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I think there is a geopolitical reason why most TSMC's 300mm GIGAFAB's and advanced backend fab are located in Taiwan (1 fab in China). https://www.tsmc.com/en

I think there is a geopolitical reason why most TSMC's 300mm GIGAFAB's and advanced backend fab are located in Taiwan (1 fab in China). https://www.tsmc.com/english/contact_us.htm#TSMC_fabs https://www.tsmc.com/english/contact_us.htm#TSMC_fabs Concentrating geopolitical risk of TSMC operations makes Taiwan more important to the rest of the world. The US would naturally want to reduce this risk. In Taiwan-China conflict world chip production would take a huge hit or be in the danger of falling under Chinese rule. If TSMC's leadership is patriotic, they should refuse this pressure as much as they can and ask more weapons for Taiwan instead.

joe_the_user 7y ago
Arguably, the situation is something of an incentive for peace since it makes the cost of war huge for all concerned.
- SiempreViernes 7y ago
  The cost of war is always huge for all concerned, and is very rarely the outcome of any sort of cost-benefit analysis. Most wars between nations are fought for something like honour: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2013/07/16/most-wars-are-not-fought-for-reasons-of-security-or-material-interests-but-instead-reflect-a-nations-spirit/ https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2013/07/16/most-wars-are-...
  - lonelappde 7y ago
    Cost is huge for the lower classes and maybe half the upper classes. They are sold on honor, but they fought for the profit of the ruling class, via conquest or be diverting fund to the military industrial complex.
    - jvanderbot 7y ago
      What you describe is the effect of war, not its origin. Ironmongers get rich from war, but they probably don't make the conflict happen. How could Northrup Grumman force the invasion of Kuwait to improve F117 sales?
      - blackrock 7y ago
        One word: Lobbyist
      - adventured 7y ago
        Ironmongers are also a much smaller - less important - share of the US economic pie than they used to be, back when US manufacturing was a much larger share of the economy. Now, granted, even with their lessened share of economy, they still of course carry outsized influence politically as proxy arms of the Pentagon. As recently as the first Gulf War, Microsoft (for example) was a tiny speck compared to the military industrial complex. In five years or so, Microsoft's annual sales will be equal to about 25% of the annual US military budget (not meant to be apples to apples, it merely points out the massively increased scale of big tech vs eg 1990; Microsoft's sales for fiscal 1990 were... $1.18 billion). To put it into tangible dollar terms: Apple, by itself, generates approximately twice the annual operating profit of all US defense contractors combined. Apple benefits from calm globalization, not war. Big tech humiliates the military industrial complex on generating profits. And big tech is still expanding, whereas most major sectors are not. Which is to say, big tech money looks like it's going to double in size again in the next ten years (7% * 10 years). AAPL + MSFT + GOOGL + FB + INTC + AMZN = ~$220-$230 billion in annual operating profit for 2020. There are three trillion dollar corporations in there (Amazon is just shy of it; and FB will join them in that club within a few years). The rest of the world has one, which isn't really a corporation, in Aramco. It's $5.5 trillion in combined market cap. The Tokyo stock exchange is the third most valuable exchange by total market cap in the world, at about $5.5 to $5.7 trillion (the next two are US exchanges).
        snaky 7y ago
        So digital giants have more lobbyist potential (in financial terms only, they cannot compete in massive 'job creation' in a districts all around the US, especially blue collar jobs) than the whole MIC, and the incentives to use it to counter lobbyist potential of warmongers. Why don't they use it for actual lobbying-for-global-piece?
        selimthegrim 7y ago
  - 1000units 7y ago
    This article is profoundly unconvincing, and its thesis rather idiotic (I use this sharp term only to honor the fallen warriors of many Just wars).
    - pjc50 7y ago
