News TSMC's Arizona Fab 21 mass produces 4nm chips at a higher price than Taiwan

[Admin]

TSMC confirms Arizona Fab 21 is making chips in volume, charges higher prices than Taiwanese fabs.

TSMC's Arizona Fab 21 mass produces 4nm chips at a higher price than Taiwan : Read more

 

[usertests]

The amount makes all the difference. If it's +5%, I don't think companies care if their priority is getting a chunk of the additional wafer capacity. Made in USA printed on the chip doesn't matter too much, since most users will never see it.

There may be smaller cost of shipping if they can be kept in the US, but if they need to be shipped to Taiwan for packaging then back to the US or something stupid like that, then it's a waste. That was something I heard early on, does anyone have any insight into the journey these wafers will take?

 

[Zaranthos]

I'll pay more for "Made in the USA" stamp alone. We can't outsource the production of literally everything to other countries just so we get cheaper stuff. If we want to reduce production costs we can start by cutting needless regulations that make even planing to build production like this cost money. In some cases you have to do an environmental impact study before you can start laying a foundation and you have to apply for who knows how many permits (that all cost fees and licenses or whatever). Then if you can even build it you have to contend with an army of lawyers and unions competing for ways to increase your labor costs. We just can't rely on everyone else to build the things we need for so many reasons.

 

[watzupken]

In times where prices of practically everything are going up at a rapid pace, any increase in prices is not going to help most people. I don't really think the "made is the US" chip is going to be just 5% more expensive. There may be savings when it comes to shipping of the chip produced since it is produced locally, but given that most resources are sourced from Asia, you incur shipping fee on these resources instead. Furthermore, the cost of operating in US should be comparably higher than in Taiwan. So I think a premium upward of 10% to around 15% is the more likely scenario.

 

[EricFromMinnesota]

The anti-regulation whiners complain when TSMC was able to build a fab that is now making world class 4nm chips within about 3 years. They also had to procure the machinery (99.99% chance it's from ASML in Europe) and hire or bring in the engineers to run it. I find it impressive and a good thing that some of these chips are now made in USA. Hopefully we'll also get some packaging manufacturing as well since it seems very ineffient and environmentally costly to ship twice for packaging.

 

[markhahn]

Little FUDy, since in the same earnings call, he says it's a 2-3% premium.

 

[BloodLust2222]

Yea, I'm not willing to pay more. The "Made in the USA" chip means nothing. Things are too expensive already, We don't need more reasons for companies to raise prices all in the name of profits.

 

[phead128]

CHIPS ACT costs taxpayers $185,000 per new semiconductor job created per year, double the average semiconductor salary, according to Peterson report. (Source)

But the government subsidies behind the expected chip manufacturing boom mean that each job created will cost taxpayers about $185,000 a year, the Peterson report found.
That’s twice the average annual salary of U.S. semiconductor employees, according to the report

Good luck scaling this beyond the token symbolic capacity at Arizona TSMC.

 

[tamalero]

Translation:
The USA somewhat protects environment and somewhat forbids sweatshops.

 

[OldAnalogWorld]

Translation:
The USA somewhat protects environment and somewhat forbids sweatshops.

The Intel example shows that not everything is so simple, as I have written in detail above and here...

 

[thestryker]

There may be smaller cost of shipping if they can be kept in the US, but if they need to be shipped to Taiwan for packaging then back to the US or something stupid like that, then it's a waste. That was something I heard early on, does anyone have any insight into the journey these wafers will take?

TSMC has no advanced packaging within the US and I don't believe they're going to open one. There is the early stages of a deal with Amkor to bring advanced packaging solutions to the US. Amkor hasn't broken ground on the facility which would be doing this yet so it's a long way off.

CHIPS ACT costs taxpayers $185,000 per new semiconductor job created per year, double the average semiconductor salary, according to Peterson report. (Source)

Good luck scaling this beyond the token symbolic capacity at Arizona TSMC.

That's a weird angle to take on the CHIPS Act as it was designed to increase silicon manufacturing within the US rather than being a jobs bill.

 

[Amdlova]

I'am willing to pay more for A CHIP make ON EUA...
But will wait when the International station drops over taiwan... pin point on TSMC 😀

 

[Stomx]

Lets do the back of an envelop estimation.

If one processor on a wafer weights less than a 1 gram you can place 30 thousand of them into a luggage of some passenger flying to China anyway at the added cost less than $100 per this luggage. So the transportation cost is 0.3 cents per processor on a wafer.

Now the assembled processor back to USA weights 30g (this number is just for easy calculation, we will see the real weight still does not matter) and we get that the same transportation cost for 1000 processors in one 30kg luggage is 10 cents per processor.

Ok, we made a lot of errors and underestimated everything by an order of magnitude and the transportation cost will actually be 1 dollar instead of 10 cents per processor. So the added cost 1 dollar will stop you from bying?

Ok, fine, we made two orders magnitude mistake here and the additional cost per say $550 processor will be 10 dollars and it will cost $560. Will this stop you from bying?

Anyone still insisting that the added cost for transportation is higher?

 

[ohio_buckeye]

I’m ok with a small increase if it helps secure the supply chain. You sure don’t want everything produced in one location due to issues that could arise.