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China hires over 100 TSMC engineers in push for chip leadership
- ramshanker 6y agoAnd so it begins..... Every technological advantage can be "caught up" given enough time and money.
- asa4akj 6y agoAnd with a relentless ethno-state dictatorship supporting those advances, it can get there even faster.
- libertine 6y agoAnd by disregarding intelectual property and stealing technology, they get even a faster boost. I mean, those who play CIV know what I'm talking about.
- jetzzz 6y agoSomehow much more democratic Taiwan and South Korea (Samsung) got there faster than dictatorship China.
- FooBarWidget 6y agoDidn't Taiwan and South Korea got most of their growth during their dictatorship years?
- actuator 6y agoYeah, like in case of SK, before 90s(when it was mostly under dictatorships) it recorded double digit GDP growth in about half of the years. In contrast from 90s onwards they recorded > 10% GDP growth rate just in 2 years out of the 30. Though in fairness, they had less of a ceiling to grow in.
- chillacy 6y agoYup, and social liberalization has followed economic success for SK and Taiwan. A lot of people thought it would happen to China as well but it's been resistant. I find OP's assertion a bit comical because trying to tie governance model to economic success in Asia would mean that you should definitely pick military dictatorship over democracy if you want economic success. (and if you do pick democracy, pick an authoritarian flavor with state involvement like Singapore or Japan)
- FooBarWidget 6y agoI don’t know where this “China did not change” narrative comes from. 40 years ago, Chinese people could not choose where to work, what to wear, where to live, what to study, where to travel. During the Cultural Revolution, neighbors could rat you out for “colluding with the enemy”, whatever that means. All of that has changed. Hundreds of millions of Chinese travel abroad every year, and nearly everybody returns willingly. What part of this great change looks like “China did not become more free”? It isn’t even some footnote fact, it’s a huge boulder staring in people’s face, and people can’t see it.
- chillacy 6y agoThe mainstream view in America has been that political liberalization necessarily means "one person one vote democracy". Most can see China's economic progress, but early on there was hope that economic progress would lead to social reforms too. Speaking of people not being able to see it... Lee Kwan Yew gave a pretty fantastic speech to journalists where he basically covered, from first principles, why his country had different laws around freedom of press and how other channels of accountability exist in Singapore to compensate. Then the journalists proceed to ask pretty dumb questions framed as "singapore is a dictatorship because it has no free press". https://www.c-span.org/video/?2217-1/world-perspective-press https://www.c-span.org/video/?2217-1/world-perspective-press
- dumb1224 6y agoWell not commenting on the difference in systems, you only need to look at the founders of these companies. The Taiwan / South Korea world top U.S univ graduates vastly out number the chinese ones. I doubt some even got a good education at all.
- rl3 6y agoSadly their planning is coherent and logical. This move will in turn support its goal of AI leadership by 2030.[0] I don't want to live in a world where such a dictatorship has a technological advantage so large they become the new superpower. Unfortunately authoritarian governments are less impacted than liberal democracies by everything from social media polarization, to covid, to long-term planning shortcomings. [0] https://multimedia.scmp.com/news/china/article/2166148/china-2025-artificial-intelligence/index.html https://multimedia.scmp.com/news/china/article/2166148/china...
- whynotminot 6y agoAnd outright theft. You have to wonder if those 100 engineers left with more than just their desk supplies, given it's been somewhat of a common scandal in the West for Chinese engineers to rather brazenly steal sensitive tech IP for the good of the homeland.
- calcifer 6y ago> The two projects are aiming to develop 14-nanometer and 12-nanometer chip process technologies, which are two to three generations behind TSMC but still the most cutting-edge in China. Doesn't seem much of a threat to TSMC.
- schuke 6y agoThreatening Intel should be good enough? Or do those nanometers not translate? (Genuinely curious)
- nix23 6y ago>Or do those nanometers not translate? It really Depends: Smaller means, smaller package, more transistors/sq and less power-consumption. But if you can afford to build a bigger chip to have the same transistor count, and you are ok with the higher power-consumption you have in theory the same performance, sometimes you don't even want 'too' small transistors, an example is radiation-hardening.
