Is America Stealing TSMC?
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- The factories are not joint ventures, they are fully owned by Taiwan.
- Build-outs in US are not going to be the most cutting edge technology.
- TSMC has ~$36bn in capital expenditures in 2022. The Arizona fab is ~$9bn a year. Majority of TSMC investment remains in Taiwan.
- TSMC produces ~15m waifers a year, ~80% produced in Taiwan. Arizona fab will produce ~250k waifers a year from 2024, ~500k from 2026.
- TSMC has at least 5 other build outs in Taiwan.
- The notion that US is going to be self sufficient in terms of chips thanks to the Arizona fab is flawed: 1. By volume, most chips are not what this fab is going to ship. 2. There are other chip foundries with specialty processes in Taiwan. 3. Taiwan leads the rest of the pipeline: assembly, packaging and testing.
And how many of TSMC’s 15m wafers/year are recent nodes? If the majority are 60nm that’s not a super meaningful number.
I agree that this TSMC investment is not going to make the US self sufficient by totally replacing all Taiwan-made chips with US-owned production. But I don’t think anyone ever made that claim?
> Write a impassioned speech for an American wartime president making a speech declaring the immediate nationalization of the Arizona TSMC chip fab for national security reasons.
Posting ChatGPT spew is very tedious, but it completely nails it.
I'm not entirely sure the goal in the US is to nationalize the resources to mask a 'steal' although I'm sure nationalization is a thought out contingency. I think TSMC ownership and people of Taiwan wouldn't need much incentive to scale up and would happily welcome an onpour of resources from the US and other governments should China invade or pressure them. The US isn't typically in the game of flat out stealing although it's undoubtedly a last resort desperation option that's embedded in this decision making.
Also, if I were Taiwan, this helps remove at least one strategic attraction from a PRC invasion scenario. It takes the option of basically controlling world chip supplies off the table as an incentive for PRC. There are undoubtedly plenty of other incentives, but it's one less thing in their cost/benefit analysis of an invasion that could help sway the decision away from an invasion.
Yes but I think important to recognize that contingency is the large basis of the "stealing" TSMC narrative. The other consideration TW semi workers who get to jump the H1B VISA line eyeing for immigration shortcut to US if that option ever opens up = expertise transfers to Intel/US semi. Both US and TW has restricted TW semi talent from working in PRC semi to prevent knowledge transfer, the same concern applies when TW talent is in US, who has much better capacity to brain drain and "steal" expertise.
> TSMC ownership and people of Taiwan wouldn't need much incentive to scale up
There's been ample signals that TSMC leadership are weary of Arizonal expansion, and the meme of of US stealing TSMC are from murmurs in TW by people unhappy with erosion of silicon shield. On the flip side you have TSMC leadership angry that US export controls is cutting off major revenue / future growth in PRC, while underpaid semi workers are angry over controls to work in PRC semi for massive compensation. Opinion on the island falls in camp of preserving silicon shield (i.e. no leading edge fabs abroad) to leverage US into assistance. Or preserve silicon shield to keep money printing strategic industry for barter with PRC if US doesn't assist. There isn't a camp that thinks scaling up TSMC infra outside of island is a good idea that I'm aware of. Also I want to wadger even without funding UKR war, US weapon sales / deliveries to TW has been susipiciously slow with many dates set after fab openning, almost like onpour of US resources is dependant building these fabs in first place.
>one less thing
I argue it's one more thing with Oct export controls, since PRC has even less access to leading edge semi from island, vs US who maintains unrestricted access. Now there is more incentive, arguably pressing short/medium term need, to distrupt TW semi because it would hurt US disproportionately more, and close relative semi gap.
It is getting stolen from "Taiwan", however. Since Taiwan guarantee for independence is the world's dependence on its chips.
If you think american shareholders have a huge say in the running of the company, or can claim their works and assets anytime like you've been saying, get real. American shareholders only care if the profits TSMC line up their pockets.
That's exactly how ownership works in the US and other free nations. If foreign citizens own the majority of a private US company and its voting shares, they have control over that company. Taiwan has similar rules. [0]. "Each shareholder of the Corporation shall have a voting right for each share they hold. Voting rights may be exercised in writing or electronically at the shareholders' meeting of the Corporation."
Taiwan allows significant foreign ownership, even where it is restricted it's set to 60% max (it isn't for TSMC). And they are a democratic, capitalist society, not an authoritarian one like China. And they have many reason to placate Americans, since we're the only thing standing between them and China.
0. https://twse-regulation.twse.com.tw/ENG/EN/law/DAT0201.aspx?....
And I highly doubt Taiwan's government would allow any move that threatens their one of their economic golden gooses. Then as mentioned in the video, you literally do not get to control employees through a vote of shares - they'll quit and work at another competitor. You might think people will always stick to the principles of democracy and rules of law, but as the US itself has proven itself time and time again, they'll put on tariffs if push comes to shove, screw democracy.
