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

tomshardware.com

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

#41

Post by nine_k »

School-Cotton wrote: post #24
arcticbull wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Marine shipping is just about the most fuel efficient way of moving things between any two places, by a lot. A 100,000 dwt ship can get 1050 miles per gallon per ton of cargo. It takes about a teaspoon full of fuel to move an iPhone sized device across the pacific when I ran the numbers last.

To ship things to/from these fabs by sea you have to add the cost of shipping by truck between Phoenix and (presumably) LA. Not sure how big of a difference that makes.

Chips are small, so one truck once a few days may suffice.

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

#42

Post by ge96 »

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.

brain drain from where? thought a problem is influx of workers into us although more for software not sure of chip tech

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

#43

Post by DennisP »

andy_ppp wrote: post #31
j_walter wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have adopted a n-2 type of rule for advanaced tech...but as of yesterday they seem to have relaxed this rule and approved transfer of 2nm from Taiwan fabs to the AZ fab at some point in the near future. https://www.extremetech.com/computing/tsmc-cleared-for-2nm-p...

Wow I did not know this and it is fantastic news, surprised Taiwan allowed this as they see chips as being the most important reason America would intervene if they were invaded.

In case of invasion, it's not that unlikely that the fabs in Taiwan get destroyed, or at least lose the ability to keep making and selling chips while the conflict is hot. In that case TSMC and Taiwan might prefer having a backup. As long as the US doesn't confiscate the Arizona fab, effectively siding with China, Taiwan would arguably have more leverage by still having something of immense strategic value to trade.

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

#44

Post by mywittyname »

bitsage wrote: post #8

Funny enough, Fab 21 was announced in May 2020 and completed construction in July 2022, a month before the Chips Act was signed.

The announcement of this plant coincided with the announcement of the Endless Frontier Act and CHIPS for America act, which is what eventually became the bill we call CHIPS and Science Act.

This plant was the foundation that the CHIPS act was built upon. The Secretary of State had to secure an agreement with TSMC to build this fab before the bills could be drafted, as a lot of the recipients of the funding are suppliers for this plant.

It is completely truthful to assert that this is the result of the CHIPS act. Congress agreed to introduce the bills as a result of TSMC's agreement to build the fab in Arizona. If you have to avoid giving Biden credit, then you can point out that it was Trump's SoS who negotiated this original agreement.

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

#45

Post by epicureanideal »

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.

> STEM field gap

STEM salary gap

I suspect the Taiwan workers have on average much lower salaries.

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

#46

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

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

#47

Post by Xeronate »

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 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.

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

#50

Post by d3ckard »

whimsicalism wrote: post #33
andy_ppp wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow I did not know this and it is fantastic news, surprised Taiwan allowed this as they see chips as being the most important reason America would intervene if they were invaded.

I'm a China dove and I'd favor full-throated defense of Taiwan in any invasion (much more so than Ukraine) regardless of chips.

I don’t disagree with the core premise, but why much more than Ukraine?
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