5 ms·

How hard would it be to move to 3nm or 2nm in Arizona if something happened in Taiwan? Genuine question because I don't know much about these plants.

AnotherGoodName 2y ago
There’s a lot of supply chain involved. For example in the pellicle (a special plastic coating that helps smooth variations in the photoresist layer). https://www.businesskorea.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=71664 https://www.businesskorea.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=... It’s one of the reasons intel never got the yields tsmc were getting with the same asml machines. They didn’t have the same supply chain (in fact their insistence on liquid pellicles or no pellicle hurt them a lot). Here’s a thought though. Is the Arizona fab just importing the supply chain from Taiwan? If so it’s not really helping high end silicon independence as much as you’d hope.
- sircastor 2y ago
  If enough usage picks up in this fab, the supply chain will build around it. The hard part (and TSMC has said this is an issue internally as well) is replicating the business in the US. The work ethic, job expectations, cultural taboos, etc are all different. If it turns out that TSMC can only do what they do where they do it because of a bunch of external factors, then no one is going to be putting their billion dollar business here. Especially if they can save a few million by doing it in Taiwan.
dheera 2y ago
Considering ASML makes the machines, probably not that difficult. The knowledge of how to do it exists outside of Taiwan. The bigger problem might be that a whole lot of the rest of the supply chain is in China, and if something happened in Taiwan, the US would fuck up US-China relations and wreck that supply chain.
- pests 2y ago
  It's possible for TSMC to use the machines better and more efficiently than even ASLM could. Plus the step ASML covers is only a tiny slice of the entire chain of events to get to a finished product.

AnotherGoodName 2y ago

There’s a lot of supply chain involved. For example in the pellicle (a special plastic coating that helps smooth variations in the photoresist layer). https://www.businesskorea.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=71664 https://www.businesskorea.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=... It’s one of the reasons intel never got the yields tsmc were getting with the same asml machines. They didn’t have the same supply chain (in fact their insistence on liquid pellicles or no pellicle hurt them a lot). Here’s a thought though. Is the Arizona fab just importing the supply chain from Taiwan? If so it’s not really helping high end silicon independence as much as you’d hope.

sircastor 2y ago
If enough usage picks up in this fab, the supply chain will build around it. The hard part (and TSMC has said this is an issue internally as well) is replicating the business in the US. The work ethic, job expectations, cultural taboos, etc are all different. If it turns out that TSMC can only do what they do where they do it because of a bunch of external factors, then no one is going to be putting their billion dollar business here. Especially if they can save a few million by doing it in Taiwan.

dheera 2y ago

Considering ASML makes the machines, probably not that difficult. The knowledge of how to do it exists outside of Taiwan. The bigger problem might be that a whole lot of the rest of the supply chain is in China, and if something happened in Taiwan, the US would fuck up US-China relations and wreck that supply chain.

pests 2y ago
It's possible for TSMC to use the machines better and more efficiently than even ASLM could. Plus the step ASML covers is only a tiny slice of the entire chain of events to get to a finished product.