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TSMC Announces Intention to Build and Operate Advanced Semiconductor Fab in U.S.

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Re: TSMC Announces Intention to Build and Operate Advanced Semiconductor Fab in U.S.

#301
post #257
post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Never mind the civil unrest, the entire world would bail out of China. That is not clear.. at all. Europe, Canada, Australia, New Zealand -- the non-US western allies -- have all known exactly what China's end goal is and have down jack diddly squat to put pressure on them. The only thing preventing China from taking out Taiwan is the United States. Europe and the rest of the world is too cowardly to even do anythi…

Russia took crimea without any issue. Do you really think anything will happen if china took taiwan by force? It's a matter of time before china takes taiwan.

Another aspect of Russia taking crimea is that the people living there to a large extent welcomed it.

There are some that are pro-unification in Taiwan, but it's a minority. Most people are pro status quo, and the number that are for declaring independence is growing. The ruling party is very pro-independence (ideologically speaking, in practice they have to move slowly and maintain status quo to some degree), meaning releasing their claim over mainland China, changing name from "Republic of China" or "China" to Taiwan, seeking UN membership etc.

The other big difference is that Taiwan is quite capable of defending itself to some extent. China will win eventually, but not without devastating the island. This will affect everyone economically. China and the world. If TSMCs factories in Taiwan are destroyed, it'd have an enormous impact on world economy. The production of high-tech electronics would be stunted for years. Russia annexing crimea had absolutely no practical effect on the world.

The fact is that everyone, China included, is relatively happy with the status quo. The CCP has to make a scene now and then to appease the fragile ego of a large portion of the mainland chinese. But I really don't think they actually care that much about invading Taiwan.

Re: TSMC Announces Intention to Build and Operate Advanced Semiconductor Fab in U.S.

#302
post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Never mind the civil unrest, the entire world would bail out of China. That is not clear.. at all. Europe, Canada, Australia, New Zealand -- the non-US western allies -- have all known exactly what China's end goal is and have down jack diddly squat to put pressure on them. The only thing preventing China from taking out Taiwan is the United States. Europe and the rest of the world is too cowardly to even do anythi…

It's definitely true for Europe being absolutely spineless when push comes to shove. The EU couldn't even put pressure on Erdogan let alone on Xi. China has been buying influence here for years, especially through the poorer countries that were alienated by the strict austerity measures imposed by the bigger powers. The nature of the EU politics where a single country has the power to veto the rest is a massive looph…

Is that being spineless or unorganized and powerless?

Re: TSMC Announces Intention to Build and Operate Advanced Semiconductor Fab in U.S.

#303
post #64

Actually, this is true. The big question is what's going on behind the scenes. China has been busy building up its own supply chain after the U.S. closed off shipments of any U.S.-based R&D to Huawei last summer. It also has made statements that Taiwan is part of China since then, which has left the U.S. without an advanced-node fab. Intel is at least a node behind both Samsung and TSMC, and the U.S. has no trusted f…

> More MACs equals more performance. What does the acronym MAC stand for please?

Multiply and Accumulate. It's the hardware equivalent of a dot product. [0]

Sometimes it's also called FMA, for Fused Multiply and Add.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiply%E2%80%93accumulate_op...

Re: TSMC Announces Intention to Build and Operate Advanced Semiconductor Fab in U.S.

#304

Important detail: This is not GIGAFAB facility. Only 20,000 wafers per month is between mini- and megafab for TSMC. I suspect the production goes to US defense applications. Pompeo tweeting about it seems to confirm it. https://twitter.com/SecPompeo/status/1261143980634509318 ? >Secretary Pompeo >@SecPompeo >The U.S. welcomes TSMC’s intention to invest $12B in the most advanced 5-nanometer semiconductor fabrication f…

Seems like the most of the discussion here totally missed that part - that would be no consumer grade chips and likely the prime client would be US military.

20k wafers (perhaps 450mm ones?) with unknown yield (likely 80ish) is quite low. For reference AMD 5700 has die area of ~250mm.

Re: TSMC Announces Intention to Build and Operate Advanced Semiconductor Fab in U.S.

#305
post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Never mind the civil unrest, the entire world would bail out of China. That is not clear.. at all. Europe, Canada, Australia, New Zealand -- the non-US western allies -- have all known exactly what China's end goal is and have down jack diddly squat to put pressure on them. The only thing preventing China from taking out Taiwan is the United States. Europe and the rest of the world is too cowardly to even do anythi…

Sad, but true about EU. Until EU forms an army of its own, that's how it's going to be. Thing is, I'm not sure that's doable with current intra-relationships.