- asa4akj 6y ago> Doesn't seem much of a threat to TSMC. Now. It's still brain drain, and it's to boost their industry. Measures such as this do not exist in a vacuum, more will come.
- lnsru 6y agoOne must start somewhere. That’s iPhone 8 age technology, very usable thing. Especially if it gets the only one available in a trade war.
- nix23 6y ago>Doesn't seem much of a threat to TSMC. That's where you are wrong, TSMC is just the producer, but many many more Company are behind it like: https://www.asml.com/en https://www.asml.com/en (Probably the most important Corp in the industry...but no one knows) http://www.appliedmaterials.com/ http://www.appliedmaterials.com/ https://www.comet-group.com/ https://www.comet-group.com/ And many more, without those chains TSMC could do just nothing. EDIT: Oh man i forgot Lam Research!! And the US 'forbid' asml to sell the technology to china, that means quite allot: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-asml-holding-usa-china-insight/trump-administration-pressed-dutch-hard-to-cancel-china-chip-equipment-sale-sources-idUSKBN1Z50HN https://www.reuters.com/article/us-asml-holding-usa-china-in...
- EE84M3i 6y agoThe article isn't clear about this, but when they say "China hires" are they getting hired in Taiwan or moving to mainland China? What kind of package makes it appealing to cross the Strait?
- peacefulhat 6y ago> "Hongxin offered some amazing packages, as high as two to 2.5 times TSMC's total annual salary and bonuses for those people," said a source familiar with the matter.
- EE84M3i 6y ago> TSMC was uncomfortable when QXIC began operating a research and development base not far from the Taiwanese company's most advanced 5-nanometer plant in south Taiwan, one of the people familiar with the matter told Nikkei.
- legulere 6y agoMaybe the article was changed out but it at least partly answers your questions: > TSMC was uncomfortable when QXIC began operating a research and development base not far from the Taiwanese company's most advanced 5-nanometer plant in south Taiwan, one of the people familiar with the matter told Nikkei. > "Hongxin offered some amazing packages, as high as two to 2.5 times TSMC's total annual salary and bonuses for those people," said a source familiar with the matter.
- mytailorisrich 6y agoI found quite interesting that QXIC could just open an R&D centre in Taiwan in order to poach talent. But then, Taiwan is heavily invested on the mainland as well and, I suppose, cannot afford to face a backlash if it banned mainland companies. Cross-straight relations are complex. Edit: This reminds me of the many period dramas on Chinese TV: plenty of spies, double agents, etc. on both sides (and often on 3 sides, because of the Japanese)
- hocuspocus 6y ago
- agumonkey 6y agochina will be to the US what intel was to fairchild ?
- bob1029 6y agoI strongly doubt anyone will ever catch up with TSMC or Samsung at this point. Intel might still have a chance, but it seems to be waning. Semiconductor manufacturing is very unique in that it is easily the hardest thing we do right now. Even if China snipes all the talent, tools, and process designs, they still need mountains of precise parameters that are unique to the specific installation of each tool at the specific site. Tuning these parameters relative to the process technology can take years and requires the kind of long term, open collaboration & innovation sessions that the CCP seems fundamentally incompatible with. There are simply so many reasons this type of thing is virtually impossible to steal. If you were to ever physically tour a fully-automated semiconductor factory & experience the depth of the system engineering required to tie everything together, you would realize there is nothing as complex as that system anywhere else in the discipline of engineering.
- samfisher83 6y agoAt one point Intel was way ahead of everyone else. Saying "anyone will ever catch up with TSMC or Samsung" is a very broad think to say.
- oblio 6y ago1. That's a bold assertion you make about the CCP. I don't like them, but they have proven quite resourceful. 2. You say this as someone knowledgeable with other high tech industries? Here in IT we tend to pat ourselves on the back quite a bit, how do you know you're not falling into the same trap?
- gnusty_gnurc 6y ago> but they have proven quite resourceful when it involves oppressing people...truly generative processes? nah...it gets done when they start utilizing markets but otherwise it's fundamentally doomed
- parsadotsh 6y ago> when they start utilizing markets I don't think you're familiar with the modern Chinese economy...
- andy_ppp 6y agoASML Engineers next then?
- nix23 6y agoIf China can provide those Engineers with Belgian Beer, that would be the next best step (for china).
