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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

#81

Post by bluGill »

Xeronate wrote: post #47
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.

50k is just a step above McDonalds these days in a lot of areas. Sure minimum wage might be $15k, but realistically nobody pays that little except in very rural areas (if you need a small number of low skilled employees a small rural town is a perfect spot to build - but if you need more than a small number they can't provide more at any price - you will pay more in the city but there are a lot more people around if you need more)

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

#82

Post by alt227 »

Cumpiler69 wrote: post #67
coliveira wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Such a great victory for American industry... the future is to bring workers from Taiwan with skills and willingness to receive a fraction of US salaries.

What are your realistic options? Say TSMC pays supper competitive US salaries to attract US-only labor, higher labor cost which is causing the end product to be more expensive, which makes that fab uncompetitive globally causing Apple to go buying from someone else and TSMC either choosing leaving the US or going bust eating the losses. You can't compete with lower-wage countries in a globalized world with no trade b…

> when Apple wants higher profits and consumers lower prices

Trump wants chips that say "Made in 'Merica". I dont think cost comes into it that much.

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

#83

Post by elzbardico »

kobalsky wrote: post #75
bee_rider wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also a lot of US STEM grads have their skills wasted in unproductive fields, like the ad business.

the internet ad industry is raking billions from all over the world into the USA, how can you call that unproductive.

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

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

#84

Post by whamlastxmas »

kobalsky wrote: post #75
bee_rider wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also a lot of US STEM grads have their skills wasted in unproductive fields, like the ad business.

the internet ad industry is raking billions from all over the world into the USA, how can you call that unproductive.

By that definition, war is extremely productive

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

#85

Post by hnthrowaway0315 »

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.

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.

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

#86

Post by bluGill »

Cumpiler69 wrote: post #67
coliveira wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Such a great victory for American industry... the future is to bring workers from Taiwan with skills and willingness to receive a fraction of US salaries.

What are your realistic options? Say TSMC pays supper competitive US salaries to attract US-only labor, higher labor cost which is causing the end product to be more expensive, which makes that fab uncompetitive globally causing Apple to go buying from someone else and TSMC either choosing leaving the US or going bust eating the losses. You can't compete with lower-wage countries in a globalized world with no trade b…

More automation. Given the chemicals involved in fab work in general I expect this fab is very automated just for safety reasons and so very few employees are needed. Thus the cost of labor isn't a significant factor.

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

#87

Post by smileysteve »

coliveira wrote: post #62
lysace wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, roughly speaking 1:4 compared to California. Edit: This is not news. This (combined with their higher EE education) is why Taiwan won IBM PC-clone-related manufacturing in the 80s. And why they now have TSMC.

Such a great victory for American industry... the future is to bring workers from Taiwan with skills and willingness to receive a fraction of US salaries.

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.

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

#88

Post by hinkley »

entropicdrifter wrote: post #17
lysace wrote: post #10

Made using which process? The article doesn't mention this. https://www.tsmc.com/english/dedicatedFoundry/technology/log...

The smallest process they've got up and running right now is 4nm, last I checked

And for the record the A17 Pro chip is 3nm. Used in the iPhone 15 pro and the iPad mini.

But they could make iPhone 14’s and the smaller 15’s.

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

#89

Post by bluGill »

whamlastxmas wrote: post #84
kobalsky wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the internet ad industry is raking billions from all over the world into the USA, how can you call that unproductive.

By that definition, war is extremely productive

At least a few evil people attack once in a while thus proving some defense is needed so they they are not completely unproductive/useless. Much as I wish they were not needed.

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

#90

Post by Cumpiler69 »

bluGill wrote: post #86
Cumpiler69 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are your realistic options? Say TSMC pays supper competitive US salaries to attract US-only labor, higher labor cost which is causing the end product to be more expensive, which makes that fab uncompetitive globally causing Apple to go buying from someone else and TSMC either choosing leaving the US or going bust eating the losses. You can't compete with lower-wage countries in a globalized world with no trade b…

More automation. Given the chemicals involved in fab work in general I expect this fab is very automated just for safety reasons and so very few employees are needed. Thus the cost of labor isn't a significant factor.

>Thus the cost of labor isn't a significant factor.

It is. Semi fabs aren't fire-and-forget. You need highly skilled people to constantly check and tweak all the operations in a feedback loop 24/7 and every hour of downtime due to any issue means millions lost. You hire the right people to minimize that downtime while also keeping the costs in check. It's a delicate balance.

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