Hacker News Reader

Comment by sesteel | Hacker News Reader

It seems like TSMC building a US based foundry may become a mitigating factor.

The $12B Fab which TSMC builds in Phoenix, will be outdated when it will open in 2024 and it is too small for AMD or Apple. It is likely it is mainly build to secure chip supply for the US military in case China invades Taiwan and the US does not have access to the TSMC Fabs in Taiwan any more. Apple and AMD will probably not be able to sell products for 1 year till they migrated to Intel or Samsung production in case TSMC fabs in Taiwan are not available for them any more.

The TSMC fab in Phoenix is build for 5nm and will open in 2024. The TSMC 3nm process should go into mass production in 2023, it is expected that the 2023 iPhone will use a 3nm SoC. The fab will only produce 20k Wafers per month, the TSMC gigafabs in Taiwan produce 100k Wafer per month each.

Details about TSMC Phoenix fab: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/16/tsmc-taiwanese-chipmaker-ram...

> Apple and AMD will probably not be able to sell products for 1 year till they migrated to Intel or Samsung production in case TSMC fabs in Taiwan are not available for them any more.

Thanks for your assessment on this. Would you please share how you arrived at one year of a product sales gap?

Do you think it is possible for the US to bring 3nm process to the US while that is still relevant?

of course not. why would Taiwan give up its leverage like that, they dragged their feet on the AZ plant too.

That's 20k 5nm dies that you don't have to make in Taiwan and can instead make +20k 3nm dies instead.

I’m skeptical of that. Yes, TSMC will have a plant or two left but a) AMD isn’t going to be first on line for whatever of the diminished capacity is left and b) I have to imagine it’ll be at least disruptive to operations to have the rest of the company disappear.

That plant is two years away at least.

What are the implications of this plant if it is spun up successfully on a two year timeline?

What planned or potential pipeline of other new non-Intel chip fabrication plants on US soil do you foresee?

Looks like someone else already answered this better than I could have.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com