more publicized are the parts that enforce or “request” compliance with US goals, mandates, projects and so on.
Once a factory is on shore, literally on your sovereign land, you have a lot more say.
No different than wanting your banking managed on networks in your country, or your weapons manufactured in country.
That said, generally states have competed for sites like this, and cities like San Jose, Austin and Portland have benefited from having large silicon industry economic bases. I can’t speculate if TSMC will benefit local industry that much, but I imagine it can’t hurt — it’s extra jobs, and probably a boost for suppliers that are convenient to the foundries.
It didn’t say that it was the same price?
Customers want them produced in the US, so will probs pay extra for it. Especially given that politically it’s a good look for them
At this point it's not really a lot more expensive especially when factories are so heavily automated.
The US has had semiconductor fabs for many years that are still operating. It just so happens that TSMC has the best process, but I don't think that has anything to do with labor costs.
> Congress created a $52.7 billion semiconductor manufacturing and research subsidy program in 2022. Commerce convinced all five leading edge semiconductor firms to locate fabs in the United States as part of the program.
> The TSMC award from Commerce also includes up to $5 billion in low-cost government loans.
This is a big deal for the US Gov because chip manufacturing is ground zero for "staying competitive" against global competition, e.g. China, who is eating the US' lunch in most areas
It's not like silicon chip manufacturing was an industry that many Americans could get a job in. So it makes sense that the country wouldn't have that many people able to fill these roles, or universities churning out people with those skills.
It's a chicken and egg problem. Which is why this fab will import worker while local universities put into place pipelines to educate potential candidates and hopefully make the industry self-sufficient.
About time.
I seem to recall some detail about how they don't do the packaging, and that' still on the mother island.
This suggests that may be the case: https://www.theregister.com/2024/10/04/tsmc_amkor_arizona/
It's a move in the right direction, but not as much as may be needed.
Packaging isn't done by TSMC.
Packaging is extremely low value and commodified, so companies prefer to contract it out to OSATs like Amkor.
Same reason why most companies became fabless - margins are much more competitive this way compared to owning your own fab.
This margin-oriented mindset is arguably one of the driving factors that makes the US lose its industrial base.
16 replies →
Modern packaging - high density 2.5D/3D is defintely not a commodity.
Final packaging is.
1 reply →
It's interesting to me that this is in Phoenix. Does that mean good things for the city? I thought they were in a desert and running out of water, and not well positioned for climate change. On the other hand, maybe with more solar panels, electricity and manufacturing will be cheaper there in the future?
There's no problem with residential water use in Phoenix. There are still farms that could be shut down if water is needed.
The biggest problem seems to be parochial NIMBYs. People don't like that TSMC needed to bring in Taiwanese workers to staff up the plant. They are currently posting AI generated renderings of factories with billowing smoke stacks when talking about the proposed Amkor semiconductor packaging plant in Peoria.
It’s also worth nothing that the TSMC plant is basically as far north as it’s possible to be while still counting as part of the (huge) Phoenix metro area. The vast majority of the 5 million residents of that metro area are nowhere near the plant and very unlikely to be affected by it in any way.
2 replies →
> There are still farms that could be shut down if water is needed.
Wow, that's good, glad you clarified that.
I was worried there weren't any farms that could be shut down if water is needed.
Can you imagine a world where we can't shut down farms to produce 4nm chips?
I am just so glad we can shut down farms to produce chips.
Farms are useless, but chips, we need it for the control grid. I am just glad we are all on the same page.
Who needs food when you have 4nm chips.
28 replies →
Water in the fabs gets mostly recycled. There’s an old slidedeck from Intel’s Chandler (Phoenix metro area suburb) fab about it. This includes discharging what isn’t recycled to refill ground aquifer.
From what I understand, the area is more seismically stable, so the special building structures and equipment for more seismically active places are not needed.
There is the presence of ASU. The ASU president had been hired a while back to implement a very different kind of university system focused on broadening (not gate keeping) higher education and building up innovation. This includes both improving graduation rates in the traditional tracks and expanding non-traditional educational tracks. I don’t know if all those were considered by TSMC; they like hiring engineers straight out of college and training them in their methods.
Phoenix the city is limited by its existing water rights but the geographical area isn't really that constrained; water rights are just held by private parties, particulaly farmers. ~70% of all water used in the state is used in agriculture. Industrial and residential consumers simply have to purchase those rights if they want to continue to expand in the area and chip making is a high value add industry.
Is there any historical reason why farming is a big industry in a state associated with deserts? Did manufacturing never take root there until after WW2 when air conditioning became more affordable?
17 replies →
Both are true.
