Edit: This is not news. This (combined with their higher EE education) is why Taiwan won IBM PC-clone-related manufacturing in the 80s. And why they now have TSMC.
Such a great victory for American industry... the future is to bring workers from Taiwan with skills and willingness to receive a fraction of US salaries.
Say TSMC pays supper competitive US salaries to attract US-only labor, higher labor cost which is causing the end product to be more expensive, which makes that fab uncompetitive globally causing Apple to go buying from someone else and TSMC either choosing leaving the US or going bust eating the losses.
You can't compete with lower-wage countries in a globalized world with no trade barriers and no tariffs, when Apple wants higher profits and consumers want lower prices. Something has to give.
You can put tariffs on imported chips to equalize the field, but then iPhones would be more expensive for the average American and Apple's stock would tank.
This solves for the US national security issue; in the event of war between China and Taiwan (and a possible proxy war with US), Taiwan immigration would qualify for asylum.
How much does salary contribute to the overall cost of operating TSMC? Perplexity said that the average salary of a TSMC employee is $76K a year, and TSMC had about 80K people. So it cost them around $6B a year on salary. In the meantime, their operational cost was about $46B a year, so that's 13%. TSMC shipped about 16 million 12-in wafers. Each 12-inch wafer can make about 300 to 400 chips. Let's say 200 to stay on the conservative side. That will be 3.2B chips a year. That means the cost per chip on salary will be less than $2 a year. It looks HC cost is not that dominant?
Yes, roughly speaking 1:4 compared to California.
Edit: This is not news. This (combined with their higher EE education) is why Taiwan won IBM PC-clone-related manufacturing in the 80s. And why they now have TSMC.
Such a great victory for American industry... the future is to bring workers from Taiwan with skills and willingness to receive a fraction of US salaries.
What are your realistic options?
Say TSMC pays supper competitive US salaries to attract US-only labor, higher labor cost which is causing the end product to be more expensive, which makes that fab uncompetitive globally causing Apple to go buying from someone else and TSMC either choosing leaving the US or going bust eating the losses.
You can't compete with lower-wage countries in a globalized world with no trade barriers and no tariffs, when Apple wants higher profits and consumers want lower prices. Something has to give.
You can put tariffs on imported chips to equalize the field, but then iPhones would be more expensive for the average American and Apple's stock would tank.
So, pick your poison.
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This solves for the US national security issue; in the event of war between China and Taiwan (and a possible proxy war with US), Taiwan immigration would qualify for asylum.
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How much does salary contribute to the overall cost of operating TSMC? Perplexity said that the average salary of a TSMC employee is $76K a year, and TSMC had about 80K people. So it cost them around $6B a year on salary. In the meantime, their operational cost was about $46B a year, so that's 13%. TSMC shipped about 16 million 12-in wafers. Each 12-inch wafer can make about 300 to 400 chips. Let's say 200 to stay on the conservative side. That will be 3.2B chips a year. That means the cost per chip on salary will be less than $2 a year. It looks HC cost is not that dominant?