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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

#391

Post by johnnyanmac »

WillPostForFood wrote: post #335
krapp wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless your ancestors crossed the Bering Strait ten thousand years ago, calling yourself "native born" doesn't mean a thing.

If you only came across ten thousand years ago, you are just a colonist that killed and displaced the people who came across sixteen thousand years ago. But that said, native born has a definition, and it is where you were born, not where your parents, grandparents or grand^14 parents was born.

my grand^10 parent's didn't exactly "immigrate" her per se. They were "invited". I guess they were "persuaded" to help fight the occasional war though.

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

#392

Post by johnnyanmac »

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?

Well yes, that's why China's in the lead. We willingfully gave it up because corporate decided it was too expensive to pay american talent. They started the death spiral towards "No American wants to work in EE anymore".

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

#393

Post by gjsman-1000 »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #291
gjsman-1000 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps - in California. Median US Salary is $59,384. Half of workers make less.

You need to factor in that only ~30% of workers work full-time. Men with a bachelor's degree who work full-time have a median income is ~$89k - (basically the entire demographic of these TSMC workers). https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/wkyeng.pdf

The statistic I gave was for solely full-time workers in the US.

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

#394

Post by whimsicalism »

kombine wrote: post #280
whimsicalism wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taiwan is a long-standing well-functioning democracy and a core ally. On the other side, I also view Russia's grievances as somewhat more legitimate than China's.

No grievances that Russia might have had can justify this devastating war, and total annihilation, and mass murder.

not the point of my comment. war is never good, whether it is Russia invading Ukraine, China invading Taiwan, or the US invading Iraq+Afghanistan - everyone should focus on finding common ground and understanding the perspectives of others

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

#395

Post by johnnyanmac »

IshKebab wrote: post #111
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.

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.).

50k is/was recently a decent salary (not SF). In the last 5 years, not so much anywhere outside the absolute lowest CoL areas.

But yes, most Americans do not want to work on a death march. And employers don't want to pay it. I doubt they can argue 50k as exempt so that's a lot of overtime. They may as well be salaried 6 figures at that point.

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

#396

Post by johnnyanmac »

somanyphotons wrote: post #304
reginald78 wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

996 at 50K is less than Arizona's minimum wage.

The 996 should be regulated against, it's simply unreasonable

Apparently there are laws against it in China. But I guess the US isn't the only one with loosely enforced labor regulations.

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

#397

Post by johnnyanmac »

scarab92 wrote: post #378
chasd00 wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The way it was described to me is that every major piece of equipment has a PhD assigned to it... did they mean that literally or just that an expert was assigned to it? What kind of PhD would even be relevant to maintaining machinery on an assembly line? Perhaps a PhD on the operations of that specific machine but even then, the person's knowledge would be so focused on whatever physics/chemistry/science is being…

A PhD is really just a project in an academic setting. There’s likely little real world difference in capability between someone with first class honours and a year in industry, than first class honours plus a PhD.

I mean, it's a long, specialized project. It really depends on the specialization. a new grad with a PhD in some LLM tech would be grabbed up much faster than a hobbyist with 5+ years in general SWE with maybe some pet projects made with AI tech.

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

#398

Post by hn3er1q »

tobiasdorge wrote: post #151
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.

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?

EDA software has some of the most amazing algorithms. I'm always surprised more CS people aren't into it.

You can find many great opensource projects here: https://theopenroadproject.org

But to get some context, and try out the flow and how everything works together, start here: https://tinytapeout.com

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

#399

Post by hn3er1q »

tobiasdorge wrote: post #235
Gomer1800 wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There is a huge amount of software in every single step of making an ASIC, digital or analog. Or even a PCB for that matter. Long gone are the days of cutting tape and etching anything yourself. Apple's M3 has 25 billion transistors. No human drew those.

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

#400

Post by johnnyanmac »

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).

Easy to get better value on wages when you get to pay under the minimum wage of your home country. And/or aren't required to offer benefits, vacation. And are able to work them twice as long without overtime pay. And don't need to care about child labor laws.

To be blunt: yes, slavery is cheap, isn't it?

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