- krona 6y agoARM engineers. Huawei is building a £1bn research centre approximately 2 miles from the ARM headquarters. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-53178998 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-5317899...
- whb07 6y agoAll this gets solved quite easily, you add all the new hires to a sanctions list. Those people will be unable to bank and use any modern financial institution. Very easily fixed problem, now how moral it is, that’s up for debate.
- londons_explore 6y agoPay me 25% more and I'll give up all my banking stuff and use cash everywhere instead. Financial institutions don't offer all that much for regular joe, especially when interest rates are practically zero.
- cyberdrunk 6y agoYou can't invest your savings, which means that your pile will shrink at the pace of inflation. If you have a lot savings (say you're close to FIRE), the money lost this way can be a nontrivial portion of your compensation.
- xtracto 6y agoWith Compound you could invest using crypto. And use crypto ATM for transacting.
- sand_castles 6y ago> bitcoin enters chat. On a more serious note there are million and 1 ways to hide your footprint.
- emteycz 6y agoYou can invest, although in China.
- londons_explore 6y agoYou can use it to buy stuff, like property, or gold. That's an almost equivalent investment.
- whb07 6y ago
- Hokusai 6y ago> TSMC is very concerned about the talent outflow This is one of the key reasons you need to give the right incentives and compensations to your employees. I have seen too many tech companies failing at employee retention. The loss of talent will have a medium-long term impact on the company. And, many of their future competitors are going to be created by your current unhappy employees. I have seen an increasing trend in tech-companies to be more employee-friendly beyond eye-candy perks. But, there is still a long path to walk.
- emteycz 6y agoHow do you retain an employee when the competition can offer literally anything?
- parsadotsh 6y agoOffer literally anything. It's geopolitics on both sides.
- matz1 6y agoHow ? TSMC literary doesn't have unlimited money.
- emteycz 6y agoTSMC does not have unlimited resources, and even if the resources were provided to them, Taiwan is a much smaller economy.
- stefan_ 6y agoThe entire fricking world except Intel gets their cutting-edge (read: profitable) chips made by TSMC. There is quite frankly a lot of latitude for them to raise prices.
- velox_io 6y agoIronically, even Intel is now planning to use TSMC. Makes you wonder if hell is freezing over... http://fortune.com/2020/07/28/intel-7nm-delay-tsmc-stock-shares-worlds-tenth-most-valuable-company/ http://fortune.com/2020/07/28/intel-7nm-delay-tsmc-stock-sha...
- safog 6y agoIs it simply a case of a Chinese private company poaching talent? Or is the chinese govt explicitly providing incentives to the aforementioned pvt company which they're using to poach employees? If it's the former, there's not much to see here, move on. Just capitalism at work. If it's the latter, I don't see how any pvt company can compete against an actor with such deep pockets.
- Legogris 6y agoYeah, I'm fully aware that any large company based in China has involvement/influence from the Chinese government at least on the board-level. Even so, I find it bordering on misinformation to frame it as "China does [x]", which is a general trend in Occidental/Japanese/Korean media. When Microsoft did their release on considering acquisition of TikTok, explicitly stating it was after conversation with the POTUS, I never saw it framed as "The USA to acquire TikTok". We need to be able to have more nuanced headlines because frankly this amount of reduction is hurting more than it's helping in making readers understand the situation. As much as there is issues in the intertwine of corporate leadership and government, the PRC is not quite on the same level as the DPRK.
- jtmarl1n 6y agoYou do realize a "private" company of this magnitude and strategic importance is deeply intertwined with the CCP government, right?
- free_rms 6y agoAlso true in the US. Different in structure and rhetoric, but still basically true. If Boeing hires a German, it doesn't get framed as "US poaches from Germany", with a subheading of "a US-backed aerospace project" like in this article. They'd just say Boeing.
- Udik 6y agoThe article mentions "Two Chinese government-backed chip projects". Of course there's nothing wrong with it, if the US government is messing with the market for geopolitical reasons, the Chinese government has all the interest and the legitimacy to intervene on the other side.
