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The higher fertility of TSMC semiconductor workers
- rasz 2y agoHow about something about sitting all day in tightly environmentally controlled facilities filtering all the pollution away?
- brcmthrowaway 2y agoWhat exact IP makes TSMC so valuable? We know the EUV machines are produced by ASML We know ASML optics are produced by Zeiss. So what is it?
- chasil 2y agoRead this interview, and you will see that it's the work ethic. https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102658129 https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/10265812...
- crest 2y agoThey know how to integrate and operate those and all the other pieces required to go from a hardware design to hardware you can touch. If you just had to take delivery of ASML machines Intel wouldn't be struggling to get below a (so called) 7nm node.
- AnotherGoodName 2y agoAlso TSMC pays far far more than Intel on a PPP basis for the same role so it's not like Intel can poach that talent. Intel: USD$77k for a hardware engineer role (low i know - Intel have had 20years of wage freezes and they has an across the board wage cut last year). Link: https://www.indeed.com/cmp/Intel-Corporation/job-titles/Integrity-Engineer https://www.indeed.com/cmp/Intel-Corporation/job-titles/Inte... TSMC: Pays the Taiwanese equivalent of USD$58k for the same role. Link (in NT$ but conversions easy): https://www.salaryexpert.com/salary/job/signal-integrity-engineer/taiwan https://www.salaryexpert.com/salary/job/signal-integrity-eng... Now before you say aha! that's less on a direct dollar to dollar comparison remember that Taiwan has slightly better than 2x rate of PPP. Contrary to what a lot of people seem to think, TSMC in Taiwan has better pay, working conditions and benefits than Intel in USA. The childcare mentioned in the article is one such example as is the pay i just mentioned. This has been true for a long time now. Intel is the primary Western competitor and they don't compete for talent at all. They haven't done for a long long time now.
- johngossman 2y agoIt's probably not just a piece of IP. The question of competitive advantage (or comparative advantage) by companies (IBM in the 70s, Microsoft in the 90s, Intel for decades, TSMC, nVidia, and Apple recently) or by nation states (Japan in the 80s, Taiwan and S. Korea recently) is complex and often mysterious. Economists talk about core competencies, which is a combination of culture, training, work-ethic, supply chain, IP, and other things. If teasing these apart was easy, competitors would emerge more quickly. Equally fascinating is why it goes away (Japan in the 90s, Intel recently). I have been trying to figure out TSMC in particular but haven't yet, and I'm skeptical of anyone who claims it is one simple thing, or even anyone who claims they know all the reasons.
- ok_computer 2y agoThey built the supplier global and local ecosystem and they have a local pipeline for engineering and technician talent. The US has good graduate and university systems but the industrial culture is different and you see that in operations. There are different workplace incentives. They’ve been working for a long time to reach this superior position and made good decisions business partners and investments along the way. These investments in local national economies take time, decades. I agree with you, IP is reductive where I think there is a combination of tangible and intangible factors, trade secrets, talent, operational discipline, management and long term thinking. It’s hard to see in present time, but it becomes clear in retrospect when the winning companies started making failing decisions while on top. Then doubling down on those poor decisions or switching strategies too frequently to make an effect.
- Glawen 2y ago>It’s hard to see in present time, but it becomes clear in retrospect when the winning companies started making failing decisions while on top. Then doubling down on those poor decisions or switching strategies too frequently to make an effect. It is even more infuriating when you see a big player makes a bad decision, but it takes years to see the effects (on the market for example).
- mullingitover 2y agoI think of it like this: ASML makes the film. Zeiss makes the cameras. TSMC is the movie studio. They'd be making hit movies no matter who was supplying the film and the cameras.
- whynotminot 2y agoI think that's a little too simplistic. They would not be the world leading fab without ASML. ASML's EUV process may be the most complex piece of machinery man has ever created. It's maybe more like ASML's machines are like a Stradivarius, and TSMC is the best in the world at playing the instrument.
