TSMC To Build Advanced Semiconductor Factory In Arizona (yahoo.com) 56
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Wall Street Journal: Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), the world's largest contract manufacturer of silicon chips, is set to announce plans to build an advanced chip factory in Arizona (Warning: source paywalled; alternative source) as U.S. concerns grow about dependence on Asia for the critical technology. The plans come as the Trump administration has sought to jump-start development of new chip factories in the U.S. due to rising fears about the U.S.'s heavy reliance on Taiwan, China and South Korea to produce microelectronics and other key technologies.
TSMC is expected to announce the plans as soon as Friday after making the decision at a board meeting on Tuesday in Taiwan, according to people familiar with the matter. The factory could be producing chips by the end of 2023 at the earliest, they said, adding that both the State and Commerce Departments are involved in the plans. TSMC's new plant would make chips branded as having 5-nanometer transistors, the tiniest, fastest and most power-efficient ones manufactured today, according to a person familiar with the plans. TSMC just started rolling out 5-nanometer chips for customers to test at a factory in Taiwan in recent months. It is unclear how much TSMC has budgeted or if it would get financial incentives from the U.S. to build. A factory capable of making the most advanced chips would almost certainly cost more than $10 billion, according to industry executives.
TSMC is expected to announce the plans as soon as Friday after making the decision at a board meeting on Tuesday in Taiwan, according to people familiar with the matter. The factory could be producing chips by the end of 2023 at the earliest, they said, adding that both the State and Commerce Departments are involved in the plans. TSMC's new plant would make chips branded as having 5-nanometer transistors, the tiniest, fastest and most power-efficient ones manufactured today, according to a person familiar with the plans. TSMC just started rolling out 5-nanometer chips for customers to test at a factory in Taiwan in recent months. It is unclear how much TSMC has budgeted or if it would get financial incentives from the U.S. to build. A factory capable of making the most advanced chips would almost certainly cost more than $10 billion, according to industry executives.
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It's unclear at this point how many beans our alleged administration will cough up to close the deal. TMSC has said that the cost disadvantage of a plant in the U.S. will be "difficult to overcome."
AZ is an odd choice (Score:2)
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Yeah, but they have lots of sand. :-D
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Yes, I know that it's really more of a clay soil in most places, complete with caliche that makes life particularly miserable when digging. But I couldn't resist making a desert joke.
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The upper Bidahochi Formation in Arizona has sand with a quartz content > 90% which is good for chips. Unfortunately for chips, it is also used in hydraulic fracking. The rest of the sand in Arizona won't work so well. They'd probably need to truck sand in from neighboring states...if the purity is high enough.
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Actually AZ has a good supply of semiconductor process engineers, which TSMC will need. Intel has major factories there, which also means the infrastructure for the semiconductor industry and supporting companies are there too.
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Very often I location is not a business decision. Very often i
It's also the kind of engineers (Score:2)
You mostly get young folk since it's too expensive to buy a house there though, but that's what a lot of companies want. I've sad this before but you need a couple of suspender wearers to watch a gaggle of kiddies. And the kiddies cost way less, even adjusting for the extra cost of working in CA.
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I know, right? It's a sociali...erm, progressive paradise!
You can tell because when you drive from Arizona into California the price of gas goes up by more than a full dollar. This impresses employees who want to have some month left over at the end of the money.
Arizona also abounds in cheap, carbon-free power from hydro and nuclear, which is what impresses the employers.
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You're talking about Southern California. Up near Silicon Valley the ocean is cold enough in summer to justify wearing a wet suit for thermal protection.
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doesn't matter, city water is processed into UPW no matter where the plants are located
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Making semis requires a lot of ultra pure water, not exactly something AZ has an abundance of.
The fabs purify the water themselves. They also do a lot of internal recycling.
"A lot" is relative. Compared to a home or normal business, fabs use a lot of water. Compared to Arizona's cotton farms, or golf courses, their use is negligible.
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Fantastic news (Score:1)
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Our allies may not want our chips. If they use an American chip in their router, then America can restrict who can buy their products.
