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Ask HN: Why is TSMC so competitive in semiconductor fabrication?

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Re: Ask HN: Why is TSMC so competitive in semiconductor fabrication?

#101

Post by tcpekin »

deepnotderp wrote: post #48
chasil wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A recent interview with Shang-Yi Chiang, former Vice President of R&D at TSMC (also held positions at TI, HP, and SMIC) had insightful commentary on the speed of bringing up a new node. "We all take two years to develop one generation, how come you guys can do it in one or one-and-a-half year?" And they asked if some of your customer transfer technology to you or what not? And I told him, "No," I told him that, "That…

This is a made up explanation because: 1) All RnD fabs move wafers 24/7 2) Intel has consistently been the leader in process technology for 20+ years. Why did this “3x shift advantage” deliver gains only in the past 5 years?

The others might move wafers 24/7 but they don't have three shifts of R&D scientists and engineers working to continuously analyze the results/improve yield/performance 24/7. TSMC does.

Re: Ask HN: Why is TSMC so competitive in semiconductor fabrication?

#102

Post by adventured »

breadwinner wrote: post #88
FooBarWidget wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying that once the US has moved TSMC over to the US then the US will stop caring about Taiwan?

“America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests” ― Henry Kissinger

That's not something that Kissinger has ever gotten to decide and he has historically been frequently wrong. Kissinger is about as meaningless of a reference point as you could use in that sphere.

He hasn't had potent influence over US foreign policy in over four decades. They barely pay attention to anything he has said in the last several decades, and the left certainly ignores him.

Might as well quote Robert E Lee on US policy.

Re: Ask HN: Why is TSMC so competitive in semiconductor fabrication?

#103

Post by NeverFade »

Eisenstein wrote: post #99
NeverFade wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is oriented to appeasing stockholders (investors), who want to see earnings grow. This strategy appeases short-term shareholders, at the cost of significantly penalizing long-term holders. It's not a simple case of "appeasing shareholders".

Maybe I should have said 'stock traders'?

My point is that shareholder capitalism doesn't necessarily lead to the short-term focus you describe. Shareholders can in fact be the group with the longest-term focus of all. They can still be there and care about the company long after the current C-suite are all gone.

Re: Ask HN: Why is TSMC so competitive in semiconductor fabrication?

#104

Post by Freire_Herval »

Nokinside wrote: post #3

Semiconductor industry has the deepest and most complex value chain in the economy. TSMC has always been pure fab company and it pays off now. Samsung and Intel are also in chip design business and do other things. They are less focused. TSMC's lead is not guaranteed. Any new technology node can fail and remove them from competition if they make wrong choices. I'm not exaggerating when I say that designing a new tech…

>I'm not exaggerating when I say that designing a new technology node for mass production is like a moon program.

It's insane. I had a friend tell me about what goes on in these asml machines. Essentially the targeting system that moves the wafer around cannot have any vibration so I kid you not the platform is floating and controlled by magnets. And this is just the etching machine.

Re: Ask HN: Why is TSMC so competitive in semiconductor fabrication?

#105

Post by dstroot »

elteto wrote: post #53
Nokinside wrote: post #3

Semiconductor industry has the deepest and most complex value chain in the economy. TSMC has always been pure fab company and it pays off now. Samsung and Intel are also in chip design business and do other things. They are less focused. TSMC's lead is not guaranteed. Any new technology node can fail and remove them from competition if they make wrong choices. I'm not exaggerating when I say that designing a new tech…

A bit of an aside, but your comment made me realize how much we don’t know about the process used to create the technologies that underpin our civilization. We (laymen) have no idea about the incredible complexity behind manufacturing a single CPU chip.

Many years ago I sat next to the CTO of Broadcom on a plane. We struck up a conversation and when I learned he worked for a chip designer I asked the question that I assumed was the most difficult part. I asked how the engineers laid out the circuits physically on the chip. He laughed and told me the engineers write software that defines the parameters and functions and the software lays out the chip (I know I am oversimplifying). I was dumbfounded to learn that hardware design was really software development. Today I think Google has an open chip design effort where you write chip specs in Python (from memory).

Re: Ask HN: Why is TSMC so competitive in semiconductor fabrication?

#106

Post by Eisenstein »

NeverFade wrote: post #103
Eisenstein wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I should have said 'stock traders'?

My point is that shareholder capitalism doesn't necessarily lead to the short-term focus you describe. Shareholders can in fact be the group with the longest-term focus of all. They can still be there and care about the company long after the current C-suite are all gone.

I don't think I have communicated what I meant. Stock traders would be people who trade stocks looking for return on investment through trading, not from investing in a company by holding stock.

Re: Ask HN: Why is TSMC so competitive in semiconductor fabrication?

#107

Post by NeverFade »

Eisenstein wrote: post #106
NeverFade wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point is that shareholder capitalism doesn't necessarily lead to the short-term focus you describe. Shareholders can in fact be the group with the longest-term focus of all. They can still be there and care about the company long after the current C-suite are all gone.

I don't think I have communicated what I meant. Stock traders would be people who trade stocks looking for return on investment through trading, not from investing in a company by holding stock.

Sure, but there's no fundamental reason for them to be the primary shareholders. The average holding time in the 1970s was 5 years.

Re: Ask HN: Why is TSMC so competitive in semiconductor fabrication?

#108

Post by Freire_Herval »

FooBarWidget wrote: post #75
bick_nyers wrote: post #54

If TSMC wasn't around, I think it could be argued that China would have tried to take over/invaded long before now. So if you are the government of Taiwan, helping TSMC out is in your best interest.

So are you saying that the US is actively trying to get invaded by moving TSMC out of Taiwan?

China won't invade the US for the same reason the US won't invade China. It's just another cold war.

Re: Ask HN: Why is TSMC so competitive in semiconductor fabrication?

#109

Post by mantas »

hexane360 wrote: post #63
hnfong wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we don’t know about the process used to create the technologies that underpin our civilization. It's been like that for a while. That's why we need everyone else to function as a society. I've watched a couple blacksmithing videos on youtube but I still don't really know how smelting iron works, and I wouldn't be able to produce a steel if my life depended on it. That's literally 2500+ year old tech.

What's even crazier is it's 2500+ year old tech that we turned into science in a period of about a hundred years (1860s-1960s).

More like labeled it as science.

Re: Ask HN: Why is TSMC so competitive in semiconductor fabrication?

#110

Post by Freire_Herval »

baybal2 wrote: post #30

Because they took upon a very hard task, and kept punching it year, after years, through, low margins, highly cyclical market, extremely low returns on capital, tricky clients, and a marathon like RnD expenditures. They are the leader because everybody else dropped out, and went to make money on something easier, like making Wordpress websites.

The US moved up the stack. We are a nation of software engineers who are losing the knowhow and knowledge on how to build the things that actually enable software.
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