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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

#341

Post by galangalalgol »

deltaseventhree wrote: post #284
theturtletalks wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good thing a stock price is about the future growth of a company. Hell, many public companies are valued at billions but still take a yearly loss. They are "subsidizing" their own growth in a sense.

Stock price encompasses many things. Overall outlook is good. However the Arizona plant is not a good move for the company. Your post looks like a rationalization of your own purchasing decisions. If this is a correct observation I would self reflect on your own biases.

After flooding took out most of the world's magnetic hard drive manufacturing capacity, it seemed clear that absolute efficiency in the immediate sense was the enemy of a robust long term manufacturer. I'm not sure why human v human threats are being heeded when nature v human ones were not, but diversifying your locations absolutely makes sense. There are some geographic constraints to where locating fabs make sense. And cost of living has to be balanced with the need for knowledge workers.

If you ran TSMC and you wanted to be sure no single disaster or war destroyed your whole manufacturing capability, where would you put the fabs? China's coast seems too close disaster wise and the same war that would dust your TW masks might destroy those too. Middle east maybe for climate and shipping logistics? Then one in the EU, perhaps spain? North america is probably third choice, and between climate and cartels that probably means the US. If third pick is paying you to go there, maybe it does make good sense.

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

#342

Post by deltaseventhree »

quantumwannabe wrote: post #300
deltaseventhree wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's possible. With subsidies. The US is literally paying tsmc for this to even be viable. Tsmc is not coming here because it's an economically wise move. They are coming here knowing it's an economically irrational move. Politics is the reason for this move. It is not a clear cut win. Your post has the aroma of patriotism. Patriotism blinds us to harsh truths. Why do you love how people were wrong when they said we…

Your post has an enormous aroma of patriotism. Where were you when Taiwan was subsidizing TSMC? They were only able to outcompete Western fabs due to the enormous amount of government help they got in the early days. Those Taiwanese leaders sure were stupid to have invested in chip manufacturing.

Patriotism for America at best. I'm American. Just not biased. Patriotism is a form of bias. When you have none you see the truth more clearly.

Taiwan subsidized tsmc for tech. Once the tech was established the subsidy ended.

Right now the US is subsidizing tsmc for simply switching locations. Once the location is switched the economic output of this plant will be negative so the subsidies have to remain.

The US chip market is not capable of making competitive chips. Not without economic assistance. This is categoric fact.

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

#343

Post by HDThoreaun »

ask_b123 wrote: post #285
macspoofing wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>A $800 macbook has far better build quality than any $500 Windows laptop Took a peak at the apple store, there is no $800 Macbook for sale. So we're comparing, an older (used?) higher-end Macbook to a budget Windows laptop? Why not compare an older higher-end Windows laptop to an older Macbook? Why not compare a new $500 budget Windows laptop to a $500 used Macbook? >Its Windows that's the issue for me. Having too m…

> Took a peak at the apple store, there is no $800 Macbook for sale $849 https://www.apple.com/shop/refurbished/mac/macbook-air

To be fair if we're talking about used you can get $1200 new windows laptops for $800 used too so not really a fair comparison.

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

#344

Post by wnevets »

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…

> Not so good news for Taiwan.

Doubtful. This is obviously in exchange for continued military support from America. Protection from the world's greatest Navy is well worth a single chip plant.

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

#345

Post by throwaway365435 »

adamsmith143 wrote: post #258

Given that the chipmaking process is quite water intensive and Arizona is a literal desert in the midst of a major drought maybe this wasn't the best possible US location for the fab?

Phoenix is a massive hub for semi-conductor manufacturing and data centers partly because there are no natural disasters.

A lot of water is required to start but a huge majority is recycled. Heat can be a problem in the summer but it's extremely predictable and commonly dealt with.

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

#346

Post by dirtyid »

t-3 wrote: post #334
dirtyid wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US military doesn't care. But the TWnese care, which US thinktankers/media, and I'm guessing US based commenters like you seem to forget. Hence the disconnect on why people seriously contemplate these TW will blow up TSMC memes. And why TW media reminding US, that if they're going to evacuate anyone off the island first, it's not going to be their semi engineers, it's going to be women and children. Or that more gene…

Yes, Taiwanese obviously care more about their children. But that doesn't change that the US military won't allow the Chinese to obtain TSMC or the knowledge of their engineers.

