6 ms·

Not OP, but: TSMC has tried before. The workforce is not educated properly and the workplace cultures are vastly different. In this case, the US workers were us

Not OP, but: TSMC has tried before. The workforce is not educated properly and the workplace cultures are vastly different. In this case, the US workers were used to stronger labor protections than their Taiwanese counterparts.

edgyquant 3y ago
The US has multiple fabs and has multiple more being built right now. This is just the propaganda of the elite class who sold off our industrial base and you’re repeating it verbatim
- zeroCalories 3y ago
  Every year it becomes harder to justify hiring a Westerner from a business perspective. America in 50 years will look like Argentina, full of mediocre workers that demand empire era wages. If we wanna change that, we need to work on developing global monopolies and crushing our enemies. Won't happen though, we'll just wither away wondering why our economy is wasting away.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - edgyquant 3y ago
    I’ll take this bet and see you in 50 years. The US has surged ahead of the rest of the world in recent years and it’s only just starting to put itself first again.
    - zeroCalories 3y ago
      How? Our industries are being hollowed out. More and more engineering jobs will go to China, Taiwan, Ukraine, Poland, etc. where they are paid half of a westnern's salary and perform nearly as well if not better. This trend will only continue until the U.S is cut out of the equation entirely. Sure we're doing better than Canada, but Canada is the prime example of a country in decline. They won't need to wait 50 years to be Argentina. Same with many other Western countries.
  - throwaway2037 3y ago
    Why didn't this happen in Germany and Japan? Both were born as manuf'ing giants and remain as giants. Compared to many neighboring countries, their labour costs are very high. Yet, they continue to manuf a huge amount of good for domestic consumption and international export. And both countries have very strong labour laws. To an American, it appears almost impossible to fire people in Japan and Germany.
- jd3 3y ago
  This is exactly right. Onshoring fabs back to the US is part of a long term political and economic strategic plan to counter China called The Clean Network / The "5G trifecta" — TSMC's new fab in Arizona will be the largest onshoring in American history. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Clean_Network#The_%225G_trifecta%22 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Clean_Network#The_%225G_tr... https://keithkrach.com/article/tsmc-12b-chip-plant-in-arizona-biggest-onshoring-in-u-s-history/ https://keithkrach.com/article/tsmc-12b-chip-plant-in-arizon...
- rayiner 3y ago
  > This is just the propaganda of the elite class who sold off our industrial base and you’re repeating it verbatim They’re socializing Americans to get used to a future where their kids have to go to the Middle East and China in search of upwards mobility. (Of course those societies will never be as accommodating of Americans as America has been of Chinese and middle Easterners.)
  - throwaway2037 3y ago
    > a future where their kids have to go to the Middle East Where? UAE? Israel? Anywhere else? Both are still far less prosperous for the middle class than the US.
- poochipie 3y ago
  I'm unaware of how automatable fabs are. If the workers are high-cost then the machines need to do more or the government needs to subsidize production.
- kevinpet 3y ago
  One of them is about five miles from me in Phoenix and it's going poorly. My read is that there are some legitimate labor concerns, some mismanagement, but also a lot of special interest strong arming in things like not bringing in enough Taiwanese workers.
CPLX 3y ago
[flagged]
- thiago_fm 3y ago
  Exactly, people think you need a genius to work in a fab when, in reality, there are more than enough people you could train, most American students come out of university ready for it; It's just that they end up working in a startup creating yet another project management tool because of the way capital is allocated in the US and how high salaries are in certain areas. No country will ever be competent at everything; the US doesn't need fabs. The best for the US in this situation is to figure out how they can outsource this to cheaper countries that are democratic and not possibly the victims of an invasion soon. In Asia itself (for the distance factor to Taiwan or TSMC headquarters), there are plenty of booming countries economies that, despite having a slightly higher cost (due to supply chain dynamics) than Taiwan, have a more stable foreign policy and good legal framework.
  - Rapzid 3y ago
    I disagree. We do need fabs because we need the expertise. As we do have fabs and do have the expertise. Intel produces all of their most advanced chips in the USA. The chips are competitively priced and made with US wages so...
    - kavalg 3y ago
      Until "recently" (mobile phone era) Intel/AMD basically had no competition. They completely missed the mobile market and are now seeing competition from ARM in laptop/server. An there is also RISC-V on the radar. When/if CPU architecture becomes more de-monopolized, manufacturing competitiveness will be a big factor.
- poochipie 3y ago
  How do we convince people to pay for the more expensive chips? More automation? Government subsidies? Other?
baq 3y ago
Translation: the business didn’t want to pay enough
- contrarian1234 3y ago
  I have a friend in Taiwan who works as an engineer for an LED manufacturer. He makes about 2K USD a month. I don't think anyone would even clean toilets for that much in the US. US salaries are just not globally competitive. And yet salaries in the US are sustained. To me it looks like the issue is that while we know how to start companies and have VC capital, we don't know how to outsource well (even with all the local immigrants)
  - LoganDark 3y ago
    > He makes about 2K USD a month. I don't think anyone would even clean toilets for that much in the US. Do you mean to say that's low pay or high pay compared to the US? In the US, 2k USD a month would barely be enough to rent a small apartment, let alone pay for utilities and groceries. You'd be left homeless or starving.
    - alephnerd 3y ago
      It's low pay. That's $12 an hour. The majority of Americans of all races and genders earn above $15 an hour [0] Taiwan's average wage (so skewed upwards) was ~$22k a year in 2023 [1]. That was an 8 year high btw - wages have been much lower. Lots of White Collar Taiwanese would move to Mainland China for that reason - they'd earn similar if not higher salaries in Mainland China AND not pay income tax. Basically, OP's point is that companies don't optimize for wages alone (and I can attest to that having hired abroad, and helped move the operations of a former employer to Israel+India from the US). Even TSMC's founder admitted that: On a podcast hosted by the Brookings Institution last year, Chang lamented what he called a lack of “manufacturing talents” in the United States, owing to generations of ambitious Americans flocking to finance and internet companies instead. (“I don’t really think it’s a bad thing for the United States, actually,” he said, “but it’s a bad thing for trying to do semiconductor manufacturing in the U.S.”) [2] [0] - https://nationalequityatlas.org/indicators/Wages_15-hr https://nationalequityatlas.org/indicators/Wages_15-hr [1] - https://focustaiwan.tw/business/202311290017 https://focustaiwan.tw/business/202311290017 [2] - https://www.politico.com/news/2023/02/14/taiwan-tech-king-pelosi-powerhouse-microchip-industry-00082646 https://www.politico.com/news/2023/02/14/taiwan-tech-king-pe...
poochipie 3y ago
This is the effort from the 90s to which I am referring: https://www.oregonlive.com/silicon-forest/2022/04/tsmcs-morris-chang-explains-wafertechs-failure-in-camas-calls-push-for-us-chip-revival-an-exercise-in-futility.html https://www.oregonlive.com/silicon-forest/2022/04/tsmcs-morr... “We still have about a thousand workers in that factory, and that factory, they cost us about 50% more than Taiwan costs,” Chang said.
- throttlebody 3y ago
  50% doesn't seem that much, but it really needs to be compared to production. Geographical risk spread will always cost you.