- Stedag 2y agoZeiss - lenses both in analogy and irl ASML - cameras Silicon - film TSMC - film house (manufacturing, color correction, managing storerooms, mastering, distribution brokering with theaters) Taiwan - Hollywood with just the right climate for talent and business Fabless chip firms - movie studios Chip designers - writers Specialized modular chip IP - actors … the analogies really break down from there… Are software engineers the ad agencies and the code execution just the generation of value by playing the movie for people???
- glitchc 2y agoIt's about the semiconductor wafer manufacturing and processing techniques. Just wafer manufacturing alone, to get the desired electrical characteristics, doping and the lowest number of defects possible is a mighty task. TSMC has perfected this black art. They are head and shoulders above anyone else.
- eunos 2y agoFor the same reason as buying the same guitar used by John Lennon make most of us playing music as good as John Lennon.
- convolvatron 2y agomaking a chip is not like hitting 'print'. there is an insane amount of engineering and consulting that goes on. yes, they buy the machines, but they develop the process. and all the tooling around that, including quite a bit of IP. intel has tried to compete with them - they have their own ip, machines, and processes. but they are totally missing the consultancy and full package access that TSMC has, and they have failed.
- itishappy 2y agoASML make the tool, TSMC make the process. The fab itself, for example, you can't just setup a Twinscan in your garage. Even the floors are marvels of engineering. Culture is another subtle but huge factor. When chasing nanometers the fab becomes sensitive to things like deodorant and cigarette smoke. You can of course mitigate these issues, but having an aligned and motivated work force makes it easier.
- invalidname 2y agoForgive my ignorant question, but if it's that sensitive why not automate it with robotics and vacuum seal it? I understand that this is a sensitive process but so is surgery which robots are able to do with remote control.
- itishappy 2y agoThey do their best but they can't seal away everything. Raw materials have to enter, chips and waste come out, and the whole thing comes apart for maintenance. Manufacturing is a game of yields and margins. When you have thousands of operations and inputs, small changes have big effects. TSMC and Intel both have access to the same machines, it's what they're doing with them that differs.
- ok_computer 2y agoYou have no idea how many steps, robotics, offsets, material feeds, alignments, tool setup, recipe fixing, materials troubleshooting go into a fab. These are all to run automated processes. You underestimate how difficult it is to sink heat in a vacuum and the cost of scaling volume and keeping pressure to a low exponent (high vacuum). Robot surgery is tolerant of a much greater length scale of defect than a modern IC chip and is orders of magnitude fewer process steps. Try to watch a youtube video or something but even then you won’t see the full picture. There are so many layers and the wafer passes through different flavors of the same processes over and over.
- biomcgary 2y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacit_knowledge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacit_knowledge
- blackoil 2y agoIn simplistic terms, they buy machine with 1000 knobs. They have engineers who know how much and when to turn each knob.
- asdasdsddd 2y agoCan we stop framing fertility as a national/corporate policy issue when its almost entirely cultural. And I don't mean that policy is downstream of culture; I mean, people just want to travel, party, and drink instead of having kids. If you're giving me stats, you'll have to explain why there's very little correlation between income and fertility within nations, and why previous (non-farming) generations had a higher fertility rate with fewer resources, and why a country's fertility generally declines as it becomes wealthier.
- creole_wither 2y agoPeople are having fewer children than they explicitly say they want to have.
- 627467 2y agoHave you considered bringing attention to fertility, demographics and social cohesion as a collective issue (thus national/corporate/etc) and not just a self-centered cultural issue is precisely the point?
- asdasdsddd 2y agoI am a bit of a fatalist, I think things need to get really bad before cultural values change.
- 627467 2y agoAhh we are in agreement there then.
- acdha 2y agoThat’s a theory, but you’d need some data to support it and there are some potential confounds. For example, if someone decides children are out of the question because they can’t afford significant costs and instead decides to travel at considerably lower cost, that doesn’t tell us what choice they have made in an alternate scenario where policies made the financial burden much lower.
