TSMC delays US chip fab opening, says US talent is insufficient
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Just because this company makes’s your favorite company’s components, does not automatically make them good guys.
They are conning us. Fuck them and their ownership who are no more than predatory capitalists like Foxconn and their boondoggle locates 5 miles from me.
They are conning us. Fuck them and their ownership who are no more than predatory capitalists like Foxconn and their boondoggle locates 5 miles from me.
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... and why would TSMC want to do so? They've been politically strong-armed into setting up production in the U.S. Doing so wasn't a sane business decision.
From their perspective, they're forced to deal with a labor force, every aspect from construction through operations that are simultaneously entitled, uppity, stupid and outrageously expensive.
Look, at least get some second-hand understanding. Go on Glassdoor and search for TSMC Taiwan. See what the salaries are and read the reviews. Go search for the same for pay and working conditions for the trades.
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I'm reminded of Fred Brook's adage (MMM) that "More help makes a late project later." Because you not only need people that can cut the mustard, but you have to find people that know the stuff really well to teach them....and those people are the leadership and knowledge core of your already late project
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Funny thing is, all these years Big Tech has been offshoring tech....where bright young Johnnies (of Oriental persuasion) have been appropriating the expertise....and then making it better (odd, they have smart people, too, who' d a thunkit?). Now they don't want to offshore it back to the US.
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I would be interested to hear how you feel about the elections in Crimea and Donbas. Do they also automatically confer legality? This is a serious question.
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Having lived there, I might let you have it. I am not that keen on English beers or the alternating whiffs of malt and rotting meat from the sausage roll factory.
Nice people though.
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What pary of reasonable and fair by international standards don't you understand?
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I see your point, and as long as ROC remains just that (and still claims a united China), the mainland does not seem too unhappy about it (which they have made clear).
The problem (from their perspective) is when people simply want to claim independence so that Taiwan becomes a breakaway province. At which point their claim revives, of course… ;-)
They would still aim for a union of some sort, but with Taiwan keeping its system of government.
Personally I think that if you still call it the ROC, some kind of union without being subsumed might be acceptable to you.
Anyway… not really any of my business… nor that of anyone from the West really...
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Please could you explain your definition, and then I will tell you if I understand it.
Incidentally, for what it is worth, I do not think the invasion of Ukraine can be justified, in case you were wondering.
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Well, for one thing, Russia imported plenty of their people, and kidnapped, exiled, and otherwise disenfranchised plenty of the Ukrainian residents. Not to mention questions about if the votes were counted correctly.
Whereas in Taiwan, other than KMT (the party now on the outs, who thinks China and Taiwan should unify, preferably under ROC rule), there hasn't been much active skewing of demographics, and even the KMT hasn't pulled that in 20+ years.
People have a right to self determination, and any violent acts to change national borders (Which, de facto if not de jure, are separate for Taiwan and PRC), are considered to be illegitimate until proven otherwise since the end of WW2, at which point the international community rejected the previous idea that nations have a right to take territory in war.
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I work at (the only currently operating) TSMC Fab in the US, and was offered a significant relocation and compensation package to uproot and transfer to the AZ site. Still wasn't worth it.
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That's a good read. If you look at Gavin Newsoms recent CEQA reforms they are designed to address many of those issues, at least to some degree. CA in particular struggles with this so those reforms might just get us back in line with other states, but it's a recognition of those challenges.
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One thing I wonder is who the people moving to AZ are? If the primary driver of migration to AZ is lower cost of living, the growth may well be biased towards people without the kinds of skills needed in semiconductors. (And of course, retirement is also a big driver of migration to the Southwest.)
The state's median income is significantly lower than most states known for tech, with the possible exception of Texas. Looking at BLS statistics, the AZ workforce is similar in size to MA, but lags in most higher paid and higher skilled sectors, making up for it mainly in farming, construction, and mining/logging.
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NYT ran a long article about this back in February. It sounds like Morris Chang in particular has a fairly dim view of US operations dating back to when TSMC's existing facility was built in the 1990s.
One factor that may favor AZ that hasn't been mentioned upthread is proximity to Mexico. I doubt TSMC would open a cutting edge fab there anytime soon, but shipping components there for lower cost integration may be very attractive, particularly if those aren't directly subsidized by the CHIPS act.