Hell, the incentives don't even line up for shareholders to fulfill America's dreams and wishes. Trying to equate voting shares to a company being 'American' without addressing the social, political realities is wishful American centrism.
> Hell, the incentives don't even line up for shareholders to fulfill America's dreams and wishes. Trying to equate voting shares to a company being 'American' without addressing the social, political realities is wishful American centrism.
This is literally what's happening. It's not a dream or wish, it's a desire, and one that TSMC has decided to fulfill. You continue to say "they won't" but they have already decided to do exactly what the US wants.
Manufacturers in almost all sectors, including silicon foundries, have had manufacturing operations worldwide for decades. Centuries even. For all sorts of economic, customer, and government reasons, as well as simple diversification.
Taiwan is still going to be TSMC's home base.
Besides, if TSMC didn't open a US foundry then the US government would just throw money at Intel's foundry operation until they caught up. They're not that far behind. To be honest that's probably going to happen anyway.
> Taiwan is China's previous regime military holdout.
China is patient, but in "Civilisation-game" terms I believe that the strategic, political and economic importance of Taiwan are much to high for the CCP leadership to passively ignore long enough for a "cultural victory".
I also agree with your prediction. If Taiwan's "Chinese cultural heritage" does end up in US, the only other matter that are Taiwan sensitive are controlling the first island chain, and Japan's thoughts on the matter.
That's what the parent comment meant
And at least reading between the lines with China, Taiwans days are numbered.
They’re choice is move their factories offshore or give them up to China.
I'm not sure the US would let this happen. Maybe they'd just level the factories with cruise missiles before China can get hold of them.
Sounds like a stressful work environment.
Does the USA recognize Taiwan as a sovereign state? No.
Does the PRC recognize Taiwan as a sovereign state? No.
Does Taiwan recognize itself as a sovereign state separate from mainland China? No.
The Republic of China (Taiwan) is not going to say that China is separate from china. Their position is that Taiwan is the rightful ruler of mainland china (currently controlled by the communist party).
The only body that makes decisions about Taiwan is the Taiwanese government. It has 100% control of the land within its borders.
Not sure how much more sovereign you can get than that.
Being that the Taiwanese government claims Beijing and Shanghai as being within its borders, I don't think that this is the case.
It’s a sovereign state with claims over a larger territory than it controls.
Then the question is why wouldn't they want to give them to PRC? TW semi was expanding fabs in mainland before US export controls, TW semi workers were being handsomely rewarded with huge compensation packages until DPP cracked down on cross strait headhunting/recruitment. Both profitable TW semi industry and underpaid TW semi workers benefitted massively from integrating with PRC semi, their choice was to give up to PRC, until (US) politics made that not a choice. So at least in that sense US stole the opportunities of TW semi that saw benefits to closer integration with - giving up - to PRC.
Kudos for providing the opportunities for these brilliant people, great success through the year of executing programs for bringing Nazi scientists, Soviet scientists etc. but if we are going to keep tabs you might find out that that the American science and technology is not that much American after all.
And just why do you think all these brilliant people leave for the US? Let’s think about that for a moment.
May I as you what great school gave you this powerful reasoning powers are are you self taught?
But beyond that, I look where our country is, our values and our culture and I wonder to myself "Do we have what it takes to compete in the 21st century?".
The timeline to turn the ship around is misleading, whereas ironically if you reflect on turnaround time involved in this critical industry should highlight what is happening.
Taiwan apparently got where it is because of a smart/lucky bet a couple of decades ago. When it made that bet, it wasn't evident it would lead to it being the king of chip manufacturing. As a strategic, capital and ip intensive, this industry is national security level policy for all concerned, consumers and producers and middle men, and instability in global production chain in this industry upsets policy and planning goals, and creates insecurities.
That a political disagreement (US & China) would result in creating insecurity, in a globalist context, regarding chip manufacturing for the next few decades, is a sort of crossing of Rubicon.
As for your second paragraph, don't worry: in the same exact way that starting in 90s corporate controlled culture (which is pretty much everything) had a coordinated campaign to create the image of the New Globalist American (went by a variety of labels) comfortable with the idea of being a "service economy" and their political views shaped to be adaptable to a internationalist mindset.
Now that the globalist project appears to have failed, the corporate media will in due course adjust content, for the 'Adjusted American Model'. You should watch for this event, I predict it will happen soon. Masculine will be OK again. "It's the economy stupid" are possibly the only true words that came out of that mouth.
Instead, this is more about physical security of the supply chain. They don't need to "officially own" the IP, they just need enough of it safe. They have other ways of making sure that they can have access to the results of that IP on favourable terms.
And, like oil, at that scales, it's not critical to be the sole producer of something, as long as all the other producers denominate their output in your currency. And TSMC already denominates in dollars.
I'm more convinced you didn't watch the video than the video being click-bait.