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TSMC’s Arizona Culture Clash

eetimes.com

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Re: TSMC’s Arizona Culture Clash

#231

Post by mywittyname »

jmpman wrote: post #187

I’ve known many Intel process engineers who’ve worked 80 hour weeks for years on end. This 48 hour TSMC demand would be a relief. Unfortunately, while TSMC moved to AZ, the moved to the other side of Phoenix from the existing Fabs. An Intel engineer isn’t going to just wake up one day and decide to change jobs to TSMC. They’re an hour and a half away from each other during the morning commute. So now, the engineer ne…

I feel like your post is incongruent. Intel engineers wouldn't be willing to endure a 10-14 hour longer commute to save 32 hours of working time?

Moving an hour down the road isn't a big deal. I've done so many times. You don't even need special moving companies and looking at houses isn't a huge deal if you batch them up.

Re: TSMC’s Arizona Culture Clash

#232

Post by gwright »

everybodyknows wrote: post #218
CivBase wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where do those profits go? Presumably TSMC doesn't just sit on it. Surely they either invest it back into their business to stay competitive or deal it out as compensation.

Current yield to shareholders in the form of dividends is 1.5% -- below inflation.

I don't think that dividends are typically coupled to inflation. The return on an investment (at least via stock ownership) includes dividends + asset appreciation, right? I would expect the combination to be related to inflation but not necessarily dividends alone. Is that the right way to think about it? I'm not a finance guy.

Re: TSMC’s Arizona Culture Clash

#233

Post by shkkmo »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #227
wheels wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> [...] we moved because it cost less with no labor or environmental protections and we could work the shit out of people. TSMC was never in North America, it was always a Taiwanese company. It's literally an Asian company moving production to the US. Taiwan isn't some rando poor Asian country; it's a rich democracy. The work culture is no doubt different (as it is, say, in Japan or South Korea), but to pretend that…

> TSMC was never in North America, it was always a Taiwanese company. This isn't about a particular company, it's an industry-wide trend. Semiconductor manufacturing was predominantly in the US, then it wasn't. > The work culture is no doubt different (as it is, say, in Japan or South Korea), but to pretend that it has no labor or environmental laws is somewhere between racist and naive. This is actually the root of…

The article is about a specific company. People are commenting with generalizations that don't apply to TSMC and so it is rather unclear how these comments are on topic. The comments also don't acknowledge that they don't apply to the specific context of the article which makes them misleading and in need of correction.

Re: TSMC’s Arizona Culture Clash

#234

Post by grogenaut »

asiachick wrote: post #221
Tostino wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't read that comment in relation to TSMC, but as a rebuttal to the GP's assertion that it was "people" who drove US production over seas over the past 40 years.

it was people who drove US production over seas. Consumers were always free to choose locally made products. They didn't, they chose cheap.

In this specific situation that's glossing things over as well. I would have chosen locally made except intel completely stalled their progress for years. In my recent upgrade I went with a TSMC (I believe) made AMD chip because it had better access to SSDs and PCI bus and cores that I couldn't get in an intel chip AND better prices. It's hard to buy local if local companies in fast evolving products are going to sit on their laurels.

Re: TSMC’s Arizona Culture Clash

#235

Post by dehrmann »

MangoCoffee wrote: post #74
dehrmann wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know about 996, right?

this is not 996. its common in the semis industry even in the US. when i was younger i used to work in a Motorola fab at Austin, TX. you work couple days in a week like 3 days and overnight into the morning then for the rest of week you are off. this got nothing to do with 996 or whatever. its the norm in the semis industry.

My comment was in response to "12 hour days. Sounds pretty dystopian." Maybe it's dystopian, but a worse version has been standard practice in China for a while.