      There are not a lot of wars that have turned out to be "just" in retrospect; the American entry into WW2 as a defensive war is one of the bigger exceptions. Pretty much all of the wars of choice after that have been disasters.
  - joe_the_user 7y ago
    It seems like the catastrophic prospects that nuclear war presented played a part in preventing that sort of war - but such things are hard to know for sure.
  - elfexec 7y ago
    > Most wars between nations are fought for something like honour: This is not true. Wars are fought for wealth or to protect wealth ( perceived or not ). "Honor" ( like freedom, human rights, etc ) is the lie the elites employ to sell the war to the public and dupe the masses into sending their sons and daughters to the battlefield. We didn't fight the korean war, vietnam war, iraq wars, etc for "honor". We fought it for wealth. Every single war we fought ( from the Revolutionary War to the wars today ) was about wealth. The cost-benefit analysis of war is another thing altogether. It isn't an exact science and it's like playing a game of "what-if". In some wars, you can see clear winners who made out like bandits. I don't think anyone would claim the US didn't come out the big winner of ww2. There are clearly some wars where it was a complete waste of lives ( ww1 ) since no side really won and the only winners were bankers and war profiteers. Most other wars, who knows. The cost-benefit analysis comes down to your own biases and how you perceive a non-military solution would have worked out. If wars were truly fought for honor, then we'd have a lot more wars and a lot more nukings. Honor is the fake thin veneer of war. Scratch it and you'll find the true cause of wealth - greed.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 7y ago
  Wouldn't it also be an incentive for war if a country is a) mostly independent because it produces a lot of technology domestically b) the next-in-line for supplying the tech to the world if the current main supplier disappears? Isn't China in exactly that position?
  - joe_the_user 7y ago
    What you describe would be an incentive if China was able to capture Taiwan and it's technology intact with a short war. But most reports I read make that sound impossible given that Taiwan is quite well armed and determined to resist China. Of course, I'm not an expert here.
    - tgsovlerkhgsel 7y ago
      No, my assumption is that a war would leave Taiwan scorched and useless to anyone. "a) mostly independent because it produces a lot of technology domestically" would ensure that China doesn't suffer from the lack of availability due to this destruction, and "b) the next-in-line for supplying the tech to the world if the current main supplier disappears" would ensure China profits. That assumes these two assumptions are actually true.
corporate_shi11 7y ago
What will probably happen is weapons for Taiwan in exchange for TSMC moving some production to the US.
sct202 7y ago
The Taiwanese government owns 6% of TSMC, and all the leadership is based in Taiwan so I would imagine they'd prefer to not endanger their family and friends.
justicezyx 7y ago
A chicken asking for sharper beak is not going to survive 2 foxes...
- galangalalgol 7y ago
  But a chicken given a hand grenade can ensure the foxes share its fate.
monocasa 7y ago
I've heard a rumour too that there's a safe in each of their fabs containing enough explosives and instructions on how to scuttle the fab in case of invasion.
- adventured 7y ago
  Certainly if tension with China builds toward some conflict and China were to begin an invasion of Taiwan, and the US came to their aid in some manner (limited to maintain face or otherwise (the US will not go to direct war with China at scale under any scenario short of survival-necessity)), the first thing the US should/will consider doing is accidentally bombing Taiwan's advanced manufacturing and technology structures (including any TSMC fabs). Then blame as much of the destruction as possible on China. Any invasion of Taiwan by China is a guaranteed loss of Taiwan permanently to the CPC and almost everyone in Washington DC knows that. So if you're going to suffer a guaranteed loss, they'll take a serious look at 'reasonable' scorched earth; make it more painful (China and the USSR several times used that in the direction of US global ambitions post WW2; the US would do the same thing the other way and has eg in Afghanistan-USSR and elsewhere, so I have no doubt they'd consider it for a Taiwan scenario). It's not a nice thing to say or ponder, it's exactly how the Pentagon will think about this matter however.
