TSMC says it has discussed moving fabs out of Taiwan but such a move impossible(reuters.com)
reuters.com
TSMC says it has discussed moving fabs out of Taiwan but such a move impossible
https://www.reuters.com/technology/tsmc-says-it-has-discussed-moving-fabs-out-taiwan-such-move-impossible-2024-06-04/
7 comments
China doesn't care about TSMC, they are building their own inhouse industry that's competitive with TSMC
They care about Taiwan for the same reason they cared about Hong Kong, because they are part of China and is being weaponized by foreign forces
They care about Taiwan for the same reason they cared about Hong Kong, because they are part of China and is being weaponized by foreign forces
Breaking international treaties to respect autonomy and forcibly assimilating regions that they deem important. It wouldn’t be right if the US did it, and certainly isn’t right for China to do.
Taiwan votes for independence
Taiwan votes for independence
If they could do what tsmc does they would. You can tell they can’t because nobody else in the world does. Tsmc has a de fecto monopoly.
> Nobody is worried
If a company with >90% of their production capacity in Taiwan isn’t worried about a Chinese invasion, I would like to think we shouldn’t be worried either.
If a company with >90% of their production capacity in Taiwan isn’t worried about a Chinese invasion, I would like to think we shouldn’t be worried either.
It is highly likely that relocation of the existing TSMC infrastructure would be highly disruptive to supply chain, and that yield would plummet even after the protracted complete outage, with risk management over irretrievably broken systems which demands replacement by ASML. Yield is sensitive to things which are very hard to fix. Clean room praxis is a hard discipline. It could take a year or more to get close. If you are apple, and committed to some (fictitious) 0.5nm process, being told it's now 5 years off not 2 because.. well because we broke the Kenwood mixer and we can't find the cap for the egg beater when we moved house would be very.. hard.
TSMC have previously indicated their expectations of work culture are a poor fit for most other economies. That's a strong signal they are not willing to observe local labour board rules about hours, conditions, quite apart from pay. (I read this in a google drive doc which I now can't find. I suspect somebody on the inside wrote it up and it's been submarined)
So be mindful that "impossible" is being used in a complex, high level way, not in a low level "if you move, the six dragons buried under the plant will fly away and take the fairy smoke with them" impossible way.
I would also expect that the Taiwan government has quietly told TSMC to back-pedal on the $b funded relocations: The defence of Taiwan is predicated on many things, not the least of which is the dependency on the chip fab lines in Taiwan.
Intel sacking the entire cohort of Senior Engineers and then finding they had to out source manufacture to TSMC is one of those "we can't remake Apollo 11 because we destroyed the tools and drawings" moments. Grandad now depends on cousin tony's tools to fix his custom car: his own tools are all wrecked and he lost the torque wrench.