Re: TSMC’s Arizona Culture Clash

#236

Post by s1artibartfast »

simonh wrote: post #113
bob1029 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many moons ago I used to work inside a samsung fab. At no point was I ever feeling a sense of outrage regarding having a literal 80s-style pager strapped to my body 24/7/365. A big part of why this didnt bother me was the scale/impact of what I was doing - I was responsible for the primary business interface used across the entire factory floor. Once you see a modern fab with your own eyes, it will change you in a de…

It does sound like an outlier in terms of demand, but to back up your point, there are many industries in which there is critical infrastructure and activities going on potentially 24x7 most of not all weeks. I support financial applications that could be considered critical infrastructure for the country. To the point where the government has set up special regulatory procedures to ensure it’s managed properly. We m…

The more common solution in these industries is 3 x 12 hour days per week, not 70 hour weeks. Does it state which model TSMC is using

Re: TSMC’s Arizona Culture Clash

#237

Post by hourislate »

American Factory.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9351980/

>In post-industrial Ohio, a Chinese billionaire opens a factory in an abandoned General Motors plant, hiring two thousand Americans. Early days of hope and optimism give way to setbacks as high-tech China clashes with working-class America.

Re: TSMC’s Arizona Culture Clash

#238

Post by heleninboodler »

necovek wrote: post #65
heleninboodler wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, if you know this first-hand, then I concede to your knowledge, but the article does say the system has only had some "slight improvements" since 1987. I can easily see dismissing someone griping just because the UI is "old", but if they have feedback about how the system of communicating critical data across shifts can be automated so it doesn't take three hours, I'd be all ears. I wouldn't advocate doing awa…

Having critical information relayed in text form is a sure way to make the next person read it, right. There is a benefit to both: if they can be expressed in a system quickly (someone needs to carefully put it in, and someone needs to attentively read it), they can be expressed in a meeting quickly too. In practice, if it takes a 3h face-to-face handoff, it'd probably be 4h for each side to do it properly in a textu…

> Bring it up with your manager and they should push for it if it makes sense.

Wholly agreed, but the word "should" is dual-meaning there. The implication I get from the article is that even if management "should" listen to this feedback and push for change, it doesn't necessarily do that, given the track record of overworking people and having little change in the software since the beginning of the company. It's a little easier to believe they top-down ordered the worker bees to shut up and be happy with the tools than it is to believe they nailed the best UX for 2021 chip-building in 1987...

Sure, sure, sure: they are massively successful and that must mean there are zero improvements they can make to their processes, as the ancestor comment implies. Or maybe, just maybe, they could continue working on efficiency and do even better.

Re: TSMC’s Arizona Culture Clash

#239

Post by webmaven »

DavidPeiffer wrote: post #154
bob1029 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many moons ago I used to work inside a samsung fab. At no point was I ever feeling a sense of outrage regarding having a literal 80s-style pager strapped to my body 24/7/365. A big part of why this didnt bother me was the scale/impact of what I was doing - I was responsible for the primary business interface used across the entire factory floor. Once you see a modern fab with your own eyes, it will change you in a de…

>Once you see a modern fab with your own eyes, it will change you in a deep way. I felt a sense of compassion for this incredibly complex and valuable thing that humanity is just barely able to scrape together. Nothing you see in media can prepare you for the real thing. I interned at Micron as an industrial engineer looking at capacity and equipment purchases. I can very much relate to that. The whole summer was my…

> As far as I'm concerned, it's black magic and truly an incredible achievement for humanity.

Fabs seem to be the far edge of tools-to-make-the-tools dependency stack, with some of the necessary sorcerous gadgets (like EUV lithography) themselves only having a single supplier with the necessary secret incantations on the other side of the planet.

Does the knowledge even exist to bootstrap things back up again should the present infrastructure and supply chains be sufficiently disrupted?

I've long admired David J. Gingery's 'Build Your Own Metal Working Shop from Scrap' and wondered whether anything like it is even possible for integrated circuits.

Re: TSMC’s Arizona Culture Clash

#240

Post by sudosysgen »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #236
simonh wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does sound like an outlier in terms of demand, but to back up your point, there are many industries in which there is critical infrastructure and activities going on potentially 24x7 most of not all weeks. I support financial applications that could be considered critical infrastructure for the country. To the point where the government has set up special regulatory procedures to ensure it’s managed properly. We m…

The more common solution in these industries is 3 x 12 hour days per week, not 70 hour weeks. Does it state which model TSMC is using

According to the article in Taiwan 5x12 and even 6x12 or worse is considered expected.
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