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TSMC looks to double down on U.S. chip factories as talks in Europe falter

reuters.com

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Re: TSMC looks to double down on U.S. chip factories as talks in Europe falter

#121

Post by giardini »

kragen wrote: post #93
jumelles wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the event of a full-blown war the United States could just take possession and control of all foreign-owned fabs in the US.

The PRC is a nuclear power. In the event of a full-blown war there will be no fabs in the US, foreign-owned or otherwise.

Do you really believe China has enough nukes to take out most of the USA's infrastructure? Fab facilities would be waaaay down the list of targets.

China's goal has been to maintain a nuclear deterrent (make it not worthwhile to strike China) rather than an offensive capability.

if nukes flew then China would likely fragment into many separate countries: its centralized command structure would be destroyed and local politics would be the rule. Look at China's history to see its future after a nuclear war:

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=china+how+many++kingdoms

Re: TSMC looks to double down on U.S. chip factories as talks in Europe falter

#122

Post by igorstellar »

scythe wrote: post #105
SCAQTony wrote: post #48

The USA is also willing to defend Taiwan and currently the US has carrier groups in the south China sea. This suggests that the idea of building chips in the US may be a diplomatic courtesy and arguably an incentive.

Our willingness to defend Taiwan doesn't mean a war wouldn't disrupt the supply chain. There's a reason the Soviet Union built factories in Novosibirsk, and it wasn't because they weren't willing to defend Leningrad.

They moved most factories from the west, not build initially. I am from other Siberian city known for moved factories from western cities during the war.

Re: TSMC looks to double down on U.S. chip factories as talks in Europe falter

#123

Post by blibble »

ericbarrett wrote: post #42
nerbert wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, that probably mixed with the idea that they should leave the space to local players (who will magically develop a cutting edge know-how?)

It's not hopeless for the EU—many of the necessary machines for any reasonably recent chip fab come from European companies, e.g. ASML.

buying a chisel doesn't make you a master sculptor

Re: TSMC looks to double down on U.S. chip factories as talks in Europe falter

#124

Post by myrandomcomment »

crocodiletears wrote: post #111
SCAQTony wrote: post #48

The USA is also willing to defend Taiwan and currently the US has carrier groups in the south China sea. This suggests that the idea of building chips in the US may be a diplomatic courtesy and arguably an incentive.

I would argue that by the time China comes to take Taiwan (when, not if), the US will be in a position where it is unwilling/able to expend the lives and funds required to provide a prolonged defense of a piece of land firmly in China's front yard. Personally, I think we're at the point where the US would consider the costs of Taiwan's defense well beyond any potential benefits. It's too economically integrated with…

The USA must defend Taiwan even at the risk of nuclear war. The dollars position in the world allows the USA to run its current accounting. Allowing China to take Taiwan destroys the economy and the position of the USA in the world. That being said I feel that Taiwan is a vibrant democracy that is worth defending, and yes I did my time as a solider and understand the horrors of it.

Re: TSMC looks to double down on U.S. chip factories as talks in Europe falter

#125

Post by systemvoltage »

crocodiletears wrote: post #111
SCAQTony wrote: post #48

The USA is also willing to defend Taiwan and currently the US has carrier groups in the south China sea. This suggests that the idea of building chips in the US may be a diplomatic courtesy and arguably an incentive.

I would argue that by the time China comes to take Taiwan (when, not if), the US will be in a position where it is unwilling/able to expend the lives and funds required to provide a prolonged defense of a piece of land firmly in China's front yard. Personally, I think we're at the point where the US would consider the costs of Taiwan's defense well beyond any potential benefits. It's too economically integrated with…

Our memory is fading. Just 5-6 years ago, Intel fabs had the best process technology and TSMC was behind. No one could have guessed what the state of the world would be in 2021 with any significant certainty. Who knows what would happen in another 5 years? We are so myopic when it comes to the bias towards the status quo. We give more weight to what the current situation is and then extrapolate that the future will be exactly the same. We are bad at projecting the future.

Is it worth a war that can last many years? By the end of the war, what if US doesn’t need TSMC technology and the tides are reversed?

I’m not conjecturing, I’m shedding light on how much we are willing to risk now vs a few years later. It could also be that Intel fabs fall further behind and TSMC becomes 10x more important than now. Who knows!!!

Instead of war, invest in domestic technology. It pays back better.

Re: TSMC looks to double down on U.S. chip factories as talks in Europe falter

#126

Post by rsj_hn »

irrational wrote: post #72
mediaman wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interestingly this came as a loss to Washington, where there is already a significant fab owned by TSMC called WaferTech. Their facility is on the WA side of the Portland suburbs. Many felt WA was in the running because of the talent already there. This caused concerns that the future of the WaferTech fab facility is dimmer than before, since it probably makes less sense to pump billions more into it in the future.

I would think the western suburbs of Portland would be more attractive. Intel has 5 huge fabrication plants in the Aloha/Hillsboro area. That is a large talent base to hire for the plant.

From the article, Taiwan's estimation of the U.S. talent base is rather low:

'"TSMC chairman and founder Morris Chang warned last month of higher operating costs and a thin talent pool for the U.S. plans in a rare public speech attended by Wei and chairman Mark Liu.

"In the United States, the level of professional dedication is no match to that in Taiwan, at least for engineers," Chang said. He warned that "short-term subsidy can't make up for long-term operational disadvantage."'