- 2y ago
- johngossman 2y agoI'd want to know a lot more about overall Taiwanese demographics before I'd make a big deal out of this. 6x as fertile as the average sounds huge, until you consider that TSMC employees are vastly more likely to be in the child-bearing age group than the overall population (children and the elderly don't have many kids). The right comparison would be between TSMC employees and other employed people in the same age and income brackets. Could still be real, but probably not 6x.
- m463 2y agoCould be clean room air too. Or maybe you aren't allowed to smoke near a fab.
- WorkerBee28474 2y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Taiwan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Taiwan A third or so of the women in Taiwan are of childbearing age. If every woman at TSMC was in the same age bracket then the 6x difference would "only" be a 2x.
- roenxi 2y agoGreat time to be on alert for statistical weirdness. One that springs to mind is maybe TSMC attracts higher status men who compete more effectively for the women most likely to have children or something like that. I don't recall ever seeing a nice rundown of why birth rates have collapsed in the most abundant era of human history but I doubt it is as simple as TSMC offering childcare. People have done more with far less on the children front over history.
- highfrequency 2y agoAlways surprised that more US tech companies don’t offer childcare, which is probably the biggest constraint on employees’ time at the office. In addition it is a huge tax win to pay childcare from top-line revenue rather than having parents spend post-tax income.
- Balgair 2y agoIt would be a complex situation in the US at least. The issue is the Right to Work states. If your childcare is tied to your employment, and you can lose your job at any time, you then can lose your childcare at any time. That sets up incentives that become rather ugly rather fast. Add in that there are typically long wait lists for childcare, the emotional ties, childcare workers' incentives, and the costs that are universal for the US. It's not even close to a simple decision for anyone. Personally, I wouldn't use such childcare if it were comparable to other providers. It would have to be significantly cheaper or free to consider it.
- naming_the_user 2y agoIt’s not clear to me that this is ugly at all? You don’t need childcare if you have free time due to not being at work..?
- Balgair 2y agoAnd how are you supposed to take interviews and have the time to apply for jobs with a sick screaming toddler in the room? I'll add that about 40% of children are born to unwed mothers in the US. https://www.statista.com/statistics/276025/us-percentage-of-births-to-unmarried-women/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/276025/us-percentage-of-... And, again, many daycares have moths/years long waiting lists. Daycare is a super local thing in the US and, in my experience, not really all that tied to CoL standards. I've personally been in year+ lists and have had friends where you can pretty much walk in and get started. It's quite variable.
- nojvek 2y agoHow is this ugly when healthcare is tied to employment already. All the arguments about you can lose your job then you lose X at any time apply.
- bangaloredud 2y ago[flagged]
- thrance 2y agoI think there's a mistake in the article, a fertility rate of 0.87 children per woman does not give 8 grandchildren per 100 taiwanese, but 100x0.87x0.5x0.87x0.5=19 grandchildren per 100 taiwanese.
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- maxglute 2y agoToo lazy to math, but I asked chatgpt/claude to guestimate TSMC TFR given numbers in article and it returns something absurd like 6. Which has to be wrong. Regardless, article acknowledges TSMC accounts for 20% of Taiwans GDP for 0.3% of population, that kind resources per capita for family friendly policies can't scale. I'd be curious to know actual TFR of this cohort i.e. most affluent famillies I know below 2. Including most religious/conservative who has all the resources (maids etc) to have big families but don't. IMO short of god mandating at least 3 kids, TFR settles belows 2 because most don't want to handle more than 1-2 kids, no matter how wealthy they are. I guess people don't want to drive minivans. Also does this pattern hold for Samsung who accounts for 20% of SKR GDP and employs 0.5% of population?
- ksec 2y agoWhat if I changed the heading to "The higher fertility of ( $ Wealthiest Company in the Country ) workers" ? Would that makes it easier to understand? Not to mention TSMC employees have decent social status in Taiwan. Well Paid and High Benefits by Taiwan Standard, and tends not to do layoffs for stupid reasons. Long terms planning and Institutional Knowledge is important at TSMC. Unlike Intel 2009 - 2021.