edgyquant 3y ago

The US has multiple fabs and has multiple more being built right now. This is just the propaganda of the elite class who sold off our industrial base and you’re repeating it verbatim

zeroCalories 3y ago
Every year it becomes harder to justify hiring a Westerner from a business perspective. America in 50 years will look like Argentina, full of mediocre workers that demand empire era wages. If we wanna change that, we need to work on developing global monopolies and crushing our enemies. Won't happen though, we'll just wither away wondering why our economy is wasting away.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- edgyquant 3y ago
  I’ll take this bet and see you in 50 years. The US has surged ahead of the rest of the world in recent years and it’s only just starting to put itself first again.
  - zeroCalories 3y ago
    How? Our industries are being hollowed out. More and more engineering jobs will go to China, Taiwan, Ukraine, Poland, etc. where they are paid half of a westnern's salary and perform nearly as well if not better. This trend will only continue until the U.S is cut out of the equation entirely. Sure we're doing better than Canada, but Canada is the prime example of a country in decline. They won't need to wait 50 years to be Argentina. Same with many other Western countries.
- throwaway2037 3y ago
  Why didn't this happen in Germany and Japan? Both were born as manuf'ing giants and remain as giants. Compared to many neighboring countries, their labour costs are very high. Yet, they continue to manuf a huge amount of good for domestic consumption and international export. And both countries have very strong labour laws. To an American, it appears almost impossible to fire people in Japan and Germany.
jd3 3y ago
This is exactly right. Onshoring fabs back to the US is part of a long term political and economic strategic plan to counter China called The Clean Network / The "5G trifecta" — TSMC's new fab in Arizona will be the largest onshoring in American history. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Clean_Network#The_%225G_trifecta%22 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Clean_Network#The_%225G_tr... https://keithkrach.com/article/tsmc-12b-chip-plant-in-arizona-biggest-onshoring-in-u-s-history/ https://keithkrach.com/article/tsmc-12b-chip-plant-in-arizon...
rayiner 3y ago
> This is just the propaganda of the elite class who sold off our industrial base and you’re repeating it verbatim They’re socializing Americans to get used to a future where their kids have to go to the Middle East and China in search of upwards mobility. (Of course those societies will never be as accommodating of Americans as America has been of Chinese and middle Easterners.)
- throwaway2037 3y ago
  > a future where their kids have to go to the Middle East Where? UAE? Israel? Anywhere else? Both are still far less prosperous for the middle class than the US.
poochipie 3y ago
I'm unaware of how automatable fabs are. If the workers are high-cost then the machines need to do more or the government needs to subsidize production.
kevinpet 3y ago
One of them is about five miles from me in Phoenix and it's going poorly. My read is that there are some legitimate labor concerns, some mismanagement, but also a lot of special interest strong arming in things like not bringing in enough Taiwanese workers.