- thePunisher 6y agoAll of this won't help the Chinese if they're not able to procure the wafer machines built by ASML. That's probably why the entire project is stalling. It was a brilliant move by Trump to deny China these machines. In a couple of years the Chinese will have an enormous technology deficit obliterating many smartphone and computer manufacturers there. There's a fair chance that Huawei will pull out of the smartphone business completely next year if Trump is reelected.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- alfiedotwtf 6y agoI wonder how they stop deliberate sabotage by the new hires
- nicoburns 6y agoUltimately I think this will be a good thing, so long as TSMC doesn't lose so much talent that it can't remain competitive. We've just seen a wave of consolidation in the fab industry. New players means more competition, and that's good for market competitiveness.
- Taniwha 6y agoYeah I agree, some more competition for TSMC would be great, it will drive down prices for all of us
- jaimex2 6y agoHilariously they will pay a lot of money for trash talent as anyone worth keeping will already be well secured and compensated. No one in their right mind would move to China if they don't have to.
- yourapostasy 6y agoWith enough party protection and money, you can live an insulated, coddled life in China, and your spouse and children will be well taken care of. The risk is the long-term (3-7+ year range) uncertainty in when you lose political protection, and whether you can expatriate your savings without punitive withholdings if/when you decide to permanently leave. Some echoes to US decamillionaires' (and up) decision matrix to renounce citizenship, but on a much more granular level where the CCP scrutiny is based upon an opaque criteria set, and can hit much smaller incomes if the political profile is high enough with a powerful enough party official. For top talent with long financial time horizons, you're right, it will be challenging to lure the aware ones to China.
- mensetmanusman 6y agoDefinitely short term horizons are the focus. You can’t even own property long term.
- sudosysgen 6y agoChinese property leases are for 99 years, I don't think it's that much of an issue.
- mensetmanusman 6y agoPsychologically it is, because it says you can’t build generational wealth for the children the government authorized you to produce.
- sudosysgen 6y ago
- stevespang 6y agoTaiwan should make it a penalty of treason for sneaking off to work for the CCP. Certainly they have employment contracts ?
- erdos4d 6y agoDoes anyone know if there is any chip manufacturing capability that doesn't require supporting the imprisonment of literally millions of Uighurs or Black people? It seems like the free countries of the world just don't want to compete in this market. EDIT: Only one downvote? C'mon guys, I'm over 100 karma and need to burn it off, I thought for sure the 50 cent army could get that done. Are you guys asleep today or something?
- baybal2 6y agoThe "Big Semi" salaries are notoriously low for the amount of effort one needs to put into his education, and early career. A physics, or engineering PhD. is a minimum to be allowed anywhere near actual work on the process, and those guys only get $50k-$60k a year in Taiwan after 5+ years. A regular "technician," or a PhD interns can get as little as $2000 a month. Of course, the few real know how holders are kept loyal at just any cost, and I heard rumours of 7 digit incomes for those few. This is by far the biggest "carrot" that keeps luring people into RnD work in Semi.
- haecceity 6y agoThis is good for silicon engineers and tech industry in general. This will make the entire sector more competitive. Unfortunately HN can't see that and would rather have silicon engineers be paid lower wages than to have them go to China. When workers fall for nationalistic rhetoric in the media it's the workers that suffer.
- jszymborski 6y agoNo, I think HN would rather see TSMC offer higher salaries and that the worlds largest authoritarian gov't not advance its agenda for tech dominance.
- tehjoker 6y agoDisagree. I believe what they are after is "tech independence" not tech dominance. They are afraid America will cut them off. Honestly, it's probably a very interesting opportunity for hardware engineers. It's not super often that an entirely new fab, architecture, and industry are set up from scratch. It might be a way to get out from under various legacy assumptions and try something new.
- caycep 6y agoWell, it is a stated CCP goal for "AI dominance", at least. And money designated for such likely will filter through these state-sponsored companies..
- Ijumfs 6y agoThousand Talents Program. I hope these engineers don't plan on going back to Taiwan, it probably won't be allowed by the Communists.
- Havoc 6y agoYeah I can unfortunately see that. Given such a country scale strategic imperative throwing a couple million at people is basically a rounding error. I bet China wouldn't even flinch at an extra zero on top of the 2-2.5x salary offers if that's what it took.