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TLDR: Taiwan's relationship with China is an extremely complicated. Despite taking couple of courses in Chinese history and Chinese/Taiwan cross-straight relations in college and also visiting both China and Taiwan in over a dozen times over the decades (including official cultural exchange programs to HK, China, and Taiwan where I actually spent weeks with other college students from those regions) I feel like I only have the most basic understanding of the geopolitical situation there. However, what I can say is that you have no idea what you are talking about.
In post-WW2 days, the KMT did ban opposition parties in Taiwan elections but Lee Teng-hui oversaw the democratization of Taiwan in the 1990s... such that in 2000 the DPP (the opposition party) won the presidential election. Now that's not to say Taiwan politics isn't messy, it is... but the fact that the DPP still currently controls the presidency and legislature while not holding the military power should tell you that Taiwan's elections as quite a bit more fair than that of Russian-occupied Crimea and Donbas (or Russia itself for that matter where opposition politicians are summarily arrested, and even beaten/poison/murdered).
But no, your ignorance is on full display. Here's an excerpt from Wikipedia on the history of the matter where US and China decided what Taiwan could call itself internationally.
Yes... the fact that you tried to suggest modern Taiwan elections are like the ones in Crimea/Donbas show a complete ignorance about the political situation there, even for a Westerner. And yet you still repeatedly keep posting your "just saying" opinion on the matter.
In post-WW2 days, the KMT did ban opposition parties in Taiwan elections but Lee Teng-hui oversaw the democratization of Taiwan in the 1990s... such that in 2000 the DPP (the opposition party) won the presidential election. Now that's not to say Taiwan politics isn't messy, it is... but the fact that the DPP still currently controls the presidency and legislature while not holding the military power should tell you that Taiwan's elections as quite a bit more fair than that of Russian-occupied Crimea and Donbas (or Russia itself for that matter where opposition politicians are summarily arrested, and even beaten/poison/murdered).
After some initial hope/optimism after the 1997 handover, the one country, two party systems hasn't really worked out for Hong Kong in the end as China. While some private opposition is allowed, any type of organized opposition (i.e. enough to present an actual threat to current pro-China HK leadershippower) to the Chinese mainland government is AFAIK forbidden (as it is considered to be a "threat to national security) with opposition politician being arrested for public opposing the pro-China party line.
So by your reasoning, United States of America ought to have some kind of union with Italy because we still name our country after an Italian (Colombia and Venezuela I believe also have Italian naming origins) although I'm sure there is a group that wants us to renaming ourselves to "United States of Freedom" or something like that.
But no, your ignorance is on full display. Here's an excerpt from Wikipedia on the history of the matter where US and China decided what Taiwan could call itself internationally.
In recent time, Taiwan has considered renaming itself to just "Taiwan." For example there was a referendum in 2018 (look at that... democracy, try that in Donbad/Crimea) about whether it should rename itself to just "Taiwan" for the Olympics. The people of Taiwan decided not to for fear of antagonizing China, which promised it would try to strong arm the IOC into banning Taiwan competitors from the Olympics like Russia was and most Taiwanese felt like it wasn't worth the drama.
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When Qing was asked to pay compensation for shipwreck sailors killed by aboriginals in 1867 and 1874, they flat out denied that they have administrative responsibilities over large portion of Taiwan. USMC was send in and fought the Paiwan tribe to a draw. Japanese had to sent in Saigo Takamori's younger brother. Chinese never had control of the whole island of Taiwan when they cowardly betrayed Taiwanese in 1895 to save themselves from the disaster they got themselves into in Korea.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formosa_Expedition?wprov=sfla1
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_invasion_of_Taiwan_(1874)?wprov=sfla1
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I work at Intel's fab in Chandler as a process engineer. A few clarifications are needed:
Point 1: Correct on all counts. There is a strong semiconductor manufacturing base here, but the emphasis is on engineering-level jobs. Shortages for construction, facilities, and actual floor techs (the ones doing PMs) are chronic across the industry.
Point 2: Any fab in Arizona, at this point, is using as much recycled water as possible. A huge chunk of Intel's campuses are dedicated to water reclamation and recycling. If TSMC isn't doing that, they're shooting themselves in the foot.
Point 3: Arizona is too dry. Most fabs here have to artificially increase humidity; you want your cleanrooms in the 50-60% range, and outside of monsoon season its typically below 10%.
Point 4: We do get earthquakes, but they aren't even remotely as strong as the ones in California and Mexico. However, we also feel those earthquakes here; even something rocking in San Diego or Mexico City is enough to trigger seismic sensors in Phoenix, and cause fabs to shut down.
