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TSMC to make 4nm chips in Arizona for Apple, AMD, Nvidia

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Re: TSMC to make 4nm chips in Arizona for Apple, AMD, Nvidia

#241

Post by hwbehrens »

CivBase wrote: post #195
Victerius wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arizona is actually a good choice. It is geologically stable, doesn't suffer from natural disasters, is somewhat close to Silicon Valley, and has a large enough talent pool to staff TSMC's facilities.

Surely somewhere in the midwest would be more geologically stable and have plenty of access to water. Not sure the proximity to Silicon Valley makes any difference. It's not like factory workers are going to commute from California to Arizona.

I believe the primary reason was tax-related, but the secondary reason is that there is already substantial personnel in the area who are experts in chip design and fabrication (Intel), with a strong pipeline for new talent from local universities for those skills.

Surprisingly, the area is also one of the largest Taiwanese communities in the U.S., which is a bonus for the engineers and their families who will be relocated from the "mothership".

Also, it's actually quite common for high-level Intel staff to fly back and forth from Portland and Phoenix. I am not sure if the same would be said about Taiwan and Arizona, but if they have staff in SV it wouldn't be too far-fetched.

Re: TSMC to make 4nm chips in Arizona for Apple, AMD, Nvidia

#242

Post by ApolloFortyNine »

bluedino wrote: post #178
lmz wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought Japanese car factories in the US were all non-union (as opposed to the US brands)? Toyota does have a Mexico factory at least according to Wikipedia.

Correct, the Honda/Toyota plants in the USA are non-union. Interestingly enough the “Clean Energy for America” bill pushes for additional tax incentives on EV's built by companies using union labor: More specifically, the proposal says that electric vehicles assembled in the United States would qualify for a $10,000 tax credit while EVs that are built at facilities whose production workers are members of, or represen…

Aren't clauses like this just a clear cut sign of corruption?

It doesn't even make a lot of sense as an incentive to have workers unionize, since why would workers care what price what they're selling cars for. The law would only exist to benefit existing unions.

Re: TSMC to make 4nm chips in Arizona for Apple, AMD, Nvidia

#243

Post by hylaride »

float4 wrote: post #122
spaniard89277 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but local fabs in Europe are far, far away from Intel, TSMC and Samsung. Infineon, NXP and STM are wayy behind.

Why do we even want cutting edge fabs in Europe? We have no companies that design cutting edge logic chips here. Literally none. Why invest 20 billion dollars (or what is the price of a cutting edge fab these days?) to create supply without demand? Or do we seriously expect that US companies will generate significant demand even though TSMC and Samsung are already building heavily subsidized fabs in the US ?

ARM came out of europe. With the right industrial policy, chip manufacturing could be onsourced. The dutch already make most of the equipment that makes the fabs/chips.

It's not necessarily about supply and demand. These past few years have shown what shortages of chips can do to the supply chain. It's a strategic vulnerability if Europe does not at least think about this.

Re: TSMC to make 4nm chips in Arizona for Apple, AMD, Nvidia

#244

Post by wazoox »

Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #73
squarefoot wrote: post #24

Hopefully we'll do something like that here in the EU too. We're experiencing the hard way how's like depending on the energy and resources of warmongering criminal dictators; it would be wise to start moving away from technological dependence on China asap.

It's a bad idea to depend on the outside for energy and resources in general. Not just on warmongering criminal dictators. Buying US gas for a fortune is far from ideal, for example. Not blaming anyone, obviously any country will look after themselves first. If resource scarcity starts hitting hard, we won't be able to expect external countries to just send us resources as if nothing happened, even if they are free c…

You now that back in 1300BC tin to make bronze in Egypt or Greece was imported from far away Afghanistan? Do you know that in 10000BC people traded seashells in Siberia, thousands of km away from the ocean? It's a good idea to be as independent as possible, but no country was ever entirely self-sufficient. Not even North Korea.

Re: TSMC to make 4nm chips in Arizona for Apple, AMD, Nvidia

#245

Post by phpisthebest »

mattbrewsbytes wrote: post #236
phpisthebest wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>- build quality This is part of the marketing delusion, multiple people have done A/B testing to clearly show Apple Build Quality is either on par with the rest of the industry or in many specific examples WORSE, people that claim this often have ZERO experience with non-apple products or are comparing different classes like a budget consumer level Lenovo to the pro line of apple, of course of $500 unit will be of…

Your build quality comparison is off, a cheap $500 laptop should be compared to prior years Macbook Air M1 which is $300 more, not $2000 more. A $800 macbook has far better build quality than any $500 Windows laptop, probably better than most $800 laptops. Its Windows that's the issue for me. Having too many bad experiences and strong bias against Microsoft, I choose Apple because its not MS and it does work vs. tink…

>>Its Windows that's the issue for me.

That has nothing to do with build quality

>Having too many bad experiences and strong bias against Microsoft

Well at least you admit your bias, as someone that works in enterprise and manages 1000's of windows computers i can say i would never want to attempt that with Apple who does not have the enterprise tooling that MS does

before I was in enterprise I felt the same about windows and primarily used Linux, I would never use a Apple which shows my bais... If apple was the last computer on earth I would crush it...

