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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

#391

Post by [deleted] »

deltaseventhree wrote: post #271
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…

It is categorically NOT a huge win for the stock. This is all happening because of US subsidies. The US has more expensive workers who are overall worse at the job and don't have the expertise to be compete with the people in Taiwan. The subsidies only make this a viable option for political reasons. The decision to create a fab in Arizona is strictly speaking unprofitable and essentially a economically irrational mo…

[deleted]

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

#392

Post by bpanon »

andy_ppp wrote: post #316
chaosbolt wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

No the reason they want to invade is to project power into the wider pacific, nationalism, imperialism and the people and human capital not just limited to semi conductors. The factories will be destroyed in any invasion, the US will guarantee it, I promise.

On what basis do you predict the US will destroy the factories?

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

#393

Post by ferrumfist »

deltaseventhree wrote: post #382
KerrAvon wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, that is certainly the Chinese government's take on things. Your posts suggest that the US should just give up and let Asia -- more specifically China -- dominate semiconductors forever because US workers are lazy, fat, and stupid. Am I characterizing your position correctly?

No. My posts suggest none of that. I am simply stating the truth. It is from the perspective of a tsmc shareholder not a patriotic American who wants to beat china for no other reason then being the best. As a tsmc shareholder one part of your post is correct. US workers are unfortunately lazier and slower and more expensive. Not necessarily stupider. You characterized this part of my position partially correctly. As…

> US workers are unfortunately lazier and slower and more expensive

I guess we just kinda stumbled into being one of the wealthiest and most developed countries in the world while having the lazier/slowest/most expensive workforce.

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

#394

Post by moloch-hai »

deburo wrote: post #161
totalZero wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple spent something like a half-trillion on share buybacks. They could have averted this crisis a decade ago by thinking strategically. They didn't. Why give them credit where little or no credit is due?

Do you mean Apple should’ve built a fab instead of spending on buybacks?

They should have built out solar and wind power generation capacity to displace ongoing CO2 emissions, instead of wasting the capital on buybacks.

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

#395

Post by BoiledCabbage »

dirtyid wrote: post #346
t-3 wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 dur…

But this is missing the obvious. Yes the US would prefer being able to maintain its tech advantage over China by continuing production and receiving of state of the art chips. And this is clearly better for them than choosing that gap by destroying TSMC fab. But if China takes over TW, that's not an option. The options are either flatten the gap or flip the gap in China's favor as it now controls those chips while the US falls back to tech multiple generations old. There is no other strategic option for the US flatten the gap is the only choice, flipping the gap is the worst case scenario for the us.

This deal is in US and TW best interest. TW is still valuable as cutting edge is still made on island. So production and economics so benefit them. US still provides military protection / defense. They are still long term partners will aligned goals. And if China does invade TW, US can continue a long fight and win by falling back only a generation or two to is smaller but important domestic production to continue supporting its defense technology needs.

I can't speak for them, but I have to assume RW also sees its best interests if China invades to lose TSMC plants but US win the war and they maintain democracy, rather than keep TSMC plants but controlled by China and US lose the war and go under full control of mainland rule.

Plants can be rebuilt, just like Marshall plan or what will happen in Ukraine. TW wants long term freedom from China - strengthening US defense's tech position helps this the most.

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

#396

Post by TEP_Kim_Il_Sung »

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…

*China (Best China, not to be confused with West China)

Great for Arizona. Hope it brings them jobs.

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

#397

Post by abakker »

vl wrote: post #360
FBISurveillance wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've read that TSMC fabs are filled with explosives to set off if China invades so they wouldn't get their hands on tech and equipment. I'm pretty certain that's true, given how important TSMC tech is.

Nothing will happen to TSMC fabs if invasion happens. In fact most likely they will operate during invasion without interruption. Seems unlikely? Right now Russian gas goes through pipeline in Ukraine to Europe. Either side miraculously avoided disabling it through entire war.

Umm...it appears that Russia disabled Nordstream 1.

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

#398

Post by moloch-hai »

yucky wrote: post #277
totalZero wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple spent something like a half-trillion on share buybacks. They could have averted this crisis a decade ago by thinking strategically. They didn't. Why give them credit where little or no credit is due?

In 2008 Apple wasn't even in the top 15 US companies by market cap. Now they're the largest US company by quite a margin. The data says their approach was correct.

The data says their approach worked for them, but not necessarily for their customers, who regularly are made to shoulder indignities other companies do not dare to impose.

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

#399

Post by phatfish »

nradov wrote: post #269
abakker wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without the staff from TSMC, the Chinese Government probably can't run those facilities. I suspect there isn't much probability that china could mobilize and take those facilities as-is with no sabotage. The US has taken steps recently to reduce china's ability to make chips domestically. See - https://www.seattletimes.com/business/chip-gear-maker-asml-a...

The Chinese government also wouldn't be able to run those fabs without ongoing support from ASML and other key foreign vendors. The production machinery is extremely complex with many specialized parts and a significant software component. Reverse engineering and duplicating everything would take years.

It seems like there are a few key parts that could be removed that would make those ASML machines utterly useless even if Chinese engineers spent time reverse engineering the rest. Surely there is no need to remove or destroy the whole thing as is suggested in other comments.

The equivalent of popping out the Intel/AMD/ARM CPU to disable a computer, and leaving the motherboard, RAM etc.

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

#400

Post by ajhurliman »

deltaseventhree wrote: post #353
coredog64 wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The US has more expensive workers who are overall worse at the job and don't have the expertise to be compete with the people in Taiwan. GMAFB. Intel has several of their fabs in the Phoenix metro area, they’re another 3-5 major players in the area, and there’s a talent pipeline from the local University into these companies. Intel’s problems aren’t an inability to fab, it’s an inability to translate their design l…

It's universally well known that Asian workers work harder and can be paid less. It's not just about intels capabilities. It's about economic wage standards. The cost is just too high in the US. That being said tsmc workers in Taiwan are by far more capable then Intel this is proven by the 3nm process of which Intel is completely incapable of achieving.

Chip-making isn't the same as sewing together cheap trinkets, and the Chinese economy has changed to support a growing middle-class so the reality of Chinese labor costs has drifted from the stereotype in recent years (especially in the domain of skilled labor).

Not to mention the lack of seismic activity and humidity that AZ offers.

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