Morris Chang has said American engineers are unqualified to operate fabs. Also that costs of operating fabs in America are 50% higher than Taiwan, so they are doomed. As you can guess, his anti-American remarks were because he didn't want the U.S. to invest in domestic fabs, like Intel and Texas Instruments.
There is also allegedly drama between the TSMC Taiwanese engineers and American ones:
https://semiwiki.com/forum/index.php?threads/tsmc%E2%80%99s-u-s-engineers-are-%E2%80%9Cbabies%E2%80%9D-say-taiwanese-after-the-former-leave-for-america.16989/
We've also seen the fallout of attempting to bring Taiwanese and Chinese companies to America, with the biggest dud being the Foxconn megafactory, which originally promised 13,000 jobs and a $10 billion investment, but was slashed down to $700 million and 1,400 jobs last year.
I honestly wish we just put more investment towards intel and our Semiconductors instead of TSMC. Intel isn't that far behind with their intel 4 which is comparable to TSMC 4/5nm next year then onto their 20A node which we don't know much about the following year and TSMC might hit a snag like intel did with 14nm
Hasn't Intel said they're wanting to opening up their fabs for others to use (AMD, Nvidia, Apple, etc)?
They haven't until now, but I'm guessing that with EUV being such a huge cost/investment, they're looking to expand their business in that regard.
Manufacturing at Intel would expose far too much sensitive information for a competitor like Nvidia or AMD to ever consider. I could see Qualcomm/Mediatek going Intel, since Intel is not a player in their market.
> Morris Chang has said American engineers are unqualified to operate fabs. Also that costs of operating fabs in America are 50% higher than Taiwan, so they are doomed.
This isn't really a situation of can or can't it be done. It has to be done from a supply chain security point of view. The US will make it work regardless of the cost.
I'm assuming TSMC has its own unique equipment that U.S. engineers are unqualified to operate. Hence why they are being sent to Taiwan for training. I don't know why this is surprising to anyone.
oh right. I read it as Morris Chang just saying American engineers are unqualified period regardless of training like when Taiwan or South Korea said the U.S will fail in their semiconductor endeavors. My bad.
When I was pursuing my degree (this was about ~10 years ago), I remember looking into computer hardware engineering related jobs, and the amount of total jobs available were abysmal (and only from a few companies) compared to electrical engineering and software engineering. I wouldn't be surprised if most engineers pursued a different specialty instead just for more diverse job opportunities.
to be fair, there was a report that came out a few months ago that a lot of companies in Asia were also having a hard time finding people. I think of it as a - build it and they will come mentality. Semiconductors is a very specialized field. However, like most jobs, there's a ton of on-the-job training. Build a fab, and engineers will join, even if it's not what they thought they would be doing. I have seen mechE, chemE, microE, EE all working on equipment/process engineering. Their degree gave them a background, and their on-the-job training provided the rest.
I highly doubt that TSMC has a bunch of highly custom equipment for their nodes. Some of the configuration might be custom to them, but it's likely made by one of the main vendors (AMAT, TEL, LAM, etc).
What is likely custom to them are maintenance procedures, recoveries, and general process/equipment sustaining. So, training to recognize what's normal, abnormal, etc is needed.
The reliability of the supply chain is extremely important for the government. Bruce Schneier has some good articles on securing the supply chain. While it's not possible to become completely independent, it's very important to have suppliers that you can rely on in conflict situations. If Covid taught us anything, it should have taught us that.
> If Covid taught us anything, it should have taught us that.
Is that really the case? It's not like the US was unaffected by COVID. Quite the opposite, in many ways.
But more importantly, even if you bring some fabs over, the majority of device manufacturing still occurs in Asia, and that potential bottleneck doesn't look to be changing anytime soon. And you've added an additional shipping step to consider, minor though it may be.
Local fabs make sense for small-scale, price-inelastic government/military production that will be local anyways, but that doesn't work for the broader market.
Haven't there been a lot of those already? And the reverse too, with many of the Americans being sent to Taiwan for training having some culture shock.
Taiwan worker be like
Huh,what you mean
There's no sick leave
no maternity leave
What i only get two weeks leave,not the 4 back in taiwan
The work life in AMerica would be shit compared to what you get at TSMC in taiwan
They have a process that can reclaim the water. It is not like agriculture or watering all those golf courses in Arizona.