Looks like the fab requires about 40,000 acre-ft/yr of water. If they really do start running out of water, adding desal of AZ's brackish aquifers would cost the fab about $20m/year. Not really worth it for farming, but completely fine for a fab.
>40,000 acre-ft/yr of water
... is "acre feet" a common measurement of volume in the USA?
11 replies →
I live here and we are definitely looking toward impending water shortages, and no one care at all. Nestle is in the process of building a 200 acre coffee creamer factory. The major flower delivery services grow their flowers here. We have tons of cotton and alfalfa fields. There are 100s of golf courses and in the wealthier areas everyone has a lush green lawn.
Sounds like a resource that isn't appropriately priced
14 replies →
[flagged]
Your comment was posted in January 2025, after 2024 was the "hottest year on record" with numerous climate-related disasters (hurricanes, droughts) hitting with unseen regularity.
https://wmo.int/news/media-centre/wmo-confirms-2024-warmest-...
I wished we used the node names, like TSMC N4/N4P/N4X, because nanometers are meaningless.
Well in that context TSMC N4P tells you no more information than 4-nm does.
No information, but at least it doesn't mislead into thinking there are 4nm transistors, or transistor gates, or some discrete feature of any sort that's that small.
Are transistors per square mm a better metric ?
I won’t be surprised if the US plants started referring to the 4NM nodes in their imperial form (1.575 × 10-7”)
2 replies →
God yes.
[flagged]
8 replies →
As such I’m going to assume it’s the least impressive variant of 4NM.
Can't wait to see the factory in Germany also starting to pump out chips.
German TSMC fab will produce 16nm there, not 4nm though. Useful for the auto industry but much lower margin and less strategically important than 4nm fab in the US.
Strategic for that same German auto industry, though. I assume that the Covid disruption to the supply of boring but essential microcontrollers for cars was a wake-up call.
Speaking of the leading edge, though: while industrial policy, like other kinds of investment, is easier with the benefit of hindsight, there must be some regret at having let Global Foundries drop out of the peloton.
That's still nice, especially considering that it’s somewhere between Haswell and Broadwell from 2014.
Maybe not the kind of progress or initiative that gets headlines, but neither is it trying to push as far as what Intel has been trying to do for the past few years.
14 replies →
What Europe wants is not necessarily profitability but rather resilience. You can't leave this kind of decision up to the irrationality of market forces. So—you're correct, germany (or the EU) should subsidize chips if they want to weather the future.
If you mean the Intel factory, this is delayed by 2 years. If it ever will come.. And the other planed Wolfspeed factory is cancelled completely.
Both will never come. For obvious reasons.
19 replies →
How much does Germany's very expensive electricity affect TSMC's costs?
At that size of node, semiconductor manufacturing costs are not material constrained.
3 replies →
chip fabs are big and contain a lot of things like pumps (and even a few very exotic lasers). but they're not power-intensive the way a steel plant is - or even a datacenter.
[dead]
I wished they produced the chips in Europe instead of United States.
IIRC, this isn't happening because Europe doesn't have a large enough industry to purchase chips at the scale required to have such a huge investment.
This one in USA is for political reasons and likely will be feasible only if US manages to preserve the global political order.
Maybe Europe could have had force having a latest node FAB by banning exports of EUV machines and have factories built in Europe through flying Taiwanese engineers to build and operate it and call it huge success like USA is doing now.
I don't know if its worth the cost though. Sure it is good to have it bu in USA's case they even haven't built the industry around it, they will produce the chips in USA, call it "Made in America", collect the political points and ship the chips to the other side of the planet for further processing.
Is it really that big of a deal to have European machines being operated by the Taiwanese in the USA to print chips that need a visit to China to become useful? If the global world order collapses, will the 330M Americans be able to sustain the FAB? If it doesn't collapse, will that be still a good investment considering that Taiwanese have the good stuff for themselves and integrated into the full chain without flying parts across the world?
Well they made the fiirst step. They have the fab, other parts of industry may emerge with time
Europe really dropped the ball on semiconductor manufacturing.
That narrative doesn't make sense, making Taiwanese build and run a factory in USA is not much different than an oil rich Arab country luring a western institution opening a campus in their desert. Its good to have but it doesn't make you a superconductor superpower.
To be fair, the USA does have many of the key companies and technologies that make these ICs possible in first place so it's not exactly like that but in the case of TSMC it kind of is.
2 replies →
Says the US who can't manufacture anything modern unless they urge a Taiwanese manufacturer using European lithography machines to make chips. Let's please not do this senseless patriotism that so en vogue in the US right now.
2 replies →
They are the critical only manufacturer/supplier of EUV machines.