The body of the article also casts doubt on the total amount of U.S. investment, unlike the headline.

Re: TSMC looks to double down on U.S. chip factories as talks in Europe falter

#127

Post by rapsey »

myrandomcomment wrote: post #124
crocodiletears wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue that by the time China comes to take Taiwan (when, not if), the US will be in a position where it is unwilling/able to expend the lives and funds required to provide a prolonged defense of a piece of land firmly in China's front yard. Personally, I think we're at the point where the US would consider the costs of Taiwan's defense well beyond any potential benefits. It's too economically integrated with…

The USA must defend Taiwan even at the risk of nuclear war. The dollars position in the world allows the USA to run its current accounting. Allowing China to take Taiwan destroys the economy and the position of the USA in the world. That being said I feel that Taiwan is a vibrant democracy that is worth defending, and yes I did my time as a solider and understand the horrors of it.

The US defence of Taiwan is unfortunately just posturing. Should China commit to taking Taiwan they will do it. US military simulations have confirmed this again and again. Chinese military capability is strong enough to overwhelm the US Taiwan forces.

Re: TSMC looks to double down on U.S. chip factories as talks in Europe falter

#128

Post by epistasis »

neonological wrote: post #26
epistasis wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really like the euphemism of "business friendly" when it means "companies don't have to pay for their externalities." California is extremely entrepreneur-friendly, and have absolutely massive amounts of business compare to Arizona or Texas. The externalities are not minor either, there are 23 superfund sites in Santa Clara county from Silicon Valley's early years, where they did not bother to properly dispos…

>California is extremely entrepreneur-friendly, and have absolutely massive amounts of business compare to Arizona or Texas. I don't know if you've been following the news lately of a bunch of companies moving OUT of California to Texas. One of these people is Elon Musk. And guess what? I have a source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ez90rXhMWjE I'm not saying California is wrong. Far from it. They're right. These l…

The idea that California could become an economic wasteland is absolutely preposterous. It does have its problems: costs are high and there's extreme inequality (because of the nation's worst land taxation and land use policies combined, read your Henry George folks).

But these problems are because of its extreme prosperity and economic potential, not because there is any risk of that economic powerhouse stopping.

The news reports are anecdotal, Musk is keeping California business but expanding production throughout the country, just as Tesla was before.

Companies that are leaving are those that are less innovative and have fallen from the top of the value chain. They can no longer benefit from the extremely productive environment, but can scrape by with lower costs, such as Oracle.

There's no need to sacrifice California's environment to continue to be an absolutely massive economic powerhouse. But we may need to sacrifice some of our bad ideas about land.

Re: TSMC looks to double down on U.S. chip factories as talks in Europe falter

#129

Post by jjcon »

crocodiletears wrote: post #111
SCAQTony wrote: post #48

The USA is also willing to defend Taiwan and currently the US has carrier groups in the south China sea. This suggests that the idea of building chips in the US may be a diplomatic courtesy and arguably an incentive.

I would argue that by the time China comes to take Taiwan (when, not if), the US will be in a position where it is unwilling/able to expend the lives and funds required to provide a prolonged defense of a piece of land firmly in China's front yard. Personally, I think we're at the point where the US would consider the costs of Taiwan's defense well beyond any potential benefits. It's too economically integrated with…

I kinda see it the exact opposite way, I don’t think China would ever dare risk a full out war which would essentially be them vs the world. Taiwan is extremely valuable but not valuable enough to risk complete devastation of their economy if not by war then by international trade.

The US is routinely running freedom of navigation exercises in the south china sea between taiwan and china and has said as recently as last month that its commitment to defend taiwan is, “rock solid”.

This is all not to mention that taiwan itself would not be all that easy to overthrow, the large majority of people there have unfavorable views of china (and conversely the majority support closer political ties to the US and other free democracies which they have and continue to build).

Re: TSMC looks to double down on U.S. chip factories as talks in Europe falter

#130

Post by totalZero »

crocodiletears wrote: post #111
SCAQTony wrote: post #48

The USA is also willing to defend Taiwan and currently the US has carrier groups in the south China sea. This suggests that the idea of building chips in the US may be a diplomatic courtesy and arguably an incentive.

I would argue that by the time China comes to take Taiwan (when, not if), the US will be in a position where it is unwilling/able to expend the lives and funds required to provide a prolonged defense of a piece of land firmly in China's front yard. Personally, I think we're at the point where the US would consider the costs of Taiwan's defense well beyond any potential benefits. It's too economically integrated with…

More importantly, if China were to destroy the fabs in the night and withdraw quickly, the US would have no economic incentive to retaliate. We always treat Taiwan as a tug of war for control of the fabs, but such a fait accompli would totally change the dynamics of the situation.

This may not be likely today, but China has been forced to develop its chip industry in parallel for a long time, and they admit as much if you watch their state-sponsored english-language semiconductor media commentary on YouTube. Eventually they will not need Taiwan nearly as much as America does.

The only way to sidestep that problem is for the US to do the same as Taiwan: use government power and resources to establish a competitive semiconductor hub in the Americas.

Funnily enough, South Korea has done the same in all practical senses. Samsung makes up more of South Korea's GDP in percentage terms than TSMC's share of Taiwan’s GDP. Samsung's trade policy interests are essentially South Korea's trade policy interests.

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