- dirtyid 6y agoFor context: Chinese IC talent whitepaper from a couple years ago: http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1116108.shtml http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1116108.shtml Domestic talent 2018 Need: 720k Has: 400k Gap: 320k IC graduates per year: 30k Current gap: 260k A couple weeks ago: integrated circuit major upgrades to first-level discipline in China. Previously IC studies was organized under different disciplines and funding was not streamlined. There's going to be an oversupply of Chinese IC talent in 5-10 years, Taiwanese talent can see the writing on the wall. 100 TSMC engineers + 3000 chip engineers from Taiwan over last decade (10% of their industry?) is <1% of need, but provides valuable skill. There's still 90% left to poach, I wonder if US new IC fund will compete, whether there's language barriers that prevents Taiwanese engineers from moving to Arizona, and how Taiwan would feel about that.
- sudosysgen 6y agoIt's likely Chinese IC need will increase even more when they go from playing catch up to actively trying to get an ace up over the rest of the world.
- dirtyid 6y agoSMIC head recently said the roadblock was talent not hardware or sanctions, implying obstacles like ASML EUV is surmountable. I'm not expert enough to judge, but China is graduating an Taiwan's worth of semi specialists every 15 months while poaching whoever they can, stealing whatever they can to catch up. The various anecdotes / sentiment from industry experts do not seem super doom and gloom. There's get tons of frank appraisals from Chinese analysts about how _massive_ the military gap between Chinese and US is in specific domains, but so far Chinese semi success seems to be like forgone conclusion. Kind of like ballpoint pen situation, which ppl misconstrue as lol China only learned to make ball point pen recently, when really it was Premier LiKeqiang politicized importance of precision manufacturing for national security, and 2 years later Chinese industry figured out how work with tungsten carbide for advanced munitions. But here's a cute ballpoint pen article to distract laowais.
- tanilama 6y agoDecoupling is well under way. No surprise.
- apta 6y agoThis is yet another way how the CCP will steal IP.
- supernova87a 6y agoI don't get where the logical disconnect is happening. Or maybe it's just an industry trend that isn't explicitly addressed. Comments here say that silicon engineering is one of the most difficult things that you need very specific education for. Yet salaries are flat and/or not very impressive for that education level, in this industry. That says to me that there's a surplus of people interested in such jobs, or the current job market shrank compared to what used to be required to innovate and operate all these fabs. And if there is a surplus of labor, it's cheap for anyone, not just China, to siphon off willing talent. Or am I missing something?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- youeseh 6y agoIf you look at the number of chip companies in business starting 30-40 years ago to today, you'll notice that the trend has been one of consolidation.
- godelski 6y agoHonestly that would mean there's ample room for competition considering what's happening especially with Intel, Nvidia, and AMD. Though I imagine the barrier to entry is high.
- jojobas 6y ago>I imagine the barrier to entry is high. Understatement of the last 29 minutes. Invest a few billion with immense risks? Shut up and take the money I wish I had.
- godelski 6y agoI could imagine a collaboration effort from companies like Google, Intel, Nvidia, and Amazon that would reduce the risk to each individual company and result with big benefits. There's been a lot of talk lately about TSMC not being able to produce enough chips for demand. Sounds like the time to take the risk is better than previously. (I'd also argue that there are benefits to having a fab lab closer to these companies headquarters)
- bloody-crow 6y agoIt's interesting that how Intel lost its leadership and "state of the art" in chipmaking now belongs to TSMC and to a lesser extent Samsung. Given how aggressively China is trying to invest into it, there's a potential for a future situation where China directly or indirectly controls the means of producing world's most advanced chips and US companies are denied access and can only rely on US-based Intel, which is several generations behind. If I were US government, I'd be very concerned with this development right now.
- SenHeng 6y agoIt's not just TSMC. There've been stories of Chinese companies hiring retired Japanese engineers for years now. Due to the system in Japan, people are forced into retirement at 60. Some are allowed back on rotating yearly contracts at a hugely reduced salary. Often, these people might still have a remaining mortgage and college fees for their kids. So what's one to do when they're offered a lucrative salary for a cushy 'consultant' position?
- hamilyon2 6y agoIs there a nimble approach to making high-performance chips? Something along the lines of 100 times more expensive, requires 1000 time less capital and time?