- bob1029 7y ago
  This would not surprise me, especially considering just how little you would need to catastrophically disable one of these factories. That said, I don't think this is a very practicable angle to worry about, since it's not just the factory you need to make the products. It's also the people, experience, and massive logistical octopus the factory is hooked into that makes it able to produce these incredibly valuable products. One minor deviation in a supply chain (i.e. a vendor switch) can mean millions of dollars in scrapped wafers. Just having the factory and its tools doesn't mean anything for an invader. It would simply become the most expensive waste of space on the planet.
  - hinkley 7y ago
    These days, how much damage could you do to a fab with just a bag of talc or ash and a blasting cap?
Aperocky 7y ago
> patriotic Be careful for what you wish for. Taiwan’s formal name is Republic of China, the older generations does not exactly share the younger generations wish of independence. In fact, they are often patriotic .. to China.
- klodolph 7y ago
  Patriotic to "China," yes, but those in ROC who believe in "one China" in general don't support the PRC. There is some talk of reunification but even among the pan-Blue, it is generally assumed that reunification would only be possible if the communist party in PRC collapsed. Even older generations do not support reunification, at least in any specific sense, if I understand correctly.
  - Taniwha 7y ago
    It's more complex - essentially the people in Taiwan who's politics descend from the nationalists who escaped ahead of Mao's and took over the country are different from those who's politics descend from Japanese invasion and occupation from 1895-1945, ~1 week of independence, followed by occupation by those self same nationalists. They literally speak different languages. The weird thing is that the Nationalists, the arch-anti-communists who believe they still rule one China are the ones who have been cosying up to the mainland over the past decade or so, making big bucks doing so - they're the ones who are against Taiwan as an independent country .... The kids? they love j-pop/k-pop are much more citizens of a wider Asia rather than China. So the people who have won this latest election by a landslide aren't the descendants of the Nationalists who believe they rule China, but they do believe in a Taiwan in a wider Asia, what's happening in Hong Kong scares the shit out of them. IMHO we should happily recognize "Taiwan", but not the defunct "RoC"
- pgcudahy 7y ago
  I think the last elections argue against that https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/11/world/asia/taiwan-election-china.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/11/world/asia/taiwan-electio...
  - 7y ago
galaxyLogic 7y ago
> If TSMC's leadership is patriotic, they should refuse this pressure If TSMC's leadership supports democratic values rather than nationalism they should welcome this invitation from a democratic nation. Why not?
jiveturkey 7y ago
I'm having a very, very hard time believing this. I agree, there is geopolitics at play, but it's the cause and effect which I dispute. It's about hazardous chemicals and hazardous waste which aren't tolerated in the west. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-06-15/american-chipmakers-had-a-toxic-problem-so-they-outsourced-it https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-06-15/american-...
- dannyw 7y ago
  It’s also fundamentally that Taiwan, much like some parts of China, are concentrated electronics and hardware hubs. The same way there is Silicon Valley. Sure, there are tangential benefits to each area, but ultimately it’s about concentration.
vondur 7y ago
I thought we sold Taiwan top of the line missile systems?
- perennate 7y ago
  They were all used by the military in accidents like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hsiung_Feng_III_missile_mishap https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hsiung_Feng_III_missile_mishap (Actually the missile in this accident was developed in Taiwan.)
krawakoliz 7y ago
Hell, ask for nukes.

