Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

TSMC head says drive to onshore chip supply chain is 'unrealistic'

asia.nikkei.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 221 posts

Re: TSMC head says drive to onshore chip supply chain is 'unrealistic'

#21

Post by alooPotato »

SkyMarshal wrote: post #19
alooPotato wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing I'm curious about is how you define "critical manufacturing"? Manufacturing seems like a directed graph where each node is a product or material and the edges are dependencies or inputs to that product. So if you want to onshore manufacturing of a particular product, you need to also onshore all of its dependencies. My contention is that the graph is so densely connected that you end up having to bring enti…

Not necessarily, if you find a way to restrict supply chains to allied nations only that you don’t have risk of war with.

so cut out china? now bring onshore everything to allied countries.... still seems like a large portion of the graph..

Re: TSMC head says drive to onshore chip supply chain is 'unrealistic'

#22

Post by hwillis »

gnulinux wrote: post #6

Well, of course, TSMC doesn't want chip supplies to be onshored. It's everyone other than TSMC and Taiwan willing to do so. West wants to have reliable access to chips without potential war with China. In addition to geopolitics, wouldn't overproduction of chips be beneficial to consumers in the form of cheaper chips and greater variety?

greater variety is not a thing that would happen (and incidentally, as an electrical engineer, there's plenty of variety already). The hardware used in semiconductor foundries is all made by the same few companies, which is a major reason everyone gets similar advances at the same time- they're all working with the same tools.

The vast majority of variety in product lines comes from who is ordering the chips, not the foundries where they are made. Adding more foundries will not introduce any more different chips, just chips that have subtly different performance or reliability, which is already a nightmare engineers deal with continuously.

China sells the cheapest chips, and companies only buy the cheapest chips. Making more foundries in the EU and Europe will not change that fact. China will have the huge majority of demand. If anything, a reduction in demand will give more power to counterfeiters and raise the floor price you have to pay to avoid them. It won't really impact prices at all (counterfeit chips are almost nonexistent for anything costing more than a couple cents) but it will make life significantly more irritating for people like me.

Re: TSMC head says drive to onshore chip supply chain is 'unrealistic'

#23

Post by alooPotato »

rgrieselhuber wrote: post #16
alooPotato wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing I'm curious about is how you define "critical manufacturing"? Manufacturing seems like a directed graph where each node is a product or material and the edges are dependencies or inputs to that product. So if you want to onshore manufacturing of a particular product, you need to also onshore all of its dependencies. My contention is that the graph is so densely connected that you end up having to bring enti…

For countries that want to maintain a high degree of sovereignty and have the resources to do so, it’s probably the way to go. 100% is impossible of course but directionally the smart move.

I think what I'm getting at is that unless you do 100% of the graph (at least with your allies) you're eventually going to be dependent on an adversary. Like you might not solve anything by bringing chips onshore if your only supply of silicon for those chips is offshore. So you're just pushing the problem down the stack...

Re: TSMC head says drive to onshore chip supply chain is 'unrealistic'

#24

Post by alooPotato »

sigstoat wrote: post #14
alooPotato wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing I'm curious about is how you define "critical manufacturing"? Manufacturing seems like a directed graph where each node is a product or material and the edges are dependencies or inputs to that product. So if you want to onshore manufacturing of a particular product, you need to also onshore all of its dependencies. My contention is that the graph is so densely connected that you end up having to bring enti…

> this effectively means every country needs to manufacture everything. depending on your exact goals, it could be worthwhile to bring a little bit of every node on the graph onshore. you retain critical experience, and have at least some hope of ramping up. getting a bunch of functioning, complicated businesses to expand is way easier than creating them from scratch.

oh that's interesting. You maintain a skeleton crew of an industry as a hedge in case you need to ramp it up....

Re: TSMC head says drive to onshore chip supply chain is 'unrealistic'

#25

Post by jaywalk »

flyinglizard wrote: post #11
pphysch wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an oft-repeated meme that doesn't align with the historical facts. TSMC is a distant secondary factor in the geopolitical competition over Taiwan, which is a continuation of the Chinese civil war that started in 1927 and has never officially ended. If TSMC didn't exist, or was located in e.g. Vietnam, Taiwan would still be a vital strategic asset in Washington's stated policy to contain Communist China (as pa…

Vague geopolitical considerations are very secondary and policy dependent compared to the real and abrupt chaos which will ensue if TSMC is taken out.