>>Any of them are just fine and its more about the ecosystem and purchase history at this point

I agree with that, and that should change, but I value my freedom too much ever to surrender it for Apple's walled garden

Re: TSMC to make 4nm chips in Arizona for Apple, AMD, Nvidia

#246

Post by jimbob45 »

menshiki wrote: post #235

Great news for the US. Great news for Apple, AMD, and Nvidia. Not so good news for Taiwan. The fact that the whole tech world is dependent on chips produced in Hsinchu is a huge advantage for the safety of Taiwan. Moving the fabs and talent further away from the island will not benefit the people of Taiwan at all. TSMC with its global influence has been a huge factor for guaranteeing safety of the island and peace in…

Does China still want Taiwan if it's no longer technologically relevant? My understanding is that China is making similar strides in its own chip industry to the point where TSMC won't be as nearly as useful to them in 10 years as it is now.

Re: TSMC to make 4nm chips in Arizona for Apple, AMD, Nvidia

#247

Post by jackpeterfletch »

menshiki wrote: post #235

Great news for the US. Great news for Apple, AMD, and Nvidia. Not so good news for Taiwan. The fact that the whole tech world is dependent on chips produced in Hsinchu is a huge advantage for the safety of Taiwan. Moving the fabs and talent further away from the island will not benefit the people of Taiwan at all. TSMC with its global influence has been a huge factor for guaranteeing safety of the island and peace in…

Thats interesting.

My initial thoughts on this came the from the opposite side in terms of Taiwans security.

One of the major bounties for invading Taiwan would be in the acquisition and control of their chip manufacturing. Which - as you mention, the entire tech world is dependant on.

By moving some of that capability offshore, that incentive is gone.

Though I can see it from both sides.

Re: TSMC to make 4nm chips in Arizona for Apple, AMD, Nvidia

#248

Post by whalesalad »

jimbob45 wrote: post #246
menshiki wrote: post #235

Great news for the US. Great news for Apple, AMD, and Nvidia. Not so good news for Taiwan. The fact that the whole tech world is dependent on chips produced in Hsinchu is a huge advantage for the safety of Taiwan. Moving the fabs and talent further away from the island will not benefit the people of Taiwan at all. TSMC with its global influence has been a huge factor for guaranteeing safety of the island and peace in…

Does China still want Taiwan if it's no longer technologically relevant? My understanding is that China is making similar strides in its own chip industry to the point where TSMC won't be as nearly as useful to them in 10 years as it is now.

Taiwan does far more than just TSMC. That is just one single company, albeit a very essential one. For instance, I don't like to buy hand tools (impact sockets, torque wrenches, etc) made in China, but Taiwanese tools are a higher quality and I have no hesitation purchasing them.

Re: TSMC to make 4nm chips in Arizona for Apple, AMD, Nvidia

#249

Post by paperskull »

jimbob45 wrote: post #246
menshiki wrote: post #235

Great news for the US. Great news for Apple, AMD, and Nvidia. Not so good news for Taiwan. The fact that the whole tech world is dependent on chips produced in Hsinchu is a huge advantage for the safety of Taiwan. Moving the fabs and talent further away from the island will not benefit the people of Taiwan at all. TSMC with its global influence has been a huge factor for guaranteeing safety of the island and peace in…

Does China still want Taiwan if it's no longer technologically relevant? My understanding is that China is making similar strides in its own chip industry to the point where TSMC won't be as nearly as useful to them in 10 years as it is now.

Taiwan also serves the role as an unsinkable battleship right next door to Chinas mainland. Its military value extends far beyond its chip production capabilities in order for the US to check Chinas influence in SEA region.

Re: TSMC to make 4nm chips in Arizona for Apple, AMD, Nvidia

#250

Post by jiggyjace »

bsmitty5000 wrote: post #78

My first job out of school was final test for a semiconductor in Phoenix that had a small fab in Gilbert. I remember we took a rabbit suited tour there as part of the new hire orientation, it was pretty neat. The one thing though that stuck with me is how much water a fab needs on a daily basis. I can’t remember the exact number, I just remember thinking how stupid it was to build fabs in Phoenix. But then again, the…

I'm from Arizona and have thus wondered this and researched the perceived water dilemma myself. Fabs do need a considerable injection of water to start, but their systems are so advanced and their logistics so efficient that they end up reusing so much of it over time. Couple this with the fact that Arizona also has a great infrastructure already in place for water reuse and conservation. When Arizona had only 700,000 people in the 1950s, they used more water than they do now for 7,100,000 people. And it's still in the top 3 fastest growing states in the US (both by new relative to existing population, but also by total incoming population volume). Models also indicate that the once-in-a-century drought is coming to an end in the next few years, with huge rainfall amounts the last two years in the state.

There was a great ArsTechnica article and subsequent comment section where many of the water questions are addressed: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/06/why-do-chip-makers-k...

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