This is really good news! There are also supply chain opsec implications, esp. given the ... complicated relationship between Taiwan and the PRC.
TSMC Announces Intention to Build and Operate Advanced Semiconductor Fab in U.S.
141–150 of 438 posts
Re: TSMC Announces Intention to Build and Operate Advanced Semiconductor Fab in U.S.
#142Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fabs aren't really a realm of competition with China. Leading fabs are in Germany (GlobalFoundaries in Dresden), Taiwan (TSMC's primary fabs), South Korea (Samsung) and even the US (GlobalFoundaries) and Singapore (GlobalFoundaries).
Having worked in the semiconductor industry, manufacturing specifically, I can attest that this is a false statement - US technology in semiconductor manufacturing is not simply from running the fabs, but building fabrication equiment that fabs purchase to process and package wafers. The US (Teredyn, Applied Materials, Entegris, KLA Tencor, Lam Research), Netherlands (ASML) and Japan (Daifuku, Hitachi, TEL, Advantest…
Is there a document (or a book) somewhere that details who all these semiconductor equipment manufacturers are, and their history? I'm extremely interested in this space and would love to learn more about it.
Re: TSMC Announces Intention to Build and Operate Advanced Semiconductor Fab in U.S.
#143What is the environmental footprint of a typical fab? From what I understand, modern chips are free of conflict materials, but are there toxic byproducts which would cause trouble with the EPA?
While still an issue, many of the really bad offenders leaked chemicals for instance doesn't happen much anymore. Mostly because fab materials are expensive to get and purify. Simply dumping them is wasteful, so anything that can be salvaged and used on the next batch is big savings.
... https://blogs.intel.com/csr/files/2019/11/Circularity-at-Int...
Re: TSMC Announces Intention to Build and Operate Advanced Semiconductor Fab in U.S.
#144> This facility, which will be built in Arizona, will utilize TSMC’s 5-nanometer technology for semiconductor wafer fabrication
Wow Intel can't even get 10 nm working. Big win for Apple and AMD tho.
Re: TSMC Announces Intention to Build and Operate Advanced Semiconductor Fab in U.S.
#145Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's in TSMC's best interest is the long-term independence and stability of Taiwan. Taking away a strong source of motivation for an administration that's already shown itself to lean toward "stay out of other countries; America First!" as its official foreign policy stance to keep it independent and stable is so short-sighted that it's practically insane.
Respectfully, I think you're reading this wrong. Long-term independence and stability of Taiwan is a political goal, not necessarily a corporate one. The political-corporate relationship in Taiwan is definitely different (or of a different flavor) than that in the USA right now, which makes this harder to parse for specific corporate objectives. In the aggregate, this could signal a willingness of the government in T…
I appreciate the good-natured disagreement!
Long-term independence and stability of Taiwan is necessary for TSMC to keep existing. It's in its best interest to keep existing.
I'm pretty sure the government doesn't need to approve of this sort of thing; VIA got away with it.
Further entangling itself with the US would be keeping itself for the most part in Taiwan. "We have drastically better tech than you, and your military, intelligence agencies & universities really desperately need these!" is a fantastic incentive. "Here's a factory that allows the US to be pretty much self-sufficient and no longer dependent on us for the next few years while you haphazardly try and get on top of the world again" is not nearly as good of an incentive.
Taiwan gets invaded yesterday, suddenly the US is in a sticky situation. Taiwan gets invaded when this factory is finished? 5nm vs 2-3nm isn't a huge difference.
Re: TSMC Announces Intention to Build and Operate Advanced Semiconductor Fab in U.S.
#146What is the environmental footprint of a typical fab? From what I understand, modern chips are free of conflict materials, but are there toxic byproducts which would cause trouble with the EPA?
A memorable description of one chemical used in fabs:
[Chlorine trifluoride] is apparently about the most vigorous fluorinating agent known, and is much more difficult to handle than fluorine gas. That’s one of those statements you don’t get to hear very often, and it should be enough to make any sensible chemist turn around smartly and head down the hall in the other direction.
The compound also a stronger oxidizing agent than oxygen itself, which also puts it into rare territory. That means that it can potentially go on to “burn” things that you would normally consider already burnt to hell and gone, and a practical consequence of that is that it’ll start roaring reactions with things like bricks and asbestos tile. It’s been used in the semiconductor industry to clean oxides off of surfaces, at which activity it no doubt excels.
https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2008/02/26/sa...
Read on to find out what happened when somebody accidentally spilled 1 ton of the stuff!
Re: TSMC Announces Intention to Build and Operate Advanced Semiconductor Fab in U.S.
#147Someday I would really love to buy an iPhone that says "designed and built by Apple in California" Stuff like this is just one step closer to that. I would happily pay a premium for it. Excellent news. And to all of you currently looking at your rent in SF and wondering if you should stay there now that you can work remote: AZ is a pretty awesome place, and more and more it's looking like it actually could become a h…
Unless you care about the environment of course. Arizona is an unsustainable amount of air conditioning to fight against deadly temperatures.
Re: TSMC Announces Intention to Build and Operate Advanced Semiconductor Fab in U.S.
#148Someday I would really love to buy an iPhone that says "designed and built by Apple in California" Stuff like this is just one step closer to that. I would happily pay a premium for it. Excellent news. And to all of you currently looking at your rent in SF and wondering if you should stay there now that you can work remote: AZ is a pretty awesome place, and more and more it's looking like it actually could become a h…
Unless you care about the environment of course. Arizona is an unsustainable amount of air conditioning to fight against deadly temperatures.
That is the case now, but this does not have to be true. It's entirely possible for Arizona to meet its household energy needs renewably.
Re: TSMC Announces Intention to Build and Operate Advanced Semiconductor Fab in U.S.
#149Re: TSMC Announces Intention to Build and Operate Advanced Semiconductor Fab in U.S.
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
This does not make sense. TSMC is from Taiwan, which is to all practical extent independent from China, politically and economically.
Politically yes, Taiwan is de facto independent, but economically they are deeply intertwined; although they have their own currency, stock exchange etc., a lot of major companies operating in China are under Taiwanese ownership (Foxconn and Pegatron for example) and the commerce between China and Taiwan is significant; China is Taiwan's largest trading partner at 30% of Taiwan's total trade.
Every country on earth is deeply intertwined with China from an economic perspective. Especially the US.