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TSMC ups Arizona investment from $12B to $40B with second semi fab

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Re: TSMC ups Arizona investment from $12B to $40B with second semi fab

#71

Post by tony_cannistra »

adam_arthur wrote: post #60
_8j50 wrote: post #45

Don't these fabs need like an insane amount of water? Why would they build it of all places in arizona which as far as I know barely meets drinking water requirements (at least at some cities) and is basically mostly a desert?

Water can be piped around cheaply. Worst case they pump it in from nearby states

Arizona actually already does this, in profound quantities. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Arizona_Project

The problem isn't the pipes, obviously.

It's the fact that the 1922 agreement that divided up the water in the Colorado River (upon which Arizona depends) incorrectly calculated the amount of water available in the river every year.

The Colorado River Compact divides up 20 million acre-feet of water. Modern analyses show that the Colorado river's average flow is about 15.5 million acre feet, and has been less than 13 million acre-feet during the last decade or so. These reductions curtail who gets what water.

https://www.5280.com/how-the-100-year-old-colorado-river-com...

Re: TSMC ups Arizona investment from $12B to $40B with second semi fab

#72

Post by Animatronio »

boc wrote: post #61
Animatronio wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well for one the US won't be so inclined to defend TW so much. Sure, there will be posturing, maybe even a proxy war like in Ukraine, but generally speaking the US will not be sending troops anymore, now that the golden goose has nested on its shores.

Or conversely the US will commit even more resources to the defense of Taiwan now that their own domestic supply of chips is safe. The US had no strategic interest in Ukraine yet we’ve all seen the reaction. The US will gladly defend Taiwan and create the hill for the CCP to die upon.

Now please explain why would the US send troops to defend TW if there's nothing actually valuable there anymore? Ukraine was hugely important for it's position next to Russia, and so is TW. And still, no US troops on the ground in Ukraine, and there won't be any in TW. This is a smart way of giving up on TW without actually admitting it, and there's nothing to be ashamed of, really.

Re: TSMC ups Arizona investment from $12B to $40B with second semi fab

#73

Post by conradev »

adam_arthur wrote: post #63

Onshoring is a logical result of improved automation. When labor costs lessen, transportation and logistics become the primary concern. Wouldn’t be surprised if 100 years from now most final good assembly is done locally. Of course sometimes raw materials and inputs are more expensive to transport than the finished good, so there will always be cases where long distance transportation of finished products is still pr…

Onshoring in this case is a logical result of improved tax incentives. Almost every cost is higher in the US – not just labor.

Improved automation does reduce costs, but those cost reductions are even better in places where manufacturing is already cheap.

Semiconductors have a very high value to weight ratio, so shipping them globally makes more sense than it does for other items.

Re: TSMC ups Arizona investment from $12B to $40B with second semi fab

#74

Post by coredog64 »

tony_cannistra wrote: post #66
shagie wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An article from August 2021: Water shortages loom over future semiconductor fabs in Arizona https://www.theverge.com/22628925/water-semiconductor-shorta... > Chipmakers are setting up shop in Arizona as drought worsens > Major semiconductor manufacturers looking to expand in Arizona will likely be spared from water cuts induced by an unprecedented water shortage in the Southwest, at least for now. As part of the scra…

Thanks for sharing that. At the very least, Arizona has "water budget" in the form of severely curtailing water-intensive agriculture. I am hopeful that the politicians there are smart enough to realize that semiconductor fabs are an industry whose water needs are worth prioritizing more than farming alfalfa in the desert. The problem is that these agricultural water rights are old, and the folks who hold them are of…

Farmers are selling their farmland to developers who then turn it into housing. Everyone wins: Residential water use is significantly lower than agricultural, the farmers get rich, and more housing is being built.

Re: TSMC ups Arizona investment from $12B to $40B with second semi fab

#75

Post by coredog64 »

gdilla wrote: post #65
shagie wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An article from August 2021: Water shortages loom over future semiconductor fabs in Arizona https://www.theverge.com/22628925/water-semiconductor-shorta... > Chipmakers are setting up shop in Arizona as drought worsens > Major semiconductor manufacturers looking to expand in Arizona will likely be spared from water cuts induced by an unprecedented water shortage in the Southwest, at least for now. As part of the scra…

I was also wondering about the added energy needed to keep the fab cool enough to work in during the punishing summer months in phoenix. Seems like an odd choice.

If only there was a way to turn energetic photons into electricity?

