6 ms·
The World's current and next Innovations depend on a single country, Taiwan
- tristanj 6y agoTSMC is the 11th most valuable company in the world, with a market cap of 489B US dollars.
- person_of_color 6y agoWhat's the "next TSMC" (as an investor?)
- trixie_ 6y agoXSD is a good ETF for semis
- hydroreadsstuff 6y agoI would look at the smaller Chinese (not SMIC) ones. Without looking I'd guess they are already highly valued. I have no idea though how long it could take to overtake TSMC/Intel/Samsung.
- ipnon 6y agoTSMC is just beginning to reap the rewards of its market dominance. Samsung is a similarly promising investment, but they are listed in South Korea, which is normally inaccessible to Western investors. If you're convinced of TSMC I'd also look into shorting Intel. That bird has flown.
- hourislate 6y ago>Today’s TSMC’s monopoly is probably the result of a 40 years relationships with partners, with tight relationship and trust between each others. From the following link: https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Technology/TSMC-and-Google-push-chipmaking-boundaries-with-3D-stacking https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Technology/TSMC-and-Google-... Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. is working with Google and other U.S. tech giants to develop a new way of making semiconductors more powerful. It seems they're getting some help (how much?) from companies like Google, AMD, NVIDIA, Apple, etc when it comes to chip packaging.
- samfisher83 6y agoIntel had the manufacturing edge for a long time. Things change. Just because one company is up now doesn't mean it will be up forever. I think one thing TSMC does better than intel is they have a more long term view. They aren't as concerned about hitting next quarters earnings. Their single biggest shareholder is the government of Taiwan. One of their board members a is Taiwanese minister, So I think the government wants to make sure TSMC is around for the long term. They also provide a lot of jobs in Taiwan. If have ever been to Hsinchu you could see how many jobs the semi industry provides. Everything from engineers to more blue color workers.
- imjustsaying 6y ago>The world’s current and next innovations depend on a single country: Taiwan. It’s probably one country you might never hear about, or perhaps confuse with its neighbor, Thailand, or even think it’s a part of China. >I’ve been living in Taiwan for 3+ years, and am baffled that I never pay attention to semiconductors. I can't imagine how baffled he's going to be when he discovers Taiwan considers itself part of China.
- teacpde 6y agoThe blog post seems to have good logic reasoning regards semiconductors, but it is wired to open with statements that involves political views.
- ipnon 6y agoThis is misleading. The two dominant parties are the KMT, the descendants of the post civil war military dictatorship that wants political union with the People's Republic of China, and the DPP, which wants to preserve Taiwan's independence as its own liberal democratic nation. The DPP has won the last 2 elections, so it is fair to say that more Taiwanese believe Taiwan is an independent nation than not.
- eloisius 6y agoTo a large degree, KMT supporters don’t even want unification. They’re happy with a de facto independent ROC. Only a disappearing fringe consider themselves to be a province of China in 2021.
- ipnon 6y agoTaiwan has really changed rapidly in this millenium but the average Western perception of its politics seems locked in the 1970s.
- chillacy 6y agoAfaik Taiwan considers (or considered) itself to _be_ China: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan,_China#Background_and_ambiguity_over_%22China%22 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan,_China#Background_and_a...
- ipnon 6y agoTSMC is in a league of its own. Only Samsung currently has the capacity to compete on a similarly international level. There are a variety of startup competitors from mostly China and the US, but TSMC is so technologically advanced, and the demand for ever faster chips is so great, that they will easily retain the dominant global position for at least the duration of the 2020's.
- bob1029 6y agoIt might seem like Samsung is caught off balance by TSMC's recent progress, but they are still very much in this race. I haven't worked for Samsung in ~7 years, but last I recall they were aggressively pursing all manner of value optimization angles. They also have an existing presence in the US, whereas TSMC is going to be about 5 years out on their US factory. Keeping American workers around to inject ideas into your manufacturing process can be invaluable if you have typically been operating the business like a Borg cube (i.e. relentless standardization throughout, potentially at the cost of more complex value-add proposals).
- lumost 6y agoFabs seem like a classic example where the market will trend to a monopoly. Each generation makes fabs themselves more expensive along with the incremental R&D . As each generation largely obsoletes the previous, the price of being second goes up.
- 8fhdkjw039hd 6y agoDrexlarian nanotechnology?
- magicsmoke 6y agoAlso a perfect case study of where the free market worldview and the nation-state worldview bump heads. The free market tends towards a single global monopoly for these highly capital intensive industries in the name of economic efficiency, but this inevitably erodes the sovereignty and independent action of countries that have to depend of the good graces of wherever this monopoly has its HQ.
- 6y ago
- dirtyid 6y ago>The world needs (and want) better semiconductors Does it really? What kind of exclusive capabilities would humanity meaningfully lose if we regressed back to 14nm? Ray tracing? More realistic title is lack of foresight allowed Taiwan to monopolize leading fab production for next 5-10 years. A mistake every major party is rapidly correcting. TSMC is one US sanction or one Chinese glitterbomb away from being irrelevant. Long term money is on Samsung.
- lyrachord 6y agoNo sane one calls the Taiwan province as a country.