Re: Fantastic news (Score:1)
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If they are our allies, the risk of being blacklisted is low compared to risk of reliance on Asian markets.
Why would Taiwan be an unreliable supplier? Where is the risk?
Meanwhile, American sanctions on Iran and Huawei are causing huge headaches for European companies.
Even if your company follows the rules, the compliance paperwork is onerous. One slip-up by an ambitious salesperson can lead to huge fines and even jail time.
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IIUC, Taiwan is claimed by China as it's own territory. That means it could be quite unreliable in the near future. China has been claiming more and more of the China Sea as their own...and positioning military assets there. Politics aren't exactly known for stable borders when there is tension and a power imbalance.
I have an idea (Score:5, Insightful)
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I wouldn't worry too much about Newegg. Since they went to hell I haven't bothered doing business with them and I think other people are starting to go the same way. Eventually a new c
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I miss the old Newegg.
Oldegg (Score:1)
s/New/Old/g
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I miss the old Newegg.
I miss Egghead Software.
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I still have an Egghead toolset somewhere.
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...and now it's a giant virtual funnel sending money out of the country and to China
My worthless dollars going to China in exchange for a hard drive that lies about SMR? Isn't that how commerce is supposed to work?
Jobs was right; those jobs are *never* coming back. You would have to build an entire parallel industry in the U.S. and then tax the living shit out of those companies that choose to buy their chips from non-US soil/owner/employees vendors. It could be done, even for the consumer space, but you'd have to approach it on the scale and ferocity of the Manhattan Project.
Economics & Greed vs. Fear (Score:1)
Give all of our tax dollars away (Score:1)
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If the deal is honest and adhered to, then you're right. Unfortunately, we've seen so many that weren't that we're extremely cynical. How long 'til AT&T builds out high speed internet to the rural areas? They've been paid to do it already. In fact, IIRC they've been paid twice.
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Just wait until people find out that Trump has been spending all his time and money to rebuild industries in the US, only to just catch up in making stuff that the rest of the world can already make. Basically Trump is turning the US into a developing country.
FoxCON 2.0 in the making? (Score:5, Insightful)
Is this another Foxconn? (Score:2)
Probably not (Score:2)
This is probably to get some clout in America so that we can be counted on to tell China to back the f* off.
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China is making moves on Taiwan (probably to distract from their shitty corona virus response with nationalism, but moves all the same).
But that doesn't mean the US is the only choice. Other choices are: Malaysia, Ireland, Israel, Singapore, Japan, Germany, Italy, etc.
How does this lessen "Asia dependance" (Score:2)
It is unclear how much TSMC has budgeted or if it would get financial incentives from the U.S. to build.
Curious, why $10B? (Score:2)
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What you ask for is not information easily known to the public, or even to someone who works in the industry (such as myself). But from my educated guess/estimates, the actual factory building is probably a few $100M. It's the equipment that is expensive. Many modern fabs have "billion dollar aisles", literally aisles of equipment that sum to >$1B and more than the factory itself. The most expensive tools are the lithography scanners; a single immersion scanner costs something like $30-$70M, and EUV scan
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TSMC might have real reasons to want a fab in the US. They are in a seismically active region, and there's always the chance that China might decide to take the region by force. They might want to hedge their bets.
However, I'd say there's an 80% chance that it's just more fluff to placate the current administration. This is a well-established pattern
Taiwan just took a big hit (Score:2)
Taiwan just got screwed.
Not only do they lose the indirect revenue from the jobs and supporting activities associated with this fab, they just lost a major pillar of their "silicon shield", the political and military protection they get by being a irreplaceable part of the global electronics supply chain.
I wonder what kind of arm twisting went on behind the scenes, to get TSMC to agree to this.
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I wonder what kind of arm twisting went on behind the scenes, to get TSMC to agree to this.
Wouldn't take much. The Taiwanese are 100% dependent on the U.S. to not be re-absorbed into One China.
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Yes, it'll be interesting to know how it's been made worth their while.