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Unless you are in management, semiconductor's pay the bills, but not much more than that. The industry is overdue for a pay correction; right now the money is elsewhere.
Add in the fact that Phoenix is hella expensive right now (among the most expensive places to live in the country, even after adjusting for Cost of Living base pay), and we are also among the hottest places in the country to live, and we have a water supply problem, I can't imagine people willing to move here unless the money is right.
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Depends where in the country you are talking. I know from experience that the major Arizona universities (University of Arizona, and Arizona State University) have excellent Chemical, Electrical, and Materials programs.
They have a fairly large number of students graduating with those degrees (and high enrollment: ASU touts 30k+ students in their College of Engineering department, with the 2nd most popular program being Electrical Engineering)
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It's the same old story we've been hearing from the US corporate world "we can't find workers, people don't want to work cause they're lazy and entitled!!"
No, they don't want to work for your poverty wages. Somehow when offered decent pay they will compete for those jobs.
I've read an article about TSMC where their american personnel working in the fabs in Taiwan were deemed "lazy" because they didn't want to work 12hr days and getting called to work on their days off, like their taiwanese employees. I'm gonna guess it's a sort of cultural clash, since Japan and Korea have the same kinds of expectations from their workers, while the western world is clearly different, especially when talking about union jobs, where workers rights are actually enforced.
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I think it’s an excuse to delay. TSMC didn’t want to build a plant here. They even said that at one point. It’s funny that Intel, Texas Instruments, Samsung and others have no had a problem with a lack of experienced workers .
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"TSMC has cited US building costs being more expensive than costs in Taiwan as another setback."
That's different from what you expected how? Listing problems that everyone knew ahead of time is not a reason to delay something.
Also... expecting workers to educate themselves, then also be treated like a cog later (and thrown away)... doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
Blaming a lack of expertise in your own business area seems a bad idea too. It'd be like Microsoft claiming they couldn't find enough IT people to install Windows in a new data center. Isn't running clean rooms your thing?
Did you honestly expect there to be tons of unemployed semiconductor workers BEFORE you start your company doing business there?
Just be honest for f-'s sake.
That's different from what you expected how? Listing problems that everyone knew ahead of time is not a reason to delay something.
Also... expecting workers to educate themselves, then also be treated like a cog later (and thrown away)... doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
Blaming a lack of expertise in your own business area seems a bad idea too. It'd be like Microsoft claiming they couldn't find enough IT people to install Windows in a new data center. Isn't running clean rooms your thing?
Did you honestly expect there to be tons of unemployed semiconductor workers BEFORE you start your company doing business there?
Just be honest for f-'s sake.
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So, to all your 'why's the answer is 'It Does"
Arizona has several Intel Fabs located in the State, the Universities and even High Schools have programs and degree paths to funnel skilled workers into semiconductor and similar tech industries. AZ also has Motorola, Honeywell, a large ASML plant, and many other major manufacturing, tech, aerospace, and semiconductor companies.
It is also full of Data Centers, and other tech related installations to the point of being dubbed the new silicon valley by some in recent years.
The reason for all this is the stability factor. The Metro area is huge and easily traversed, water (used to be) cheap and easy to come by even for being "the desert" (as it is it is farming that uses well over 70-80% of all water resources in the state). It is geologically stable, there are barely ever earthquakes to speak of, the weather is stable and for the majority of the time clear of any major storms unless a Monsoon Season is active (which lately isn't that often). There is also plentiful open land still on the exteriors of the expansive metro area (which is why TSMC is building in BFE, Intel also factors in 'buffer' land for their Fabs, so Ocotillo Fab in South Chandler had ample expansion area)
Also, to those unaware, only half or less of Arizona is a desert, there are mountains, and trees and snow, just not in the major metro area that the majority of the population live.
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So a corporation, like any organism, divides by mitosis and relocates to survive. If TSMC Taiwan is destroyed by China, does the organism called TSMC America become an American company by right of having been born on US soil?
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TSMC is dealing with a culture clash, IMO.
In Southeast Asia, most companies expect you to kiss up to the boss and like it. It's also expected you will sacrifice your personal life for your career.
However in America, we have a "fuck you and the horse you rode in on" attitude towards our bosses, especially in the desert southwest. Americans --- especially heads of households --- are also no longer tolerant to sacrifices w.r.t. work-life balance (especially post-COVID). We are slowly but surely learning from our European counterparts on this subject.
