News TSMC Still Won't Commit to Building a US Fab

[Admin]

The Trump administration is pressuring TSMC to build a chip factory in the US, but TSMC has no plans of doing so yet.

TSMC Still Won't Commit to Building a US Fab : Read more

 

[daworstplaya]

I guess Mark Liu (TSMC) doesn't care if Taiwan eventually gets invaded by China.

 

[Co BIY]

My guess is that he does care but also realizes that preventing that is not his job and he is not in a position to do much about it.

From a purely strategic planning perspective the best strategy to guaranty US intervention in a Communist invasion of Taiwan might not be to outsource manufacturing to the US but to instead concentrate production in Taiwan and make it "Too critical to fall" to the Red Chinese. Sending factories to the US might lessen the incentive to protect Taiwan.

The same strategy of concentration on the island of Taiwan might also make invasion less attractive to the Communists because if the possibility of damaging the same critical production. Too valuable to risk damage through invasion. Sending factories to mainland China might make invasion more likely as they make Taiwanese production less valuable to China.

Or most likely, although TSMC is a very important global company even it has very little influence over the Communist Chinese government and is a very small player in a geopolitical sense.

 

[irish_adam]

China came under communist control in 1949 and they have been talking about invading Taiwan ever since. I don't know why people are so convinced it will happen any day now, its far less likely now than 50 years ago.

On topic though, why should a Taiwanese company want to build a factory in the US? If the US is so concerned about its manufacturing then maybe it should have invested in Global Foundries when it was still in the race. Hell it could still pay them to get back in it. The US has nothing to offer foreign chip manufacturers except higher production costs.

 

[GenericUser]

Or most likely, although TSMC is a very important global company even it has very little influence over the Communist Chinese government and is a very small player in a geopolitical sense.

Occam's Razor

 

[Gillerer]

... or in other words: "Why would we want to give the US yet another means to extort/force us?"

*

Seriously, since most of the assembly of products that take the chips that TSMC makes are in Asia, it makes sense to produce the chips near there.

And don't for a second assume it makes any sense to start assembling in the US - products would be at least twice as expensive. Or alternatively, if trying to reach costs even comparable (no more than ~150%) to Asia, the quality would take a nose dive; Good luck getting low wage workers in the west to work diligently and at low error rates.

I guess Mark Liu (TSMC) doesn't care if Taiwan eventually gets invaded by China.

Funny. As if the TSMC operations in US would still be in the company's control if that were to happen.

The likelihood of it happening is slim. It's more likely that some geopolitical stuff (Trump and US sanctions against everyone) will turn the Taiwanese people off, and in some general election pro-China parties get majority.

 

[BT]

If the US demands all CPU and GPU made for US/US Gov are made in US terrority it will happen. AMD and Nvidia have US Gov contracts and are US companies anyway.

 

[irish_adam]

If the US demands all CPU and GPU made for US/US Gov are made in US terrority it will happen. AMD and Nvidia have US Gov contracts and are US companies anyway.

What? AMD and Nvidia chips are made outside of the US, if the US made that demand they would be unable to buy anything, the US government does not buy so much as to be able to make that demand and if they did they would just get laughed at. They would either have to cave or put up with old outdated equipment.

 

[BT]

What? AMD and Nvidia chips are made outside of the US, if the US made that demand they would be unable to buy anything, the US government does not buy so much as to be able to make that demand and if they did they would just get laughed at. They would either have to cave or put up with old outdated equipment.

Wasn't always like that. Anyway US already has export restrictions on many nations for US tech/software/HPC and tooling. Obviously once Taiwan Falls to China it will have to be done anyway. Now that Nvidia and AMD are major HPC players for US Gov they have more of incentive to playball. The US has Fabs, just lazy Intel and Global Foundries and IBM did not want to spend billions to maintain their process advantage or build the capacity so AMD and Nvidia went to TSMC. It would take 4 years to restart US production in 5-7nm node though, but it is inevitable.

 

[spongiemaster]

If the US demands all CPU and GPU made for US/US Gov are made in US terrority it will happen. AMD and Nvidia have US Gov contracts and are US companies anyway.

Irish_adam is right, they would get laughed at making that demand. What leverage does the gov't have? The gov't doesn't spend enough to make that a financially viable option for any company that isn't already doing it. Even if they did, who would they choose if everyone refused? They can't threaten to exclusively buy from US only fab company X if X doesn't exist.

 

[BT]

I was mostly correct. TSMC will build a Fab in Arizona. Looks like Apple is the end user, not AMD and Nvidia. But still 5nm.

 

[Avro Arrow]

I guess Mark Liu (TSMC) doesn't care if Taiwan eventually gets invaded by China.

Why, do you think that he trusts the United States to do anything about it after they hung the Kurds out to dry? I don't believe for a second that Trump would even lift a finger to help a fellow member of NATO. That's how far the reputation of the USA has plummeted. Nobody sees it as the beacon of liberty it once was because, it isn't. The internet has allowed the world to see things as they truly are and the apparition that the Statue of Liberty created for the USA has been known to be just that for well over a decade now.