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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

#231

Post by duskwuff »

d3nj4l wrote: post #171
codazoda wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

AIUI almost all salaried employees are exempt from overtime pay in the US.

This is only accurate inasmuch as most salaried employees are overtime exempt for other reasons (e.g. because they are executive or administrative professionals). Paying employees a salary, on its own, does not make them overtime exempt.

https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/17a-overtime

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

#232

Post by tombert »

CPLX wrote: post #214
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…

> Why do you think America can't compete with China, for example, over the long term?

Not saying I necessarily disagree with you, but just to give an example, the US has considerably better labor practices and labor laws than China. It's not perfect but there are protections about making sure people are paid what they're owed, how much you are allowed to work someone, safety protocols, etc. All of those things could, in theory, cost more money and make labor more expensive.

Compare this to nations that don't have the same work protections, where they can pay people peanuts and have them work much longer shifts with effectively no protection (e.g. Foxconn in China [1]).

This might translate to decreased cost, and Americans have made it excruciatingly clear that we're apparently fine with slave labor as long as it doesn't happen within the US.

[1] https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/chinese-workers-foxc...

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

#233

Post by bilbo0s »

lysace wrote: post #207
smileysteve wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This solves for the US national security issue; in the event of war between China and Taiwan (and a possible proxy war with US), Taiwan immigration would qualify for asylum.

> This solves for the US national security issue I mean, maybe it's okay that some other country is better than you at something important. Excuse me but: the arrogance.

OK. Cards on the table.

This is not arrogance. This is not even about China and Taiwan fighting a war. (Heck, that's probably never gonna happen anyway.)

This is about the US manufacturing important things on our own. And it's not just the US either by the way. The Europeans want to be able to manufacture their own chips. The Russians. The Chinese. The Japanese. The Koreans. And on and on and on.

Why? Because the current system is dumb for everyone who is not Taiwan. For a whole lot of reasons. (Most of them economic.) No one wants to say that out loud, but it's the truth. We can't have everyone dependent on chips but only one nation capable of making them. Again, we're not the only ones who have come to this conclusion. Are the Chinese also "arrogant"? Are the Japanese "arrogant"? The Europeans? The Russians? Are the Koreans "arrogant"?

So everyone else can make common sense moves, but it's "arrogant" if the US does the same common sense thing? So we should just keep paying out an increasing share of our GDP as chips become more and more important and expensive while everyone else makes moves to cut their costs right? Is that what we have to do to be considered not "arrogant"?

People need to be a bit more reasonable.

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

#234

Post by rjbwork »

herval wrote: post #225
rhubarbtree wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alternate explanation: electrical engineering is actually really hard and some parts of computer science look comparatively easier. Plus coding is startups is cool, EE is still nerd as in Nerd.

why would someone pursue a route that's harder AND pays less AND has far fewer jobs available?

And has less cultural cachet.

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

#235

Post by tobiasdorge »

Gomer1800 wrote: post #160
tobiasdorge wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does anyone know the general path to get involved in this? Perhaps its romantic, but this seems important, it seems hard, and it seems like something I can be proud of working on (as opposed to maximizing ad clicks). I'm just a SWE w/ a Comp sci degree, so what's the entry-point here?

Your entry point is a masters and probably Phd in Electrical Engineering, specializing in some aspect of semiconductor manufacturing. It’s definitely not CS.

Surely there is a lot of software involved in the design / operation of these fabs, it's not just designing the chip directly. Another commenter mentioned EDA so maybe I'll look into that.

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

#236

Post by Spivak »

rhubarbtree wrote: post #222
programmertote wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Alternate explanation: electrical engineering is actually really hard and some parts of computer science look comparatively easier. Plus coding is startups is cool, EE is still nerd as in Nerd.

Hard and well paid gets a flood of people pursing it so difficulty can't be the only explanation. Finance, actuarial science, medicine, and law get plenty of applicants. I think it's that CS is an office job that pays well and is in-demand.

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

#237

Post by mcintyre1994 »

hinkley wrote: post #72
drexlspivey wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So which device will these be for then? I thought Apple stuff are always on the cutting edge node.

Their new stuff is. The iPad mini just moved from the A15 to the A17, The first MacBook with Intel processors had access to a bin that was not generally available yet. The yield was too low for it to work for an IBM, a Sony, or a Fujitsu. But Apple was low volume and high margin. If I was nervous about a new fab, there’s the iPhone SE, the Apple TV, lots of choices for a less aggressive manufacturing node and less ag…

I wonder if Apple Intelligence is forcing them to create new chips for things like the SE and TV instead of using old chips which I think they’d usually do.

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

#238

Post by coliveira »

hollerith wrote: post #187
coliveira wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem was never the cost of labor. US tech is already highly profitable and they can pay the full salary if they wish to. But their desire is basically to get a free card to pay lower salaries by any means, so they can send more of those profits to shareholders. The US is essentially a fighting arena between shareholders and workers. The profit is there, it is just a matter of how business want to keep always m…

Do you also think that if a business loses money, the employees should give some of their pay back to the business? Or does this just go one way?

Workers ALWAYS give back some of their salaries when a company fails. They either get lower compensation or lose their jobs altogether.

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

#239

Post by layer8 »

whatever1 wrote: post #163
elzbardico wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because is fucking undproductive, useless and detrimental to society. Advertising is a cancer, an immoral activity.

Setting aside the moral aspect which is highly subjective and seems to have a price tag (for example tech CEOs quit any sort of morals for a good paycheck), the productivity question is a measurable one. Aka does advertising as a whole increase total consumption or is it a zero sum game (aka send bigger slice of the same pie to a competitor) From what I know advertising does increase total demand aka more things/serv…

> for example tech CEOs quit any sort of morals for a good paycheck

An alternative explanation is that prospective tech CEOs who are willing to overlook morals are scarcer and thus mandate higher salaries. ;)

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

#240

Post by andy_ppp »

DennisP wrote: post #183
bllguo wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and that has what, exactly, to do with the legitimacy of said grievances?

Because for all of Russia's apocalyptic rhetoric about the dire consequences of NATO membership on their borders, they've done nothing significant about Finland and Sweden actually becoming NATO members while stepping up their military spending. By comparison, a little political noise about Ukraine maybe joining NATO someday is much less of a provocation, which makes it seem unlikely to have been Russia's actual reas…

The NATO stuff is such propaganda, the idea has always been imperialism and to take the people and turn them into Russians.
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