Comment by pixelatedindex
12 hours ago
> the US expects China to invade Taiwan and this will kill TSMC in the process.
Would it though? The TSMC foundries are pretty much in every continent. Are they just going to stop operating if this happens? Because that seems akin to killing a golden goose.
Also what is up with Global Foundries? I don’t hear a peep about them.
I believe the most modern TSMC fabs outside of Taiwan are in Arizona. They are just moving to 4nm which is nearly 5 years old and just a revision of 5nm which is getting close to 7 years old.
TSMC aims to have N3 in Arizona by 2028 at the earliest which is 6 years after it first released. By that time, TSMC will have released N3X, N2, N2P, N2X, A16, and A14.
TSMC is heavily sponsored by the Taiwanese government and was created with the express purpose of making Taiwan so valuable that the West would be forced to defend them against China. Moving newer processes out of the country is against their national interests and they've made it clear that there's no plan to do that.
GF is like a decade behind in research. Without years to ramp up and update their fabs they're not relevant.
Probably closer to two decades behind at this point.
Global Foundries is on 12nm. TSMC is at 3.
TSMC gets their machines from ASML who licenses their technology from the Department of Energy. The US will be OK.
If (or when) China invades Taiwan we will be better off than Taiwan but I wouldn't call us "OK" at that point. That will be a major disruption.
It will take decades for the US to get where Taiwan is now in semiconductor manufacturing, if ever. It's not just about building the most advanced chip factory. It's about re-aligning the entire nation's value system and culture to allow such development to happen in the first place.
We complain about the money we spend already. And now we're supposed to subsidize an entire industry to the point where we can build the most complex machines known to civilization at scale in a time-frame that matters to a global conflict that's potentially approaching soon? I don't see it.
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If it was that simple, Intel, Samsung, etc. wouldn't be behind TSMC. There's a lot more to it than just buying an ASML machine.
This shows me you are not aware of just how much work goes into EUV and beyond besides simply buying the machine.
Outside of Taiwan TSMC foundries are just pumping out already developed non leading edge fab processes. Everyone who matters to TSMC tech development is in Taiwan.