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

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

#211

Post by rcpt »

jonas21 wrote: post #133
IshKebab wrote: post #111

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.

I have a math PhD and a number of my colleagues went on to finance jobs which they described as "babysit an algorithm"

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

#212

Post by in-pursuit »

programmertote wrote: post #185
digdigdag wrote: post #35

- 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.

The 'brain drain' (as you refer to it) stems from intelligent/motivated grads in the US for the last two decades (at least) pursuing more lucrative fields like finance and adtech (re: Google, Facebook). Or some pursue management route (attending big MBA schools and switching to management roles where they climb corporate ladder). In other words, there are not a lot of college/grad students who want to pursue traditio…

What you said seems contradictory. You open with the premise that intelligent youth go the finance / CS / MBA path instead of engineering and then say that those who do go into traditional engineering can’t find jobs. Couldn’t it be that people don’t go into engineering because there aren’t any jobs? Wouldn’t the lack of jobs explain the low salaries and thus the preference for more high paying alternatives?

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

#213

Post by ecshafer »

programmertote wrote: post #185
digdigdag wrote: post #35

- 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.

The 'brain drain' (as you refer to it) stems from intelligent/motivated grads in the US for the last two decades (at least) pursuing more lucrative fields like finance and adtech (re: Google, Facebook). Or some pursue management route (attending big MBA schools and switching to management roles where they climb corporate ladder). In other words, there are not a lot of college/grad students who want to pursue traditio…

Everyone I know that was in EE falls into two camps basically:

1. Became web developers

2. Work in Defense or some other regulated industry that has protections from being outsourced to China

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

#214

Post by CPLX »

duxup wrote: post #48

Seems like this is actually happening. I saw so many predictions of how this couldn't happen and "yeah but" ... but it seems to be happening for the most part.

Indeed. It's just bullshit, propaganda.

There's simply no real reason we can't have a deep and robust manufacturing base in America. Well except for the fact that some specific people made a whole lot of money while letting it fall apart, and have paid for decades of media relations trying to convince everyone otherwise.

If you're reading this statement I just made and want to instinctively disagree with me, start by interrogating your own opinion. Why do you think America can't compete with China, for example, over the long term? What "well everyone knows" facts are you using to create that opinion that you don't have any first hand relationship to.

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

#215

Post by yello_downunder »

nottorp wrote: post #95

As an european, all I wonder is if this will make Apple devices even more expensive.

My guess is no, it won't. This is US taxpayer money being used to increase the manufacturing capacity available to the market so that the US has domestic manufacturing when stuff goes sideways. A similar thing regularly occurs with auto manufacturing and manufacturing in country A usually frees up capacity for other countries, resulting in slightly lower prices.

What could happen is that once the US has manufacturing capacity it decides to tariff imported chips, causing your country to retroactively do the same. This is decades away, and the US has a problem sourcing chips it can trust right now, so it's not currently on the radar. It's not something I'm going to worry about.

Viewed through a pessimistic eye, the US finally is realizing that its arms production critically relies on chip production and it can't says its chips are US made when selling arms on the market. A change in mindset like this typically takes a generation and so even though this change in weapons really happened around the turn of the century, the people in power have mostly retired and the new generation now understands this reality.

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

#216

Post by Nickersf »

digdigdag wrote: post #35

- 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.

I have two kids in grade school and middle school and I see why we have a STEM gap. I have to constantly correct the learning at home in math. Also, I think it's fair to assume that in Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and China the school kids are actually put on an academic grindset unlike here where there is such little academic rigor or discipline being enforced by the school it makes sense why the k-12 education numbers are as bad as they are in the USA.

It might be worth getting up in front of the kids in middle school + and saying "Hey you're in competition at a global scale here. You're going to have to work your butts off to stay relevant."

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

#217

Post by cbozeman »

LittleTimothy wrote: post #199
pjc50 wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's so unproductive why does it pay so well?

I think about this quite often. What I'd really like to study at some point is: How much more does the receptionist at JP Morgan's head quarters make than the receptionist at Walmart's headquarters? Because fundamentally I think there is an effect where the people in proximity to lots of money earn more. Obviously the Walmart receptionist and the JP Morgan receptionist are doing basically the same job. But the JP Mor…

It's not the proximity to money, it's the real estate tied to doing that job.

If you want to be the receptionist at Goldman Sachs at their headquarters at 200 West Street, New York, NY 10282, then you're looking at paying $616,250 for a 556 sq. ft. studio apartment. And that's just the housing. If you want to live within 30 minutes of work, you can get that number down to $400,000, but that's also a studio apartment.

Then you have to consider some place to eat - or you bring your own meals.

What about clothing? You need clothing that looks the part.

It's the proximity to real estate, which I guess you could argue is a proximity to "lots of money" as you put it, but... not reeeaaaally...

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

#218

Post by selimthegrim »

throwaway-blaze wrote: post #198
selimthegrim wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would that be the thing that Trump says he wants to stop on day one? Those asylum-seekers? The Trump who is inviting Xi to his inauguration?

You can't really be this obtuse. Asylum of high-skilled silicon workers from an ally under invasion isn't nearly the same thing as the asylum being granted over the last 4 years to anyone who could download the CBP One app. Trump is inviting Xi as a troll / show of power.

Why don’t you have Elon Musk explain that to Trump’s base who don’t give a shit about Taiwan or H1-Bs

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

#219

Post by [deleted] »

wuliwong wrote: post #168
adamtaylor_13 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi. I own a business. I still find ads to be cancer.

You think all businesses should just spread awareness by word of mouth? Can you put a sign on your store or is that an ad? What if you don't have a store? Yes, advertising can be really awful but that doesn't meaning all advertising is "cancer." If you have a good business that creates actual value for people, advertising it can actually be seen as a good thing.

[deleted]

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

#220

Post by hintymad »

rkagerer wrote: post #63
Xeronate wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read the main problem with hiring chip factory workers in Arizona was the factory just didnt pay enough for the long hours demanded. I looked up the median salary and its only 50k so I'm assuming it's not crazy skilled labor (e.g. brain drain). Taiwanese workers just seem more willing to do it.

...just seem more willing to do it That's why manufacturing offshored in the first place, companies feel they're receiving better value for money on wages elsewhere for this kind of work (and these days not to mention more & larger facilities, proximity to component sources, and a strong ecosystem of supporting and complimentary facilities).

Personally I won't mind paying more to buy manufactured goods. My mom told me that a pair of sneakers before the offshoring back in the late 80s usually cost more than $300 in today's dollars. Yes, it was expensive, but I would just buy fewer and use the one for longer time. The reason is that in the long run the manufacturing cost would get lower due to increased efficiency, and loss of supply chain is detrimental to the entire country - and our living expenses will increase overall. Case in point, how much tax do we have to pay and how much inflation do we have to suffer in order to build those super expensive weapons? Part of the reasons that we had $20K toilet and $100 screws is that we simply don't have large enough supply chain to offset the cost of customized manufacturing.

Besides, the US loses know-how on manufacturing, eliminating potentially hundreds of thousands of high-paying engineering jobs - it will also be a pipe dream that we can keep the so-called high-end jobs by sitting in an office drawing boxes all day. Sooner or later, those who work with the actual manufacturing processes on the factor floor will out compete us and grab our the cushy "design" jobs.

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