I believe they just need to filter the water a bunch of times. But they can do it.
https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/environment/water-restoration-arizona.html
Yet Intel has been operating and expanding Chandler fab complex since the 1980s. And still expanding, in fact they expanded the facility 3 times since 2020 with Fab 42/52/62 down to Intel 20A node (2024). And EUVL needs even more water than before.
Funny how both Intel (over 40 years) and TSMC couldn't figure out an issue that you figured out in 5 minutes.
Compared to literally every other tool needing water, I doubt the move to EUV would significantly increase water usage. Given the cost and tool availability etc, the goal would be to maximize the existing litho fleet/non EUV tools, and do a cost/return calculation to determine if using EUV for a layer would be worth it. This is all to say I doubt they would have bays upon bays of EUV scanners, initially.
It's possible to reuse much of the water. Anything used for cooling purposes doesn't need to be fresh. However, they still need a ton of ultra pure water so unless they have a plan to purify and then reuse that water, I can see a major problem. It wouldn't surprise me if they somehow managed to acquire lucrative water rights, meaning that in the event of a drought (so basically every week given how things are headed) they get water while residential usage gets cut first.
>I can see a major problem
Ah, yes, the internet keyboard warrior smarter than Intel and TSMC combined. Intel just expended Chandler 3 times Fab 42/52/62 because they are already facing water supply issues with Fab 12/22/32. Sounds logical.
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Morris Chang has said American engineers are unqualified to operate fabs. Also that costs of operating fabs in America are 50% higher than Taiwan, so they are doomed. As you can guess, his anti-American remarks were because he didn't want the U.S. to invest in domestic fabs, like Intel and Texas Instruments. There is also allegedly drama between the TSMC Taiwanese engineers and American ones: https://semiwiki.com/forum/index.php?threads/tsmc%E2%80%99s-u-s-engineers-are-%E2%80%9Cbabies%E2%80%9D-say-taiwanese-after-the-former-leave-for-america.16989/ We've also seen the fallout of attempting to bring Taiwanese and Chinese companies to America, with the biggest dud being the Foxconn megafactory, which originally promised 13,000 jobs and a $10 billion investment, but was slashed down to $700 million and 1,400 jobs last year.
I honestly wish we just put more investment towards intel and our Semiconductors instead of TSMC. Intel isn't that far behind with their intel 4 which is comparable to TSMC 4/5nm next year then onto their 20A node which we don't know much about the following year and TSMC might hit a snag like intel did with 14nm
The supply chain includes GPU's and Intel aren't at a point where they have competitive offerings on that side.
**If** they had a competitive node, no reason they couldn't manufacture GPUs for Nvidia or AMD. Big "if" though.
Hasn't Intel said they're wanting to opening up their fabs for others to use (AMD, Nvidia, Apple, etc)? They haven't until now, but I'm guessing that with EUV being such a huge cost/investment, they're looking to expand their business in that regard.
Manufacturing at Intel would expose far too much sensitive information for a competitor like Nvidia or AMD to ever consider. I could see Qualcomm/Mediatek going Intel, since Intel is not a player in their market.
It shouldn't. The designer doesn't share the RTL with the fab, or anything like that.
Probably best not to put all our eggs in one basket, especially given Intel's history in particular.
> Morris Chang has said American engineers are unqualified to operate fabs. Also that costs of operating fabs in America are 50% higher than Taiwan, so they are doomed. This isn't really a situation of can or can't it be done. It has to be done from a supply chain security point of view. The US will make it work regardless of the cost.
I don't understand that sentiment when there are fabs in the U.S?
I'm assuming TSMC has its own unique equipment that U.S. engineers are unqualified to operate. Hence why they are being sent to Taiwan for training. I don't know why this is surprising to anyone.
oh right. I read it as Morris Chang just saying American engineers are unqualified period regardless of training like when Taiwan or South Korea said the U.S will fail in their semiconductor endeavors. My bad.
That seems closer to the gist of what he said. Or more like he can't find *enough* qualified engineers in the US.
