4 ms·

I’m naive on this topic but what makes TSMC pretty much the only fab on the world that can do this? Do they have technology the west doesn’t? Know how? Why isn’

I’m naive on this topic but what makes TSMC pretty much the only fab on the world that can do this? Do they have technology the west doesn’t? Know how? Why isn’t there a fab in the US, it can’t be just labor costs?

Gibbon1 6y ago
The US closed most of it's fabs decades ago, except for Intel.
- ipsum2 6y ago
  A few of Globalfoundries' fabs are in the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GlobalFoundries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GlobalFoundries
impulser_ 6y ago
Intel is working on 3D stacking as well. TSMC is building a plant in Arizona.
jjcon 6y ago
Intel fabs are in the usa
whazor 6y ago
EUV is hard and expensive. You need massive clean rooms and a huge laser. Afterwards you need to scale up and actually become profitable, which is even harder. One EUV machine costs 145 million dollars, and you are not going to buy a second one before the first one works well enough. That is why TSMC has now half of all the machines. Many manufacturers gave up making fabs and went to TSMC for production. I do think the proximity of Taiwan to China is a huge help for both fast turnaround of tools/machines as in workers. China themselves are banned from having the latest chip technology. Taiwan is often used as a proxy for western countries to be near China.
- brundolf 6y ago
  $145 million dollars is pocket change to Big Tech. It must just be that they don't think it would be profitable enough to compete when they can buy. If they ever stopped being able to buy, I'm sure they'd get to work real quick. I could also see Apple in-housing their chip fab at some point sooner, just for the sake of continued vertical integration. It doesn't hurt that they have the deepest pockets too. The interesting question is whether or not they'd ever take orders from third parties.
  - topspin 6y ago
    > $145 million dollars is pocket change to Big Tech. That's the Taiwan price. What's the domestic multiplier on that price? What is the time to market price to pay if you're trying to pull this off far from the competitive suppliers and experienced tool makers in Asia? Andy Grove explained all of this 10 years ago[1]. Today we see Intel toying with farming out high end fab work; another milestone in the decline of US technology that Andy wrote about. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2010-07-01/andy-grove-how-america-can-create-jobs https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2010-07-01/andy-grov...
    - raverbashing 6y ago
      This article is priceless. Thanks for linking it. > But what kind of a society are we going to have if it consists of highly paid people doing high-value-added work—and masses of unemployed?
  - baybal2 6y ago
    > $145 million dollars is pocket change to Big Tech. It must just be that they don't think it would be profitable enough to compete when they can buy. If they ever stopped being able to buy, I'm sure they'd get to work real quick. Even if they have money, I doubt they have the capability. They may have billions USD for pocket change, but they can't make a freaking working video call app, and a web browser which eats less than 1GB of memory just to draw a few pictures, and a text layout.
  - 6y ago
baybal2 6y ago
> I’m naive on this topic but what makes TSMC pretty much the only fab on the world that can do this? Do they have technology the west doesn’t? Know how? Why isn’t there a fab in the US, it can’t be just labor costs? Just steadily keeping doing what it did for 30 years straight without compulsion to chase "the next big thing"? A rather unglamorous industry, and for most of their history, they did not chase the bleeding edge, letting more moneyed players to bleed each others. I read some of those very extensive market research reports (or better to say market research books) which go to semiconductor companies for few thousand bucks a pop. It's mind boggling how much consideration, calculations, and planning goes into a decision to sign on a $10B+ fab spending. Forecasts, and technology analysis goes for at least a decade forward, and they dive further than simply tech, into things like social trends, and etc. So, it is, the industry is very hard, very obscure, and works like an ant repellent on "next big thing" chasers from Silicon Valley culture.
ksec 6y ago
It is just the nature of all technology sector. Once the capital cost of entry and catch up to market far exceed any company could risk to be involved, they will consolidate to a single entity. The same could be said with Operating System in the 90s from Microsoft. Or not just technology but the cost to be involved and Unit Cost Economics.
- ip26 6y ago
  Matthew Effect is especially strong in semiconductor mfg.

Gibbon1 6y ago

The US closed most of it's fabs decades ago, except for Intel.

ipsum2 6y ago
A few of Globalfoundries' fabs are in the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GlobalFoundries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GlobalFoundries

impulser_ 6y ago

Intel is working on 3D stacking as well. TSMC is building a plant in Arizona.

jjcon 6y ago

Intel fabs are in the usa

whazor 6y ago

EUV is hard and expensive. You need massive clean rooms and a huge laser. Afterwards you need to scale up and actually become profitable, which is even harder. One EUV machine costs 145 million dollars, and you are not going to buy a second one before the first one works well enough. That is why TSMC has now half of all the machines. Many manufacturers gave up making fabs and went to TSMC for production. I do think the proximity of Taiwan to China is a huge help for both fast turnaround of tools/machines as in workers. China themselves are banned from having the latest chip technology. Taiwan is often used as a proxy for western countries to be near China.

brundolf 6y ago
$145 million dollars is pocket change to Big Tech. It must just be that they don't think it would be profitable enough to compete when they can buy. If they ever stopped being able to buy, I'm sure they'd get to work real quick. I could also see Apple in-housing their chip fab at some point sooner, just for the sake of continued vertical integration. It doesn't hurt that they have the deepest pockets too. The interesting question is whether or not they'd ever take orders from third parties.
- topspin 6y ago
  > $145 million dollars is pocket change to Big Tech. That's the Taiwan price. What's the domestic multiplier on that price? What is the time to market price to pay if you're trying to pull this off far from the competitive suppliers and experienced tool makers in Asia? Andy Grove explained all of this 10 years ago[1]. Today we see Intel toying with farming out high end fab work; another milestone in the decline of US technology that Andy wrote about. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2010-07-01/andy-grove-how-america-can-create-jobs https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2010-07-01/andy-grov...
  - raverbashing 6y ago
    This article is priceless. Thanks for linking it. > But what kind of a society are we going to have if it consists of highly paid people doing high-value-added work—and masses of unemployed?
- baybal2 6y ago
  > $145 million dollars is pocket change to Big Tech. It must just be that they don't think it would be profitable enough to compete when they can buy. If they ever stopped being able to buy, I'm sure they'd get to work real quick. Even if they have money, I doubt they have the capability. They may have billions USD for pocket change, but they can't make a freaking working video call app, and a web browser which eats less than 1GB of memory just to draw a few pictures, and a text layout.
- 6y ago

baybal2 6y ago

> I’m naive on this topic but what makes TSMC pretty much the only fab on the world that can do this? Do they have technology the west doesn’t? Know how? Why isn’t there a fab in the US, it can’t be just labor costs? Just steadily keeping doing what it did for 30 years straight without compulsion to chase "the next big thing"? A rather unglamorous industry, and for most of their history, they did not chase the bleeding edge, letting more moneyed players to bleed each others. I read some of those very extensive market research reports (or better to say market research books) which go to semiconductor companies for few thousand bucks a pop. It's mind boggling how much consideration, calculations, and planning goes into a decision to sign on a $10B+ fab spending. Forecasts, and technology analysis goes for at least a decade forward, and they dive further than simply tech, into things like social trends, and etc. So, it is, the industry is very hard, very obscure, and works like an ant repellent on "next big thing" chasers from Silicon Valley culture.

ksec 6y ago

It is just the nature of all technology sector. Once the capital cost of entry and catch up to market far exceed any company could risk to be involved, they will consolidate to a single entity. The same could be said with Operating System in the 90s from Microsoft. Or not just technology but the cost to be involved and Unit Cost Economics.

ip26 6y ago
Matthew Effect is especially strong in semiconductor mfg.