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I think it's weird that most of the IP is developed and owned by US companies, yet everything is being built overseas. Of course I'm talking about core chips, l
by jokoon 7y ago
I think it's weird that most of the IP is developed and owned by US companies, yet everything is being built overseas. Of course I'm talking about core chips, like CPUs, SoC, RAM, flash memory, etc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiconductor_industry#/media/File:Who_exported_Electronic_integrated_circuits_in_2016.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiconductor_industry#/media/...
I don't really understand why Taiwan has so many of those chip factories. I can understand why developing countries like China have been assembling electronic devices for so long, because the labor is cheap, but I don't think that chip making follows the same rule. Those generally are high tech factories, and I don't see why Taiwan has so many of them.
- Kurtose 7y agoWhy would Taiwan not have high tech factories? It has similar or higher level of development than - as a non-random example - France. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Development_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Development_Index
- rrss 7y agoBecause Taiwan recruited Morris Chang to help promote Taiwan's economy, and Morris Chang decided to found the first foundry (i.e. fab-only) in the world. Ever since, TSMC has been more-or-less leading innovation in semiconductor manufacturing. Taiwan has a lot of high tech factories because it is a high tech country with smart people.
- gunnm 7y agoTaiwan started investing heavily in semiconductor industry since the late 70s. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hsinchu_Science_Park https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hsinchu_Science_Park) I'm pretty sure that's decades before mainland China.
- epsilon_greedy 7y agoFor CPUs specifically, many of Intel's chips are fabricated in the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_manufacturing_sites https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_manufacturing_si...
- skaevola 7y agoA big reason seems to be the difficulty of financing manufacturing operations in America. https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2019/05/financing-advanced-manufacturing-why-vcs-arent-the-answer/ https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2019/05/financing-advance...
- jbay808 7y agoTaiwan has also put together a pretty dominant position in industrial automation, with companies like Hiwin making the robots and components that go into those factories. They also are very close to customers in Japan, Korea, and China.