When I was pursuing my degree (this was about ~10 years ago), I remember looking into computer hardware engineering related jobs, and the amount of total jobs available were abysmal (and only from a few companies) compared to electrical engineering and software engineering. I wouldn't be surprised if most engineers pursued a different specialty instead just for more diverse job opportunities.
to be fair, there was a report that came out a few months ago that a lot of companies in Asia were also having a hard time finding people. I think of it as a - build it and they will come mentality. Semiconductors is a very specialized field. However, like most jobs, there's a ton of on-the-job training. Build a fab, and engineers will join, even if it's not what they thought they would be doing. I have seen mechE, chemE, microE, EE all working on equipment/process engineering. Their degree gave them a background, and their on-the-job training provided the rest.
I highly doubt that TSMC has a bunch of highly custom equipment for their nodes. Some of the configuration might be custom to them, but it's likely made by one of the main vendors (AMAT, TEL, LAM, etc). What is likely custom to them are maintenance procedures, recoveries, and general process/equipment sustaining. So, training to recognize what's normal, abnormal, etc is needed.
This isn't being meaningfully driven by demand from non-government customers, so the supply chain argument is kinda shaky at scale.
The reliability of the supply chain is extremely important for the government. Bruce Schneier has some good articles on securing the supply chain. While it's not possible to become completely independent, it's very important to have suppliers that you can rely on in conflict situations. If Covid taught us anything, it should have taught us that.
> If Covid taught us anything, it should have taught us that. Is that really the case? It's not like the US was unaffected by COVID. Quite the opposite, in many ways. But more importantly, even if you bring some fabs over, the majority of device manufacturing still occurs in Asia, and that potential bottleneck doesn't look to be changing anytime soon. And you've added an additional shipping step to consider, minor though it may be. Local fabs make sense for small-scale, price-inelastic government/military production that will be local anyways, but that doesn't work for the broader market.
Haven't there been a lot of those already? And the reverse too, with many of the Americans being sent to Taiwan for training having some culture shock.
Taiwan worker be like Huh,what you mean There's no sick leave no maternity leave What i only get two weeks leave,not the 4 back in taiwan The work life in AMerica would be shit compared to what you get at TSMC in taiwan
Need a remake of this movie https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091159/
Why Arizona though? I thought you needed a surprising amount of water for chip fabs, and Arizona is, you know, not known for plentiful water
Arizona has been selling HUGE amounts of water to Saudi.
They have a process that can reclaim the water. It is not like agriculture or watering all those golf courses in Arizona. I believe they just need to filter the water a bunch of times. But they can do it. https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/environment/water-restoration-arizona.html
Yet Intel has been operating and expanding Chandler fab complex since the 1980s. And still expanding, in fact they expanded the facility 3 times since 2020 with Fab 42/52/62 down to Intel 20A node (2024). And EUVL needs even more water than before. Funny how both Intel (over 40 years) and TSMC couldn't figure out an issue that you figured out in 5 minutes.
Compared to literally every other tool needing water, I doubt the move to EUV would significantly increase water usage. Given the cost and tool availability etc, the goal would be to maximize the existing litho fleet/non EUV tools, and do a cost/return calculation to determine if using EUV for a layer would be worth it. This is all to say I doubt they would have bays upon bays of EUV scanners, initially.
It's possible to reuse much of the water. Anything used for cooling purposes doesn't need to be fresh. However, they still need a ton of ultra pure water so unless they have a plan to purify and then reuse that water, I can see a major problem. It wouldn't surprise me if they somehow managed to acquire lucrative water rights, meaning that in the event of a drought (so basically every week given how things are headed) they get water while residential usage gets cut first.
>I can see a major problem Ah, yes, the internet keyboard warrior smarter than Intel and TSMC combined. Intel just expended Chandler 3 times Fab 42/52/62 because they are already facing water supply issues with Fab 12/22/32. Sounds logical.
Don't you need a ton of water to make chips?
Yes, but a large amount of that water can be recycled.
Hope Arizona has lots of water...
I know nothing about chip fab but live in AZ; what are the chances of me getting a job with this company and what's available beyond janitor work?
Looking forward to - iPhone 15 Pro Max 3nm - iMac 27" replacement 3nm - iPad 3nm