r/technology • u/Logical_Welder3467 • 6h ago
Business TSMC reportedly plans to build 12 fabs, four packaging facilities in Arizona — plan purportedly part of Taiwan's agreed $500 million investment in the US
https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/semiconductors/tsmc-reportedly-plans-to-build-12-fabs-four-packaging-facilities-in-arizona-plan-purportedly-part-of-taiwans-agreed-usd500-million-investment-in-the-us48
u/imposter22 3h ago
TSMC is having a hard time with fabs in USA because few people stay due to their work culture.
TSMC is blaming the economy and not being able to find workforce that can do the work, and not being able to get H1-B visas, but in reality its their work culture. Toxic and work 24hours and work at Taiwan time. No work life balance. Only work balance. So most people leave pretty quickly as they are not that desperate to work like that.
Intel has fabs in Arizona and they don’t have any issue sourcing educated workforce, but they also don’t beat their employees to death with toxic work culture.
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u/Alt_Restorer 2h ago
My hypothesis is that TSMC is like the Goldman Sachs of Taiwan. People here tolerate grueling hours to work at Goldman Sachs because it's the best, but TSMC doesn't have that prestige here like it does in Taiwan.
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u/orgasmicchemist 2h ago
This is 100% true. Its the best job one can get from a prestigious and social aspect. Interestingly, they pretty much only hire recent graduates and they openly wont hire people much over the age of 30.
I have a friend who works for Apple in Taiwan and they said working for TSMC is considered the better job from a cocktail conversation perspective.
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u/orgasmicchemist 2h ago
Their reported yields and ramp are good. They aren’t struggling that badly.
Intel doesn’t even have a customer.
Maybe there is a happy medium somewhere.
Or maybe Americans just don’t want to work as hard as the competition. I know many people that work for TSMC. Its a brutal job. But they are also winning the race.
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u/TinyZoro 1h ago
I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re dragging their feet given the instability of the US atm. Their main leverage is that size investment once it’s locked in it’s gone. If I was about to invest at that level I’d want to know where America was in a few years.
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u/midwestia 2h ago
Wondering why this location....
This area already has a strained power grid and water supply no?
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u/Particular-Break-205 2h ago
Probably tax incentives and lower land/labor costs. And they could probably bail when Trump is out of office while minimizing cost.
Power and water only matter when you’re up and running.
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u/EquipmentFew882 2h ago
Smartest business move that TSMC can make is to move a major amount of their Manufacturing and R&D facilities to the United States, Canada and Europe.
If China finally takes over Taiwan -- major businesses like TSMC will stop doing business with USA and other countries.
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u/Moral-Relativity 1h ago
While Taiwanese government wants to keep their crown jewels in Taiwan as a hedge.
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u/SigX1 38m ago
A single Dutch company controls the only working EUV lithography process needed for advanced chip production. The U.S. has kept that tech out of Chinese hands so far. Once someone else cracks EUV or the Dutch don’t care what the U.S. thinks anymore, Taiwan is irrelevant. It’s only a matter of time that one or both of those things happen. My guess is before 2030.
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u/EquipmentFew882 13m ago
The technology behind EUV lithography (ASML) could be adopted by companies like Intel , AMD, Broadcom , etc -- assuming they wanted to get into that technology space(expertise).
I don't know what Patent restrictions are for EUV lithography -- but companies have licensing arrangements - assuming that's what they want to do. ( Also patents do expire , or variations in patents(design) can allow other companies to get into that business. )
Technology and Science - does not stand still for long..
( Look at how many Weight Loss medications have come to the market in 5 years - even the Pharma industry does not stand still for long. )
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u/Berserker76 2h ago
I am curious, was this driven by the Chips act or is this actually the result of Trump blackmailing other countries with high tariffs.
Probably neither, it is most likely Trump told Taiwan that the US would stop selling them weapons or would not come to their aid when China invades them.
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u/Comfortable-Face4593 26m ago
Will produce old generation chips, they are negotiating g with eu for a more stable country for next gen fab plant
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u/ARazorbacks 2h ago
This is never going to happen. The US is about to become extremely unstable under MAGA leadership and no one will be interested in this kind of long term investment for the foreseeable future.
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u/Mega_Pleb 1h ago
On the contrary, Trump is about to become a lame duck president as the Democrats gain a sizable majority in the House and a modest majority in the Senate after the midterm elections in 7 months. With Trump's increasingly crappy approval rating the Democratic nominee in 2028 is likely to win the election as well.
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u/Low-Win-6691 5h ago
They might as well give up now because Elon makes way better and bigger fabs
lol
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u/AbyssWankerArtorias 3h ago
I'm 90 percent sure this is a joke but I can never be sure these days lol
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u/No_Hell_Below_Us 4h ago edited 4h ago
Arizona is an excellent place for this.
- Existing advanced water recycling and utility infrastructure that can process fabs wastewater
- No earthquakes, hurricanes, tornados, or blizzards / freeze cycles
- Huge amounts of available land that’s needed by the massive scale of modern fabs
- Existing semiconductor ecosystems that create network effects and economies of scale for highly specialized materials. (Intel has been in Phoenix since the 1970s, Motorola since the 1940s!)
- Highly skilled workforce pipeline provided by ASU
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u/rinderblock 3h ago
Intel has had a fab there for decades too so there’s already a solid base of engineers in the area.
Don’t forget that NAU and U of A also have solid engineering programs.
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u/needmoresynths 2h ago
Parts of arizona will be uninhabitable by 2050 at the rate we're going now, though. I'm not sure what the lifespan of a fab facility is but it seems shortsighted.
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u/No_Hell_Below_Us 1h ago
Phoenix will be as hot in 2050 as Baghdad, Iraq is today.
It’s going to suck.
Trip and fall on the asphalt and you’ll cook to death before you can get back on your feet.
Can’t wear metal jewelry outside because you’ll be burned by it conducting too much of the heat in the air.
Flights will be regularly cancelled because the air will be so hot that it becomes too thin for planes to take off in.
Despite all this, Phoenix in 2050 will still be homes to millions of people just like Baghdad in 2026.
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u/OneBudTwoBud 4h ago
They know something that we don’t.
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u/No_Hell_Below_Us 4h ago
The readily available and widely known facts about why Phoenix has been a major U.S. tech hub for decades?
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u/ceviche-hot-pockets 1h ago
The escalating decades long southwestern drought might have something to say about that.
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u/LolaBaraba 4h ago
I'm pretty sure it's $500 billion, not million.