For an effective joint army to happen, it would probably need to be in the interest of majority of the european states. Which it isn't - it is much better for them to stay neutral or part of NATO as is.

Re: TSMC Announces Intention to Build and Operate Advanced Semiconductor Fab in U.S.

#306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China marching into Taiwan would be a losing move. Never mind the civil unrest, the entire world would bail out of China. Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand + India would be even more alerted than they are right now with HK situation. The narrative in these countries is quickly evolving. CCP is over playing their hand by engaging in asymetrical trade.

China won't march into Taiwan until they can win a naval war with the US to keep the US from retaliating. And if China can do that, they won't have to march into Taiwan. 2050 Indo-pacific naval war is my prediction.

No country wants to start WWIII.

I don't think the PRC is in a position to finish off the ROC, and I don't think it would be in their interests, either.

But equally I don't think that the US want to intervene directly should the PRC take over Taiwan. This would be madness. The problem is thus to imagine how the US would manage to politically 'sell' their inaction. But at the same time, would the PRC dare to take the bet that the US wouldn't intervene?

Taiwan is not much different from Crimea on many aspects, but it is different in one key aspect: It's been given much more international prominence, mostly because it is a pawn to annoy the PRC. But the downside is that it makes non-intervention (which is the reasonable course of action, like in Crimea) more difficult to sell.

Then, should the PRC invade (which is unlikely) while I'm sure that the Taiwanese would put up a good fight they would lose anyway. There would be plenty of grand speeches and maybe sanctions, but the reality is that everyone would just be looking for the right time to recognise the situation and move on (that's what happened with the existence of the PRC itself, and I'm sure is what will happen with Crimea).

Re: TSMC Announces Intention to Build and Operate Advanced Semiconductor Fab in U.S.

#307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you care about the environment of course. Arizona is an unsustainable amount of air conditioning to fight against deadly temperatures.

Is Sweden using an unsustainable amount of heaters to fight against deadly winter temperatures? Air conditioning is much more efficient than a heater. Arizona will usually only get more than 15 degrees warmer than a comfortable indoor temperature. In places with cold winters, sometimes temperatures will get more than 25 degrees cooler than a comfortable indoor temperature.

>will get more than 25 degrees cooler than a comfortable indoor temperature.

Saying comfortable to be 22-24C, 25 is just barely below zero. North Europe standard winter conditions are far lower...

Re: TSMC Announces Intention to Build and Operate Advanced Semiconductor Fab in U.S.

#308
post #100

Someday 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…

Sound pointlessly nationalist. Because of all of my electronics being assembled in China, there have been millions of people that were pulled out of poverty.

Sounds pointlessly corporate.

Globalization has put millions of people in the West into poverty. Globalization is a scheme by corporations to get cheaper labor and have the whole world compete against each other while destroying a healthy societal coherence.

Re: TSMC Announces Intention to Build and Operate Advanced Semiconductor Fab in U.S.

#309
post #304

Important detail: This is not GIGAFAB facility. Only 20,000 wafers per month is between mini- and megafab for TSMC. I suspect the production goes to US defense applications. Pompeo tweeting about it seems to confirm it. https://twitter.com/SecPompeo/status/1261143980634509318 ? >Secretary Pompeo >@SecPompeo >The U.S. welcomes TSMC’s intention to invest $12B in the most advanced 5-nanometer semiconductor fabrication f…

Seems like the most of the discussion here totally missed that part - that would be no consumer grade chips and likely the prime client would be US military. 20k wafers (perhaps 450mm ones?) with unknown yield (likely 80ish) is quite low. For reference AMD 5700 has die area of ~250mm.

I don't see how that big investment for relative low volume production would make sense for consumer products.

If the fab is located inside the US, AMD and NVIDIA can bid for many US government contracts that would go for Intel. After GlobalFoundries quit the race, US defense contractors have only Intel as supplier for many components.

Re: TSMC Announces Intention to Build and Operate Advanced Semiconductor Fab in U.S.

#310
post #199
post #64

Actually, this is true. The big question is what's going on behind the scenes. China has been busy building up its own supply chain after the U.S. closed off shipments of any U.S.-based R&D to Huawei last summer. It also has made statements that Taiwan is part of China since then, which has left the U.S. without an advanced-node fab. Intel is at least a node behind both Samsung and TSMC, and the U.S. has no trusted f…

> [China] also has made statements that Taiwan is part of China since then. Since 1949, you mean?

The recency of such statements is relevant since it shows their position hasn't waned.
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