This is exactly correct. If China took out TSMC, we would have an unimaginable global catastrophe on our hands that would make Covid look like nothing. There are far too many eggs in that basket.

Re: TSMC head says drive to onshore chip supply chain is 'unrealistic'

#26

Post by peppertree »

gnulinux wrote: post #6

Well, of course, TSMC doesn't want chip supplies to be onshored. It's everyone other than TSMC and Taiwan willing to do so. West wants to have reliable access to chips without potential war with China. In addition to geopolitics, wouldn't overproduction of chips be beneficial to consumers in the form of cheaper chips and greater variety?

If you wait on TSMC it would never happen. I'm bullish on Intel to pull this off. Intel has the expertise, the right CEO to execute, the government support, and most importantly the drive for survival.

Re: TSMC head says drive to onshore chip supply chain is 'unrealistic'

#27

Post by dragontamer »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #18
topspin wrote: post #12

At some point in the next 10 years Taiwan will be surrounded by half a dozen Chinese aircraft carriers[1]. The rest of the world knows that continuing to rely so heavily on Taiwan for crucial components is not viable. [1] https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/09/china/china-aircraft-carrier-...

> Taiwan will be surrounded by half a dozen Chinese aircraft carriers Every time U.S. aircraft carriers enter a discussion, the reams of developments in anti-ship missile and swarming tactics with aerial or maritime drones (or fast boats) comes up.

That's because China can launch anti-ship missiles from any Chinese highway to threaten US Carriers.

In contrast, the weapon-platforms of Taiwan / US Navy are simply more constrained. Sure, US Destroyers / Cruisers are good missile platforms and US Aircraft Carriers / F35 fighters are also good delivery mechanisms for anti-ship missiles...

But China has the advantage of land-based missiles, land-based air force, AND sea-based naval forces to triple-team up against the US Navy.

-------

Chinese Carriers hanging around the Straight of Taiwan and hugging their coastline (under protective cover of Chinese missile-forces / Chinese air-forces) is the expectation.

We're not concerned about Chinese Carriers trying to say, attack Hawaii (which would be the opposite situation: US Air Force supporting US Navy in defense). The near-term threat is the gross geographical advantages of the China-Taiwan fight.

There's a mild expectation that if a Chinese / Taiwan fight were to occur, US Marines might be forced to make landings in the Chinese mainland to destroy Chinese land-based missile forces and even the odds.

Re: TSMC head says drive to onshore chip supply chain is 'unrealistic'

#28

Post by bombcar »

ltbarcly3 wrote: post #4
bombcar wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And he's saying it wouldn't be "profitable" because they'd have overcapacity. But countries wanting to bring it in-house may not care about that, or be willing to pay for that. Ignoring shortages, Russia would be much happier right now to be oversupplied with the chips they need than having to get them through China. And lots of other countries are now re-evaluating what risks may be inherent in their supply chains.

So TMSC would also stop being profitable by that logic I think, unless there is some structural advantage they have?

That's likely why they're trying to dissuade people from doing it; also if you DO bring something in-house you're likely to bring in the highest margin chips, which of course affects TMSC's bottom line.

Re: TSMC head says drive to onshore chip supply chain is 'unrealistic'

#29

Post by jmoak3 »

outside1234 wrote: post #5

After the German debacle over having to kowtow to Russia to receive oil and gas and essentially in doing so fund the killing of Ukrainians, everyone has to be rethinking who they are reliant on and making sure they are strategically diverse. China is the obvious example of this where we need to break out the supply chain across more countries. I fully expect this to happen through a combination of corporations and co…

Apple is also attempting to mobilize Indian workers before China's working population declines enough to be noticeable. The cost of business in China (regardless of international policy) is guaranteed to rise as the number of available hands decreases from mass aging.
Post reply on HN