Re: TSMC ups Arizona investment from $12B to $40B with second semi fab

#76

Post by uni_rule »

aresant wrote: post #57

This + the recent news that Apple is planning to diversify production out of China (1) is hard not to read into regarding the US' view of where US/China relations are heading . . . any geopolitical armchair experts have a view? (1) https://www.wsj.com/articles/apple-china-factory-protests-fo...

Policies like this actually move pretty slowly. This is still a reaction to Ukraine in february, not planning for anything in particular, just the possibility of a fucked status quo.

Re: TSMC ups Arizona investment from $12B to $40B with second semi fab

#77

Post by GeekyBear »

metadat wrote: post #56
GeekyBear wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At the time everyone assumed that Apple wanted to diversify away from Samsung for other reasons which were not necessarily financial. When Apple was dual sourcing chips from both Samsung and TSMC, the Samsung version of the A9 had a ~10% reduction in battery life compared to the TSMC version, although the performance was nearly identical otherwise. https://www.tomshardware.com/news/iphone-6s-a9-samsung-vs-ts...

The article you linked actually reports the Samsung version lasted longer than the TSMC chip (the opposite of what you've stated). Samsung was on a 14nm fab process. TSMC was on a 16nm fab process.

My bad. I should just say that there were the same silicon lottery issues we see when we buy a chip from a single vendor, eg Intel today, compounded by the fact that the process nodes were different too.

The popular narrative at the time was that TSMC chips had the better battery life, but it depended on those silicon lottery results.

>What we know is that there isn't enough information currently out there to accurately determine whether the TSMC or Samsung A9 SoC has better power consumption, and more importantly just how large any difference might be. 1-on-1 comparisons under controlled conditions can provide us with some insight in to how the TSMC and Samsung A9s compare, but due to the natural variation in chip quality, it's possible to end up testing two atypical phones and never know it.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/9708/analyzing-apple-statemen...

However, when the chips fell as they may, Apple single sourced the A10 at TSMC, and they would have had the largest number of performance data points.

Re: TSMC ups Arizona investment from $12B to $40B with second semi fab

#78

Post by adam_arthur »

conradev wrote: post #73
adam_arthur wrote: post #63

Onshoring is a logical result of improved automation. When labor costs lessen, transportation and logistics become the primary concern. Wouldn’t be surprised if 100 years from now most final good assembly is done locally. Of course sometimes raw materials and inputs are more expensive to transport than the finished good, so there will always be cases where long distance transportation of finished products is still pr…

Onshoring in this case is a logical result of improved tax incentives. Almost every cost is higher in the US – not just labor. Improved automation does reduce costs, but those cost reductions are even better in places where manufacturing is already cheap. Semiconductors have a very high value to weight ratio, so shipping them globally makes more sense than it does for other items.

The cost difference between US and China for a fully automated factory is negligible. Even considering real estate costs and taxes.

No tax incentive needed to onshore in the long run

Re: TSMC ups Arizona investment from $12B to $40B with second semi fab

#79

Post by adam_arthur »

tony_cannistra wrote: post #71
adam_arthur wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Water can be piped around cheaply. Worst case they pump it in from nearby states

Arizona actually already does this, in profound quantities. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Arizona_Project The problem isn't the pipes, obviously. It's the fact that the 1922 agreement that divided up the water in the Colorado River (upon which Arizona depends) incorrectly calculated the amount of water available in the river every year. The Colorado River Compact divides up 20 million acre-feet of water. Mode…

And the Colorado River is the only water source in North America right?

People have a fetishization with hyping up disappearing water sources as leading to mass forced desertions of population centers, which is not rooted in any kind of reality.

We can already pipe oil from texas to Canada with ease, we can do the same from Canada to Arizona with water. Or wherever else. The economics and viability of it is obvious and clear.

Residents of water scarce areas would pay marginally higher taxes to support this

Re: TSMC ups Arizona investment from $12B to $40B with second semi fab

#80

Post by imhoguy »

chrisjc wrote: post #26
PartiallyTyped wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TSMC has had a license to print money for a while now given how huge ASML’s backlog is.

Is ASML even going to be able to meet the demand created by all these fabs opening up across the US (and rest of the world)? The stories I've heard about what it takes to build a single machine would suggest to me that scaling up would be a huge feat and I could only imagine take years to accomplish. Then again, perhaps TSMC and their peers had predicted this kind of growth and already placed their orders long ago?

Maybe they will just move a chunk of existing fab?
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