joe_the_user 7y ago

Arguably, the situation is something of an incentive for peace since it makes the cost of war huge for all concerned.

SiempreViernes 7y ago
The cost of war is always huge for all concerned, and is very rarely the outcome of any sort of cost-benefit analysis. Most wars between nations are fought for something like honour: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2013/07/16/most-wars-are-not-fought-for-reasons-of-security-or-material-interests-but-instead-reflect-a-nations-spirit/ https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2013/07/16/most-wars-are-...
- lonelappde 7y ago
  Cost is huge for the lower classes and maybe half the upper classes. They are sold on honor, but they fought for the profit of the ruling class, via conquest or be diverting fund to the military industrial complex.
  - jvanderbot 7y ago
    What you describe is the effect of war, not its origin. Ironmongers get rich from war, but they probably don't make the conflict happen. How could Northrup Grumman force the invasion of Kuwait to improve F117 sales?
    - blackrock 7y ago
      One word: Lobbyist
    - adventured 7y ago
      Ironmongers are also a much smaller - less important - share of the US economic pie than they used to be, back when US manufacturing was a much larger share of the economy. Now, granted, even with their lessened share of economy, they still of course carry outsized influence politically as proxy arms of the Pentagon. As recently as the first Gulf War, Microsoft (for example) was a tiny speck compared to the military industrial complex. In five years or so, Microsoft's annual sales will be equal to about 25% of the annual US military budget (not meant to be apples to apples, it merely points out the massively increased scale of big tech vs eg 1990; Microsoft's sales for fiscal 1990 were... $1.18 billion). To put it into tangible dollar terms: Apple, by itself, generates approximately twice the annual operating profit of all US defense contractors combined. Apple benefits from calm globalization, not war. Big tech humiliates the military industrial complex on generating profits. And big tech is still expanding, whereas most major sectors are not. Which is to say, big tech money looks like it's going to double in size again in the next ten years (7% * 10 years). AAPL + MSFT + GOOGL + FB + INTC + AMZN = ~$220-$230 billion in annual operating profit for 2020. There are three trillion dollar corporations in there (Amazon is just shy of it; and FB will join them in that club within a few years). The rest of the world has one, which isn't really a corporation, in Aramco. It's $5.5 trillion in combined market cap. The Tokyo stock exchange is the third most valuable exchange by total market cap in the world, at about $5.5 to $5.7 trillion (the next two are US exchanges).
      - snaky 7y ago
        So digital giants have more lobbyist potential (in financial terms only, they cannot compete in massive 'job creation' in a districts all around the US, especially blue collar jobs) than the whole MIC, and the incentives to use it to counter lobbyist potential of warmongers. Why don't they use it for actual lobbying-for-global-piece?
        selimthegrim 7y ago
- 1000units 7y ago
  This article is profoundly unconvincing, and its thesis rather idiotic (I use this sharp term only to honor the fallen warriors of many Just wars).
  - pjc50 7y ago
    There are not a lot of wars that have turned out to be "just" in retrospect; the American entry into WW2 as a defensive war is one of the bigger exceptions. Pretty much all of the wars of choice after that have been disasters.
- joe_the_user 7y ago
  It seems like the catastrophic prospects that nuclear war presented played a part in preventing that sort of war - but such things are hard to know for sure.
- elfexec 7y ago
  > Most wars between nations are fought for something like honour: This is not true. Wars are fought for wealth or to protect wealth ( perceived or not ). "Honor" ( like freedom, human rights, etc ) is the lie the elites employ to sell the war to the public and dupe the masses into sending their sons and daughters to the battlefield. We didn't fight the korean war, vietnam war, iraq wars, etc for "honor". We fought it for wealth. Every single war we fought ( from the Revolutionary War to the wars today ) was about wealth. The cost-benefit analysis of war is another thing altogether. It isn't an exact science and it's like playing a game of "what-if". In some wars, you can see clear winners who made out like bandits. I don't think anyone would claim the US didn't come out the big winner of ww2. There are clearly some wars where it was a complete waste of lives ( ww1 ) since no side really won and the only winners were bankers and war profiteers. Most other wars, who knows. The cost-benefit analysis comes down to your own biases and how you perceive a non-military solution would have worked out. If wars were truly fought for honor, then we'd have a lot more wars and a lot more nukings. Honor is the fake thin veneer of war. Scratch it and you'll find the true cause of wealth - greed.
tgsovlerkhgsel 7y ago
Wouldn't it also be an incentive for war if a country is a) mostly independent because it produces a lot of technology domestically b) the next-in-line for supplying the tech to the world if the current main supplier disappears? Isn't China in exactly that position?
- joe_the_user 7y ago
  What you describe would be an incentive if China was able to capture Taiwan and it's technology intact with a short war. But most reports I read make that sound impossible given that Taiwan is quite well armed and determined to resist China. Of course, I'm not an expert here.
  - tgsovlerkhgsel 7y ago
    No, my assumption is that a war would leave Taiwan scorched and useless to anyone. "a) mostly independent because it produces a lot of technology domestically" would ensure that China doesn't suffer from the lack of availability due to this destruction, and "b) the next-in-line for supplying the tech to the world if the current main supplier disappears" would ensure China profits. That assumes these two assumptions are actually true.

corporate_shi11 7y ago

What will probably happen is weapons for Taiwan in exchange for TSMC moving some production to the US.

sct202 7y ago

The Taiwanese government owns 6% of TSMC, and all the leadership is based in Taiwan so I would imagine they'd prefer to not endanger their family and friends.

justicezyx 7y ago

A chicken asking for sharper beak is not going to survive 2 foxes...

galangalalgol 7y ago
But a chicken given a hand grenade can ensure the foxes share its fate.

monocasa 7y ago

I've heard a rumour too that there's a safe in each of their fabs containing enough explosives and instructions on how to scuttle the fab in case of invasion.