Sure, except original comment also highlights that the incentives of destroying TSMC is backwards. It's PRC who benefits most from denying US access to TW semi supply chains or engineers not vice versa. Denying TW to US closes relative semi gap for PRC, leveraging PRC control of TSMC in case of successfuly invasion to compel US to lift sanctions also closes relative semi gap for PRC. US has leverage via sanctions during peacetime, but PRC has leverage via threatening access or destruction of east asian semi supply chain during war. Utlimately it's in both US and TW interests for TSMC + co to survive because they extract most value / benefit, but not necessarily for PRC. And for TW, ensuring TSMC+co survival =/= paperclipping them to US. All the interest calculates points towards PRC/TW denying US access, and US wanting continued access since US fabs will still be dependant on TW inputs as much as current TW fabs or future PRC controlled TW fabs will be dependant on US/EU/JP inputs.

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

#347

Post by deltaseventhree »

HDThoreaun wrote: post #325
deltaseventhree wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's possible. With subsidies. The US is literally paying tsmc for this to even be viable. Tsmc is not coming here because it's an economically wise move. They are coming here knowing it's an economically irrational move. Politics is the reason for this move. It is not a clear cut win. Your post has the aroma of patriotism. Patriotism blinds us to harsh truths. Why do you love how people were wrong when they said we…

> Tsmc is not coming here because it's an economically wise move. No, it's an economically wise move because of the politics. This plant allows TSMC to gets the CHIPS subsidy, but maybe more importantly it allows them to become part of the military industrial complex which requires that products are made domestically. This fab will print money.

The subsidies make the plant break even. Defense spending is basically another subsidy. Most of the weapons the US makes is useless in a civilization that has mostly been at peace for a long time. Hard to say how far defense will go though in terms of spending.

You are definitive about defense spending in a recession. This is wrong. Aspects of the government will begin pulling back. We do not know how this will effect tsmc.

This move from a profitablity standpoint is break even as far as we know. It makes no economic sense.

Btw. This isn't something I'm making up. The CEO of tsmc mark liu stated this to Nancy pelosi during her visit. Also her husband is dumping tsmc stocks for unknown reasons.

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

#348

Post by NeverFade »

placatedmayhem wrote: post #324
NeverFade wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TSMC expects to begin mass production of 3nm chips in its Taiwan fabs by 2023 Q4: https://seekingalpha.com/article/4546779-tsmc-no-3nm-soon This isn't my field, but I'm not sure what's the excitement about an Arizona plant that will optimistically start production a year later with an older process.

There is still a lot of demand for the not-latest-generation, "long tail" fab processes. Much of the long tail manufacturing was (is?) what the chip shortage was about, rather than the current generation. A good example is the automotive industry. It doesn't typically move quickly or frequently onto newer generation processes as that requires R&D time and other expenses. However, these have been some of the worst sho…

Does "one generation before current" count as "long tail", though?

The chip shortage in products like cars has been for much simpler chips, AFAIK.

The article says Apple, AMD, and Nvidia are looking to source from the new plant. Aren't they canonical examples of companies that are always looking for the latest and greatest? Why would they be interested in an prev-gen chip?

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

#349

Post by [deleted] »

izacus wrote: post #239
spamizbad wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is largely because Europe became infatuated with austerity and its industrial policy has suffered as a consequence. You want big, cutting-edge fabs? You’re going to need to spend public money getting them off the ground. TSMC’s success is in part due to Taiwan itself designating semiconductors as a key strategic economic interest years ago and making investments/tax breaks accordingly

That's an interesting thesis - but, for example, Greece with its "let's piss money away without control for anything and everything" somehow hasn't become an industrial powerhouse either... so it might be that austerity (or lack thereof), in general, isn't really such an important factor?

[deleted]

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

#350

Post by missedthecue »

chaosbolt wrote: post #315
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…

Chip manufacturing is both the reason everyone is protecting them and also why China wants them so bad.

China has wanted and fought for Taiwan since before the integrated circuit was conceived.
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