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No we don't, this is one thing that throwing money at it isn't going to fix it. What we need is require every 4th grader to learn Algebra I, and everyone promoted above 6th grade should have basic understanding of Algebra II and Geometry. And bring back trade classes, not everyone need to go to college. This is the expectation for East Asian education and EU education. Mean while we are graduating thousands of 4 year bachelors in "Ethnic Studies" and "Social work", none of which will have the background to even think about doing a single day of work at these factories.
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Your memory of when kids learn various math subjects is a little off. Algebra is an 8th to 10th grade level subject, up to the advent of Common Core which now teaches a little bit of various math subjects all together over the years.
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If "the slightest tremors can cause defects or problems", then I find it surprising that Taiwan manages to fabricate cutting-edge chips at all. I mean, having seen footage like this.
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Or maybe they both violated the memorandum :
The article 3 say :
<refrain from economic coercion designed to subordinate to their own interest the
exercise by Ukraine of the rights inherent in its and thus to secureadvantages of any kind.>
And Joe Biden in 2016 publicly say on video that if Ukraine didn't fire a prosecutor he would not give 1 billion :
<“I said, ‘You’re not getting the billion.’ I’m going to be leaving here in, I think it was about six hours. I looked at them and said: ‘I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money,’” Biden recalled telling Poroshenko. >
If it was not for a state interest, it was personal interest, either way, it's very bad or even worse.
The only reason the US wants their own top chip production line, is because Taiwan will be home of their next war, thus everything on that island will be wreck, but it will not matter, as the main objective will be to roll back China 20 year in the past, like it occurred to others countries.
Taiwan should act with caution, they are forced to spread their plants oversea in EU and the US, being them i would implement a fail safe in their machine, to keep control over the production capacity, as the US do with the F-35 for example, if something is not going like Taiwan want it to go, just press the kill switch.
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Doing a fact check, AFAICT that Biden was in fact acting on behalf of the Obama administration in forcing the Ukrainian government fire the current prosecutor general, who was noticeably dragging his feet on investigating/prosecuting Burisma despite allegations starting back in April 2014 and replace him with someone who would investigate Burisma (which is what happen afterwards).
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You don't need to fact check that, everybody has it on video, Biden spilled the bean as usual.
Anyway telling a story where the prosecutor was fired because not pressuring or aiming to ; enough on the compagny that hosted the Biden son for 1 million a year from 2014 to 2018 is pure false news, and no one will fall for for that.
Reuters : <Shokin says he was fired to prevent him from investigating Hunter Biden, which the Biden family strongly denies.> reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-whistleblower-ukraine-buris-idUSKBN1WC1LV
Kiev news :
<Court seizes property of ex-minister Zlochevsky in Ukraine> Read Burisma, he was doing damage.
kyivpost.com/post/10691
That factually changed the situation form to being investigated to being more likely in the crosshair, if you think it's going backward, sorry for them that in Ukraine it was effective, but we still have people in the US not blid enought to let that Burisma case going under the radar, thanks again to Biden for bragging about it.
Anyway, that don't make my point less relevant the US did breach the memorandum too, by using coercition.
Anyway telling a story where the prosecutor was fired because not pressuring or aiming to ; enough on the compagny that hosted the Biden son for 1 million a year from 2014 to 2018 is pure false news, and no one will fall for for that.
Reuters : <Shokin says he was fired to prevent him from investigating Hunter Biden, which the Biden family strongly denies.> reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-whistleblower-ukraine-buris-idUSKBN1WC1LV
Kiev news :
<Court seizes property of ex-minister Zlochevsky in Ukraine> Read Burisma, he was doing damage.
kyivpost.com/post/10691
That factually changed the situation form to being investigated to being more likely in the crosshair, if you think it's going backward, sorry for them that in Ukraine it was effective, but we still have people in the US not blid enought to let that Burisma case going under the radar, thanks again to Biden for bragging about it.
Anyway, that don't make my point less relevant the US did breach the memorandum too, by using coercition.
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You should do some actual reading on Shokin, incl. referring to Ukrainian sources and press. He was widely criticized by international (incl. by the EU and the World Bank) and Ukrainian civil society and anti-corruption groups for not doing his job. His own staff were caught in bribery cases, and meanwhile he was targeting anti-corruption groups on very questionable grounds. This had nothing to do with Biden.
Granted, I feel for the guy a bit, as he faced more than one assassination attempts. He might have been caught between a rock and a hard place. But that doesn't excuse his unwillingness to do his job. He could have stepped down if he felt it was too much.
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