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

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

#131

Post by alooPotato »

kansface wrote: post #60
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…

Some manufacturing can presumably be spun up with not too much effort if you have other heavy industry around and access to raw materials. Chip fabs require way more than retooling a line. We could quantify the problem as the amount of time it would take to bootstrap a domestic industry if the current suppliers turned off the spigot.

Ahh this makes a lot of sense. So you rank each node in the graph by how many other nodes depend on it PLUS how hard it'd be to spin up that industry if we need to - then tackle the high value ones

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

#132

Post by alooPotato »

samus wrote: post #35
alooPotato wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Silicon is one of the most common minerals on Earth. Rare metals are a different story.

ok that was a bad example but the point still stands

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

#133

Post by btgeekboy »

inetknght wrote: post #69
btgeekboy wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I do agree that e-waste is a real problem, it’s not like we can just sit with old tech and say “nah, that’s good enough.” We need both more and better fabs, and better waste handling / recycling.

> it’s not like we can just sit with old tech and say “nah, that’s good enough.” But, why not?

Remember when someone famously said 640kb of memory ought to be enough for anybody?

Imagine if video games' audio/video just stopped improving past the SNES. Imagine if we decided that 56k dialup was good enough. Imagine if we stopped improving cell phone cameras past the iPhone 3G. These things seem pretty low quality now because we've incrementally built so many better things in the interim. The unleaded gasoline of today is going to be as absurd as the leaded gasoline of yesterday within many our lifetimes. But we can't make big leaps without the interim nudges forward - the N64, the DOCSIS cable modem, modern phone cameras, hybrid vehicles. To do those, we need better microchips.

We also need more of them. Just because the richest areas of the world have theirs doesn't mean the less-well-off areas need to be shut out because they didn't get in on time.

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

#134

Post by erdos4d »

Honest question, what would be the outcome in terms of chip manufacturing ability if China didn't invade Taiwan, but just decided to level the whole island with an eye towards repopulating later with Chinese nationals? Have Chinese fabs come along enough to allow them to just destroy Taiwan instead of mounting a costly invasion?

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

#135

Post by dragontamer »

bilbo0s wrote: post #126
dragontamer wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since TSMC reached 7nm and 5nm first (and it will be years before Intel reaches parity with 5nm technology, and TSMC is expected to reach 3nm by that point...), its obvious for us to be focused on what TSMC/Taiwan is doing that we in the USA aren't. TSMC seems to have achieved a sizable technological lead over Intel, that will perpetuate for the next few years or even decade.

Bet against the US if you like, but it's a losing bet. Onshoring will happen. In the US. In China. in the EU. And likely in Russia too. This has become a national security issue, and at least in the US, we are resolved to make it happen.

Taiwan / TSMC are allies. The solution is rather simple: convince them to build a lab in Arizona. Lo and behold: TSMC is building a lab in Arizona.

The debate is largely over. We're just dealing with the details / qualms right now. Culture clashes as Taiwanese business managers are learning that US workers have a different culture than they expected (and vice versa).

Taiwan / TSMC doesn't like it, but they probably recognize it as necessary. We USA folk have to be reminded though that this technology belongs to another country, we're merely "hosting" them.

-------

There's also some other knock on effects: Japan is asking TSMC to build a factory within Japan (after all, if USA gets a fab, shouldn't Japan deserve one?). TSMC likely doesn't want to spread itself too thinly around the world.

This overall discussion isn't about one-or-two key / emergency factories being built around the world. That has already happened.

The overall discussion is "how much" should TSMC spread itself around the world and build redundant supply chains?

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

#136

Post by rdtwo »

iooi wrote: post #66
tomatowurst wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt this. you'd need to continue having a thriving economy, not only that for an aircraft carrier group to be effective you'd need quality fighter jets that can take off with equal or more payload than the US (which does not use a ski ramp for this reason) and compete with it's 5th or 6th generation planes. In addition you would need adequate defense fleet, especially submarines quiet enough and capable of detect…

You're assuming that the US would go to war with China over Taiwan. That's not a given -- by a long shot. > and start a Russian style sanction Unlike the Russian sanctions, a broad sanction on the Chinese economy would deeply impact the US economy. It's not a viable strategy.

Yeah Russia sanctions mostly just affect Europe

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

#137

Post by dahdum »

dragontamer wrote: post #79
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> sounds remarkably unlikely and irrational. If China touched the US mainland it would mean immediate full-scale war, the opposite should be assumed. Agree landing marines is aggressive. But missiles strikes should be assumed. China would be the aggressor. And the things being attacked would be directly militarily relevant. If China retaliated by hitting Guam, I would call that fair play. (Hawai’i, for historical rea…

No one would bat an eye if a Carrier Strike group launched F35 fighters to attack the Chinese mainland to disable missiles before they were used. In fact, this is 100% expected strategy for this situation. ----- What about a Marine WASP-class assault ship launching helicopters to do the same thing (except cheaper)? ---- What about a few Marine Special Ops units infiltrating the beaches under the cover of darkness to…

> No one would bat an eye if a Carrier Strike group launched F35 fighters to attack the Chinese mainland to disable missiles before they were used. In fact, this is 100% expected strategy for this situation.

> Something like this is almost a necessity, so that US Marines could do "something" to support the US Navy. Its probably too much to ask the US Navy to solo all of China by themselves.

We aren’t striking Russian forces despite their deliberate targeting of civilians and numerous war crimes. Why would we attack a far more dangerous adversary first? The moral argument is clearly not enough, and we have no defense pact.

We’d risk giving them their Pearl Harbor moment, and facing the carefully directed rage of a 1.4 billion population command economy under single party authoritarian rule.

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

#138

Post by MR4D »

> the rush by major economies to onshore semiconductor production is "unrealistic" and that expanding capacity would not help alleviate the global chip shortage.

OR, maybe the countries are just using that as pretense because they think the CCP will make a move on Taiwan, and it’s easier to say this than say that out loud.

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

#139

Post by dahdum »

dragontamer wrote: post #62
dahdum wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. That sounds remarkably unlikely and irrational. If China touched the US mainland it would mean immediate full-scale war, the opposite should be assumed.

> That sounds remarkably unlikely and irrational. If China touched the US mainland it would mean immediate full-scale war, the opposite should be assumed. Then your assumptions need to be set appropriately. That is: China will have its full set of highways and railroads in-tact to deliver missiles to the US Navy. That will be the US Navy fighting at a severe disadvantage. Furthermore, US Marines will largely be sitti…

We have no defense pact with Taiwan, and are not obligated to engage. Our official stance is strategic ambiguity, but Ukraine has showed how unlikely we are to join the fight. We will try to follow much of the same sanctioning, intelligence, and providing arms playbook, but with less international support.

Your scenario presumes we are in open conflict with Chinese troops, in which case landing marines is merely an escalation of a war that’s already begun.

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

#140

Post by nosianu »

little_endorian wrote: post #128
christkv wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do people just forget that intel has fabs all over the world with that expertise as well?

Morris Chang's point is that TSMC is able to draw upon Taiwan's very best talent, as the country's most attractive employer. Likewise, Samsung is among the most prestigious Korean employers. In contrast, where does Intel rank among US employers?

Except that we had articles like this one, telling us about severe and not easily solved problems at Samsung: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31064080
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