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I will weight in as somebody who had aspirations for a career in semiconductors more than a decade ago. Taiwan, and Asian semi ecosystem at large is unique, an

I will weight in as somebody who had aspirations for a career in semiconductors more than a decade ago. Taiwan, and Asian semi ecosystem at large is unique, and irreplaceable, and not only TSMC as such. The fall of Taiwan will be: 1. Loss of unique, black box knowhow which people never put into any patents 2. Loss of single source consumables - a lot of chemical industry, metallurgy, plastic, machinery all exclusively used only by semi industry 3. Loss of 80% of world's semi workforce, both brains, and hands 4. Loss of services companies, and big part of the ecosystem supporting the fabs, like semiconductor logistics 5. Loss of unique semi equipment makers, not on the level of losing the crown jewel (steppers,) but nevertheless making it instantly impossible to build any new fab line until a replacement is redeveloped from scratch. People who say that Taiwan is not big in semi tool making don't have an idea. So if you completely erase this part of the world, the maximum the world can hope for within 5 years is just to restore functioning of a single pre-existing fab per country. All its outputs will be no doubt be only used for defence electronics. In other words Facebook, Amazon, Google, and all tech industry all bye bye. Modern "disposable electronics" barely lasts 2-3 years. South Korea, or Japan will be there first, and they will demand The King's Ransom for fab access. The first new fabs built from scratch will only be possible to make in 7-9 years term, using eighties era technology, and that is if the war will end quickly.

goldname 5y ago
Doubt it. China will def preserve TSMC. Taiwanese engineers would just work for the mainland.
- randomhodler84 5y ago
  China won’t have the chance. The fabs will be destroyed before the first PLA foot hits the ground. All parties know this. It will set the world back decades.
  - dirtyid 5y ago
    No parties know this. Entire TW will blow up its own fabs started off as meme that people have ran with. The only serious analysis about deliberately blowing up TW fabs was by US Army War College on the poor premise that it would deter PRC invasion when destroying fabs work in PRC favor by resetting everyone back decades... closing the gap. It's more likely US & PRC will coordinate to save TW fabs with TW leadership cooperation because US controls inputs via supply chain and save trillions in US advanced industies. TW leadership will cooperate because not wiping out advanced western industry is the one golden ticket they have of comfortable retirement in the west. PRC gains leverage and access by hosting fabs. 100,000s of TW semi engineers has a comfortable future working status quo. It's basically the only arrangement that works out for everyone versus semiconductor mutually assured destruction. Reality is US has leverage via tech sanctions during peacetime, PRC has leverage during wartime by threatening to destroy all east asia semi supply chain which will kick world back to 80s instead of 00s. It's in everyone's interest not to normalize disrupting semi production.
    - baybal2 5y ago
    - dirtyid 5y ago
      @baybal2 Your comment is dead. It's US publication, they're not blackmailing themself unless drive for strategic clarity. But not compelling deterrence. Response in TW media to report was leave TSMC alone. Nothing official I've read suggest blowing up fabs for US protection since US protection is for those fabs. Like I don't doubt TW will play blackmail card if viable, but US can't slap enough free missile defense to make TW semi supply chain defendable. On point two, perhaps. In the meantime, I assume it will take decades to reshore supply chains independent of TW making for some uneasy peace. I'll be stocking up on hardware. E: Shame, a lot of your comments are dead actually.
  - goldname 5y ago
    What? This makes no sense. TSMC destroying their fabs isn't gonna set the world back decades, it's just going to inflate the cost of chips. And China wouldn't even going to do a full scale invasion anyways. An assassination + puppet gov installation is much more likely.
vimy 5y ago
Couldn’t we just fallback on older fabs in Europa and the US? Turn back the clock to 2005 instead of the 80s.

goldname 5y ago

Doubt it. China will def preserve TSMC. Taiwanese engineers would just work for the mainland.

randomhodler84 5y ago
China won’t have the chance. The fabs will be destroyed before the first PLA foot hits the ground. All parties know this. It will set the world back decades.
- dirtyid 5y ago
  No parties know this. Entire TW will blow up its own fabs started off as meme that people have ran with. The only serious analysis about deliberately blowing up TW fabs was by US Army War College on the poor premise that it would deter PRC invasion when destroying fabs work in PRC favor by resetting everyone back decades... closing the gap. It's more likely US & PRC will coordinate to save TW fabs with TW leadership cooperation because US controls inputs via supply chain and save trillions in US advanced industies. TW leadership will cooperate because not wiping out advanced western industry is the one golden ticket they have of comfortable retirement in the west. PRC gains leverage and access by hosting fabs. 100,000s of TW semi engineers has a comfortable future working status quo. It's basically the only arrangement that works out for everyone versus semiconductor mutually assured destruction. Reality is US has leverage via tech sanctions during peacetime, PRC has leverage during wartime by threatening to destroy all east asia semi supply chain which will kick world back to 80s instead of 00s. It's in everyone's interest not to normalize disrupting semi production.
  - baybal2 5y ago
  - dirtyid 5y ago
    @baybal2 Your comment is dead. It's US publication, they're not blackmailing themself unless drive for strategic clarity. But not compelling deterrence. Response in TW media to report was leave TSMC alone. Nothing official I've read suggest blowing up fabs for US protection since US protection is for those fabs. Like I don't doubt TW will play blackmail card if viable, but US can't slap enough free missile defense to make TW semi supply chain defendable. On point two, perhaps. In the meantime, I assume it will take decades to reshore supply chains independent of TW making for some uneasy peace. I'll be stocking up on hardware. E: Shame, a lot of your comments are dead actually.
- goldname 5y ago
  What? This makes no sense. TSMC destroying their fabs isn't gonna set the world back decades, it's just going to inflate the cost of chips. And China wouldn't even going to do a full scale invasion anyways. An assassination + puppet gov installation is much more likely.

vimy 5y ago

Couldn’t we just fallback on older fabs in Europa and the US? Turn back the clock to 2005 instead of the 80s.