Would not have been competitive due to labor costs. Also the chemicals used in manufacturing are quite toxic.
1 reply →
What a ridiculous thing to say about the home of ASML.
[dead]
We should have our own sovereign comparable technology companies in Europe by now.
Fail.
Sold the fundamental industries out to Philips who sold it to the Chinese.
They do in Dresden Germany, but not nearly as cutting edge as the ones in US and Taiwan. US is a more useful strategic ally for Taiwan than EU. Not to mention the more expensive energy in Germany vs the US.
EU finds out the hard way that not having had energy independence plus a weak/non-existent military relying mostly on the US, has costly second order externalities that voters never think about or factor in their decisions(I'm European).
The best way to have peace is to always be ready for war. Being a non-armed hippie pacifist nation sounds good in some utopic fantasy world like the Smurfs, but in reality it only invites aggression from powerful despots like Putin and Xi and even your strong ally, the US, can exploit your moment of weakness and security dependence on it, to push its own agenda and trade terms on you.
After all, whenever EU falters, America gains: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jE-E1lQunm0
That's true, but there is a large financial cost to always being ready for war. The US has spent 80 years being the "policeman of the world" for good or bad. Lots of bad decisions but the world also takes for granted the open seas, etc. that come at a great cost to Americans in reduced social services like health insurance and higher education.
25 replies →
well, EU are enjoying NATO Protection (what I mean nato is only few nato country that really spend money on their military)
some country didn't spend as much even almost downscale its military and you expect the same benefit while didn't want any cost associated with it, how it make sense and fair for everyone???
1 reply →
[flagged]
TSMC also builds facilities in europe but they are not as advanced. Europe's strategic budget to finance such moves is much smaller. And this is purely strategic, these plants are a technology transfer program meant to de-risk the Taiwan/SK issue getting ugly. From an economic point of view, production in Asia is cheaper.
I thought this would never happen. I was wrong.
So many people wanted this to fail.
Why?
Many commenters on HN have this weird idea that if Taiwan is slightly ahead of competition, US would defend Taiwan against a country with nukes. Or that TSMC superiority is Taiwan's national security issue.
35 replies →
Many commenters just hate America.
Some people are against industrial policy (like the CHIPS Act) because they don't believe that market failure exists.
Some people are against Biden/Dems.
Some people are clueless about the foreign policy and the geopolitical reality in Asia and take the status quo regional power balance as a given.
[dead]
Not on the I want it to fail side but my main question is why we put this water intensive industry in Arizona instead of further east where water is less stressed as a resource?
Seems like it would be way better off being somewhere in the eastern half of the country or at least not in the Southwest.
1 reply →
Like who? Rabid globalization fans?
Previous discussion (16 hours ago)
Apple will soon receive 'made in America' chips from TSMC's Arizona fab (tomshardware.com)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42699977
Does this mean that you will see entirely made in the USA Macs?
The closest you can get is the Mac Pro line starting with the Trashcan Mac Pro.
https://www.cnet.com/tech/computing/after-federal-break-appl...
Depends, Do you have 10 year olds who will work for 18c an hour?
Or do you have consumers who will pay for the difference?
25 replies →
The good thing about apple prices is they could easily not change any of their prices and just swallow the loss in profit.
But doubtful, it'll definitely be a premium made-inthe-usa labeling for government & school use.
Just grift grift grift, then graft graft graft.
They could do that -- then equity would correct investors would be like wait what. Exec and employee comp would decrease. Pressure to deliver consistent returns is real assuming its a material cost difference.
Don't chip fabs require a great deal of water? Wondering why a place like Arizona, with serious water issues, was selected.
According to TSMC: "To achieve our goal of 90% water reclamation, We will build an advanced water treatment facility (Industrial Water Reclamation Plant) at our Phoenix operation with a design goal of achieving “Near Zero Liquid Discharge”. This means the fabs will be capable of using nearly every drop of water back into the facility."
While they reclaim 90% of the water, given the immense amount of water they use, it's still an exorbitant amount.
With all 6 fabs online, and water reclamation in place, it's expected to be the equivalent of 160,000 homes:
https://www.phonearena.com/news/tsmc-access-to-water-us-fabs...
Now you can and absolutely should (IMO) make the argument that the fabs are far more important than the agricultural use in the area which is far more wasteful. But someone has to step up and do that and none of the politicians in the area seem to have been willing to make a commonsense decision and say: we're done growing crops in the desert when we've got endless better options.
4 replies →
Nice. Maybe we should have re elected that guy.
Maybe you should have developed a technology to upload his brain.