adventured 7y ago
Certainly if tension with China builds toward some conflict and China were to begin an invasion of Taiwan, and the US came to their aid in some manner (limited to maintain face or otherwise (the US will not go to direct war with China at scale under any scenario short of survival-necessity)), the first thing the US should/will consider doing is accidentally bombing Taiwan's advanced manufacturing and technology structures (including any TSMC fabs). Then blame as much of the destruction as possible on China. Any invasion of Taiwan by China is a guaranteed loss of Taiwan permanently to the CPC and almost everyone in Washington DC knows that. So if you're going to suffer a guaranteed loss, they'll take a serious look at 'reasonable' scorched earth; make it more painful (China and the USSR several times used that in the direction of US global ambitions post WW2; the US would do the same thing the other way and has eg in Afghanistan-USSR and elsewhere, so I have no doubt they'd consider it for a Taiwan scenario). It's not a nice thing to say or ponder, it's exactly how the Pentagon will think about this matter however.
bob1029 7y ago
This would not surprise me, especially considering just how little you would need to catastrophically disable one of these factories. That said, I don't think this is a very practicable angle to worry about, since it's not just the factory you need to make the products. It's also the people, experience, and massive logistical octopus the factory is hooked into that makes it able to produce these incredibly valuable products. One minor deviation in a supply chain (i.e. a vendor switch) can mean millions of dollars in scrapped wafers. Just having the factory and its tools doesn't mean anything for an invader. It would simply become the most expensive waste of space on the planet.
- hinkley 7y ago
  These days, how much damage could you do to a fab with just a bag of talc or ash and a blasting cap?

Aperocky 7y ago

> patriotic Be careful for what you wish for. Taiwan’s formal name is Republic of China, the older generations does not exactly share the younger generations wish of independence. In fact, they are often patriotic .. to China.

klodolph 7y ago
Patriotic to "China," yes, but those in ROC who believe in "one China" in general don't support the PRC. There is some talk of reunification but even among the pan-Blue, it is generally assumed that reunification would only be possible if the communist party in PRC collapsed. Even older generations do not support reunification, at least in any specific sense, if I understand correctly.
- Taniwha 7y ago
  It's more complex - essentially the people in Taiwan who's politics descend from the nationalists who escaped ahead of Mao's and took over the country are different from those who's politics descend from Japanese invasion and occupation from 1895-1945, ~1 week of independence, followed by occupation by those self same nationalists. They literally speak different languages. The weird thing is that the Nationalists, the arch-anti-communists who believe they still rule one China are the ones who have been cosying up to the mainland over the past decade or so, making big bucks doing so - they're the ones who are against Taiwan as an independent country .... The kids? they love j-pop/k-pop are much more citizens of a wider Asia rather than China. So the people who have won this latest election by a landslide aren't the descendants of the Nationalists who believe they rule China, but they do believe in a Taiwan in a wider Asia, what's happening in Hong Kong scares the shit out of them. IMHO we should happily recognize "Taiwan", but not the defunct "RoC"
pgcudahy 7y ago
I think the last elections argue against that https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/11/world/asia/taiwan-election-china.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/11/world/asia/taiwan-electio...
- 7y ago

galaxyLogic 7y ago

> If TSMC's leadership is patriotic, they should refuse this pressure If TSMC's leadership supports democratic values rather than nationalism they should welcome this invitation from a democratic nation. Why not?

jiveturkey 7y ago

I'm having a very, very hard time believing this. I agree, there is geopolitics at play, but it's the cause and effect which I dispute. It's about hazardous chemicals and hazardous waste which aren't tolerated in the west. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-06-15/american-chipmakers-had-a-toxic-problem-so-they-outsourced-it https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-06-15/american-...

dannyw 7y ago
It’s also fundamentally that Taiwan, much like some parts of China, are concentrated electronics and hardware hubs. The same way there is Silicon Valley. Sure, there are tangential benefits to each area, but ultimately it’s about concentration.

vondur 7y ago

I thought we sold Taiwan top of the line missile systems?

perennate 7y ago
They were all used by the military in accidents like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hsiung_Feng_III_missile_mishap https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hsiung_Feng_III_missile_mishap (Actually the missile in this accident was developed in Taiwan.)

krawakoliz 7y ago

Hell, ask for nukes.