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Apple will soon receive 'made in America' chips from TSMC's Arizona fab

tomshardware.com

141–150 of 499 posts

Re: Apple will soon receive 'made in America' chips from TSMC's Arizona fab

#141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I spoke to a Taiwanese person and apparently the salaries there are actually quite good, even by western standards (normal ones; not SF). The downside is they have very very long hours (996, barely any holiday, etc.).

It's also highly-skilled, yet very boring work. The way it was described to me is that every major piece of equipment has a PhD assigned to it and their job is basically to babysit the machine and troubleshoot when things go wrong. US PhDs typically have other options and would consider this sort of work a waste of their time.

There are loads of highly qualified US engineers who would love to babysit enormously complicated industrial equipment for a living.

But not for 50k, lol.

Re: Apple will soon receive 'made in America' chips from TSMC's Arizona fab

#142

- Over 50% of the workers flew in from Taiwan to work on this plant and make these chips. - The chips still need to fly back to Taiwan to be packaged as there are no facilities here with such a capability. Made in america is a hard sell. But at least showing the glaring STEM field gap in the U.S. is a start to finally addressing the brain drain.

Maybe that's how US is going to have enough STEM talents -- just like WWI and WWII, take as many talents as possible when the other parts of the world are in shit.

The scenario that we’re going to be able to fight a war with another first world power, where we will attack their infrastructure but ours will be left untouched, seems unlikely.

Re: Apple will soon receive 'made in America' chips from TSMC's Arizona fab

#144

- Over 50% of the workers flew in from Taiwan to work on this plant and make these chips. - The chips still need to fly back to Taiwan to be packaged as there are no facilities here with such a capability. Made in america is a hard sell. But at least showing the glaring STEM field gap in the U.S. is a start to finally addressing the brain drain.

It's a start

Re: Apple will soon receive 'made in America' chips from TSMC's Arizona fab

#145
post #80

- Over 50% of the workers flew in from Taiwan to work on this plant and make these chips. - The chips still need to fly back to Taiwan to be packaged as there are no facilities here with such a capability. Made in america is a hard sell. But at least showing the glaring STEM field gap in the U.S. is a start to finally addressing the brain drain.

For a new factory with a new entry into the local market it makes perfect sense to bring in experienced workers for knowledge transfer. This is more an issue if a decade later this is still how things are done.

Problem is, those jobs in emerging markets were desirable compared to other jobs (for pay and opportunities), which helped with talent growth. These factory jobs, in comparison to other jobs, aren’t that desirable.

Re: Apple will soon receive 'made in America' chips from TSMC's Arizona fab

#147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about the US providing actually good education that can produce workers able to compete with Chinese and other Asian countries?

Why would well educated US grads go work in a semi fab for 50k when they can make 5-10x in an office or at home, getting people to click on ads in the bay area, or move money around between tax heavens in new york?

Your answer explains why the US is creating a failed society. It either implodes or needs to control other countries to maintain its profit and consumption levels.

Re: Apple will soon receive 'made in America' chips from TSMC's Arizona fab

#148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I spoke to a Taiwanese person and apparently the salaries there are actually quite good, even by western standards (normal ones; not SF). The downside is they have very very long hours (996, barely any holiday, etc.).

996..? doesn't fit into weeks, months or years

Why would they require these hours? In the U.S. I think they would need to pay time and a half for anything north of 40-hours. Seems like it would be cheaper to hire more workers and not force the overtime. Then they might be able to increase the salary some. Everyone wins except the people who are willing to sacrifice the time for time and a half pay.

Re: Apple will soon receive 'made in America' chips from TSMC's Arizona fab

#149

- Over 50% of the workers flew in from Taiwan to work on this plant and make these chips. - The chips still need to fly back to Taiwan to be packaged as there are no facilities here with such a capability. Made in america is a hard sell. But at least showing the glaring STEM field gap in the U.S. is a start to finally addressing the brain drain.

it's first step. you gotta do something to bootstrap, solve chicken-egg problem. From what I can see around me, the "made in america" is a no joke branding. a lot of pppl going tobuyjust because of that. and may even consider it as social status and their policial support.

Re: Apple will soon receive 'made in America' chips from TSMC's Arizona fab

#150

- Over 50% of the workers flew in from Taiwan to work on this plant and make these chips. - The chips still need to fly back to Taiwan to be packaged as there are no facilities here with such a capability. Made in america is a hard sell. But at least showing the glaring STEM field gap in the U.S. is a start to finally addressing the brain drain.

made in america is also a federally defined standard that these chips categorically fail to meet. assembled in the united states is more appropriate, and even then if you didnt hire americans to do it, what was the point?

this is starting to feel like the best of intentions that has spiraled into a political theatricality where close-enough will be good-enough.

given the current state of declining US college enrollment, the affordability crisis of college, the growing wage gap, the failure of the minimum wage to keep up with the cost of living, and the failure to reform predatory US student lending practices I do not see how the US will in the next 25 years ever manage to curate the type of braintrust for which it was once renowned across the globe.

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