TSMC to Build Chip Plant in Arizona On Government Land

[erek]

In what amounts to a massive power grab on behalf of the United States they have secured enticement of TSMC to their motherland. We'll see where this goes. But stock and bond portfolio are rife with speculation at this moment

"Shares of Applied Materials Inc., Lam Research Corp. and KLA Corp. rose on optimism that these U.S.-based providers of chipmaking equipment may face fewer export controls when supplying TSMC.

By producing chips for many of the leading tech companies, TSMC has amassed the technical know-how needed to churn out the smallest, most efficient and powerful semiconductors in the highest volumes. Concentrating such valuable capabilities in the hands of one company in Asia, is a concern for the U.S., especially when, across the Strait of Taiwan, China is rushing to develop its own semiconductor industry.

TSMC’s local rival, GlobalFoundries Inc., has given up on advanced manufacturing and Intel Corp., the world’s largest chipmaker, mainly manufactures for itself. Its attempt to become a so-called foundry, has failed to gain major customers. TSMC’s only other significant challenger is South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co."

https://au.finance.yahoo.com/news/tsmc-build-chip-plant-arizona-185039746.html

 

[$trapped]

Not sure ultimately who the recipients of the 5nm chips produced here will be, but the increased cost of operating in the US will be passed on to consumers.

 

[EniGmA1987]

Maybe they will build it down the street from Intel's 7nm Fab.

 

[alxlwson]

Not sure ultimately who the recipients of the 5nm chips produced here will be, but the increased cost of operating in the US will be passed on to consumers.

My understanding is that the process is highly automated and requires very little human labor.
In any fashion, due to the volume of parts, the increased labor costs shouldn't even be noticed on anything except a balance sheet.

 

[Dayaks]

My understanding is that the process is highly automated and requires very little human labor.
In any fashion, due to the volume of parts, the increased labor costs shouldn't even be noticed on anything except a balance sheet.

Yeah, humans are filthy and unreliable so they are kept away. I also think we have more mfg (of all sorts) in the US than people realize.

 

[alxlwson]

Yeah, humans are filthy and unreliable so they are kept away. I also think we have more mfg (of all sorts) in the US than people realize.

Yup. I work in manufacturing as a field service technician for an overhead crane company. It's pretty crazy all the things we build and make here in the States.

 

[Sycraft]

Not sure ultimately who the recipients of the 5nm chips produced here will be, but the increased cost of operating in the US will be passed on to consumers.

Not much. A fab takes shitloads of high tech equipment, billions of dollars worth these days. Most of the labour is automated but what humans there are are very highly trained and thus well paid. You don't save a lot of money trying to cheap out and go somewhere low income. So ya it might cost a bit more than Taiwan, but a trivial amount. If you look at fabs, you see they are all over the world. Lots in the US, plenty in the EU, plenty in Asia, etc. It isn't a "oh this has all gone to China to be cheap" thing. In fact, China does very little chip fabrication.

 

[Aurelius]

As many will tell you, this is really about reducing the US' dependency on a handful of countries (mainly China, Taiwan, South Korea) for technology. It's also a reminder that the "let's bring jobs back to the US" fantasy is... well, a fantasy. Many if not most new factories that would come stateside would be like the TSMC plant, or Apple's Mac Pro facility: highly automated, with people generally there to make sure the robots keep running.

 

[FaRKle0079]

My understanding is that the process is highly automated and requires very little human labor.
In any fashion, due to the volume of parts, the increased labor costs shouldn't even be noticed on anything except a balance sheet.

The process itself yes, but the process control however... In addition, the production fabs (not development fabs) are primarily the ones who are focused on increasing yields and maturing processes, so there's significant headcount devoted to refinement. Then you have all of the people for facilities and routine maintenance of the equipment itself. Some of the equipment has to be opened and cleaned/serviced every week.

Here's an example of the work that goes on at production fabs. For one customer my company's product was PTOR (production tool of record) for one node, but the development fab decided that they'd give the same application on the next node to our competitor (politically motivated to prevent one vendor from getting "too much business"). They did the work and qual on the competitor's tool and released the results to the production fab. In parallel however, the production fab staff didn't agree with this strategy, since it would cost them more money to buy all new tools from our competitor instead of doing upgrades on our existing install base, and they used our tools there to refine the process for this application on the next node. They were able to match the development fab's results that were done on our competitor's equipment and convinced their executives that keeping us as PTOR was more cost effective for the next node.

Not much. A fab takes shitloads of high tech equipment, billions of dollars worth these days. Most of the labour is automated but what humans there are are very highly trained and thus well paid. You don't save a lot of money trying to cheap out and go somewhere low income. So ya it might cost a bit more than Taiwan, but a trivial amount. If you look at fabs, you see they are all over the world. Lots in the US, plenty in the EU, plenty in Asia, etc. It isn't a "oh this has all gone to China to be cheap" thing. In fact, China does very little chip fabrication.

China has significant fab capacity these days (specifically in memory), and more and more chips will be coming from them. All of the major equipment vendors are dedicating more resources and teams for this market. It's far from insignificant.

 

[Krenum]

Excellent! Bringing companies like this back to America!