The point here would be that after N years, US workers at the site would gain enough insights to replicate the processes with American companies? Because otherwise what's the point? Will TSMC allow that? Because to just have more internal "normal" jobs in the US is a small gain. There is a big ST site here in Catania, while they produce many chips most of the workers are blue collars.
The point is redundancy in case China follows through on their threats to invade.
This redundancy makes me worried that the US will view Taiwanese sovereignty as disposable. While the US has given much for the defence of Ukraine, it’s always been careful to make sure it’s not enough for Ukraine to win but only enough to make it expensive for Russia hopping they’ll reconsider. Russia has won there and I suspect they’ll joe be willing to let China have the islands now too.
35 replies →
China has no needs to invade when they can do a very effective blockade without firing one shot.
"invade" = western propaganda
The proper word is "reunite", as it was agreed with the US
It sure gonna hurt the US Military industrial complex, no war = no money
"1982 U.S.-PRC Joint Communiqué/Six Assurances
As they negotiated establishment of diplomatic relations, the U.S. and PRC governments agreed to set aside the contentious issue of U.S. arms sales to Taiwan. They took up that issue in the 1982 August 17 Communiqué, in which the PRC states “a fundamental policy of striving for peaceful reunification” with Taiwan, and the U.S. government states it “understands and appreciates” that policy. The U.S. government states in the 1982 communiqué that with those statements “in mind,” “it does not seek to carry out a long-term policy of arms sales to Taiwan,” and “intends gradually to reduce its sale of arms to Taiwan, leading, over a period of time, to a final resolution.” The U.S. government also declares “no intention” of “pursuing a policy of ‘two Chinas,’” meaning the PRC and the ROC, “or ‘one China, one Taiwan.’”"
https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF12503/1
7 replies →
I know Intel has also opened a site nearby. Rumor is that many of the TSMC staff, having seen the lifestyle of American engineers in Arizona have started quietly applying with Intel.
No that’s not the goal — having the fabs onshore means US intelligence agencies and executive/legislative branch will have access. This is contra to Taiwan where the Taiwanese government oversees this access.
Some people might like the sound of this, some might hate it, but day to day, there are significant portions of the US gov workforce who deal with counter espionage, corporate safety, and of course more publicized are the parts that enforce or “request” compliance with US goals, mandates, projects and so on.
Once a factory is on shore, literally on your sovereign land, you have a lot more say.
No different than wanting your banking managed on networks in your country, or your weapons manufactured in country.
That said, generally states have competed for sites like this, and cities like San Jose, Austin and Portland have benefited from having large silicon industry economic bases. I can’t speculate if TSMC will benefit local industry that much, but I imagine it can’t hurt — it’s extra jobs, and probably a boost for suppliers that are convenient to the foundries.
Can someone explain to me how they can keep the price of the chip production the same in the US compared to Taiwan?
Labour, especially specialized labour, is a lot more expensive in the US.
It didn’t say that it was the same price? Customers want them produced in the US, so will probs pay extra for it. Especially given that politically it’s a good look for them
Also, the US govt has put in a lot of subsidies
At this point it's not really a lot more expensive especially when factories are so heavily automated.
The US has had semiconductor fabs for many years that are still operating. It just so happens that TSMC has the best process, but I don't think that has anything to do with labor costs.
this likely helps:
> Congress created a $52.7 billion semiconductor manufacturing and research subsidy program in 2022. Commerce convinced all five leading edge semiconductor firms to locate fabs in the United States as part of the program.
> The TSMC award from Commerce also includes up to $5 billion in low-cost government loans.
This is a big deal for the US Gov because chip manufacturing is ground zero for "staying competitive" against global competition, e.g. China, who is eating the US' lunch in most areas
For some reason I’m concerned with being able to find the labor required to make this succeed. I really wish them the best.
There were a ton of media scare articles on this when it came out. It turns out it didn't pan out and staffing sounds solid.
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/whos-afraid-of-east-asian-mana...
Point #1 on: https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/at-least-five-interesting-thin...
It's not like silicon chip manufacturing was an industry that many Americans could get a job in. So it makes sense that the country wouldn't have that many people able to fill these roles, or universities churning out people with those skills.
It's a chicken and egg problem. Which is why this fab will import worker while local universities put into place pipelines to educate potential candidates and hopefully make the industry self-sufficient.
Few can imagine the complexity of spooling up a world-class fab. Marvel of engineering.
Cool but https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2_nm_process
they are making wafers, those have to be sent to china to make the finals chips... in the case of a war this is not great
Until 2027 - when the packaging facilities are complete in Peoria.
Rome wasn't built in a day.
Taiwan ≠ China
A step in the right direction but we still have an ocean to cross for our domestic semi industry.
to taiwan