CPLX 3y ago

[flagged]

thiago_fm 3y ago
Exactly, people think you need a genius to work in a fab when, in reality, there are more than enough people you could train, most American students come out of university ready for it; It's just that they end up working in a startup creating yet another project management tool because of the way capital is allocated in the US and how high salaries are in certain areas. No country will ever be competent at everything; the US doesn't need fabs. The best for the US in this situation is to figure out how they can outsource this to cheaper countries that are democratic and not possibly the victims of an invasion soon. In Asia itself (for the distance factor to Taiwan or TSMC headquarters), there are plenty of booming countries economies that, despite having a slightly higher cost (due to supply chain dynamics) than Taiwan, have a more stable foreign policy and good legal framework.
- Rapzid 3y ago
  I disagree. We do need fabs because we need the expertise. As we do have fabs and do have the expertise. Intel produces all of their most advanced chips in the USA. The chips are competitively priced and made with US wages so...
  - kavalg 3y ago
    Until "recently" (mobile phone era) Intel/AMD basically had no competition. They completely missed the mobile market and are now seeing competition from ARM in laptop/server. An there is also RISC-V on the radar. When/if CPU architecture becomes more de-monopolized, manufacturing competitiveness will be a big factor.
poochipie 3y ago
How do we convince people to pay for the more expensive chips? More automation? Government subsidies? Other?

baq 3y ago

Translation: the business didn’t want to pay enough

contrarian1234 3y ago
I have a friend in Taiwan who works as an engineer for an LED manufacturer. He makes about 2K USD a month. I don't think anyone would even clean toilets for that much in the US. US salaries are just not globally competitive. And yet salaries in the US are sustained. To me it looks like the issue is that while we know how to start companies and have VC capital, we don't know how to outsource well (even with all the local immigrants)
- LoganDark 3y ago
  > He makes about 2K USD a month. I don't think anyone would even clean toilets for that much in the US. Do you mean to say that's low pay or high pay compared to the US? In the US, 2k USD a month would barely be enough to rent a small apartment, let alone pay for utilities and groceries. You'd be left homeless or starving.
  - alephnerd 3y ago
    It's low pay. That's $12 an hour. The majority of Americans of all races and genders earn above $15 an hour [0] Taiwan's average wage (so skewed upwards) was ~$22k a year in 2023 [1]. That was an 8 year high btw - wages have been much lower. Lots of White Collar Taiwanese would move to Mainland China for that reason - they'd earn similar if not higher salaries in Mainland China AND not pay income tax. Basically, OP's point is that companies don't optimize for wages alone (and I can attest to that having hired abroad, and helped move the operations of a former employer to Israel+India from the US). Even TSMC's founder admitted that: On a podcast hosted by the Brookings Institution last year, Chang lamented what he called a lack of “manufacturing talents” in the United States, owing to generations of ambitious Americans flocking to finance and internet companies instead. (“I don’t really think it’s a bad thing for the United States, actually,” he said, “but it’s a bad thing for trying to do semiconductor manufacturing in the U.S.”) [2] [0] - https://nationalequityatlas.org/indicators/Wages_15-hr https://nationalequityatlas.org/indicators/Wages_15-hr [1] - https://focustaiwan.tw/business/202311290017 https://focustaiwan.tw/business/202311290017 [2] - https://www.politico.com/news/2023/02/14/taiwan-tech-king-pelosi-powerhouse-microchip-industry-00082646 https://www.politico.com/news/2023/02/14/taiwan-tech-king-pe...

poochipie 3y ago

This is the effort from the 90s to which I am referring: https://www.oregonlive.com/silicon-forest/2022/04/tsmcs-morris-chang-explains-wafertechs-failure-in-camas-calls-push-for-us-chip-revival-an-exercise-in-futility.html https://www.oregonlive.com/silicon-forest/2022/04/tsmcs-morr... “We still have about a thousand workers in that factory, and that factory, they cost us about 50% more than Taiwan costs,” Chang said.

throttlebody 3y ago
50% doesn't seem that much, but it really needs to be compared to production. Geographical risk spread will always cost you.