The minimum wage is $10.10 in Ohio vs. $7.28 with the latest increase in South Korea for 2023. That's almost 1.5x more wages for workers in Ohio.
And I wouldn't say we had the edge on chip manufacturing vs. S. Korea, so given the numbers above, how can the U.S. compete? What chips are we making vs. what is intended to be made in S. Korea?
And the relative amount invested is probably not that important. For the US it's important that there is at least some fairly high volume produced of the latest manufacturing nodes.
Right now nothing is produced in the US of the latest node, as they are manufactured in Taiwan and South Korea.
Likely thousands to tens-of-thousands of employees on-site at all times for fabs of this size.
Most employees in the US won't be earning minimum wages, that hasn't been the case in the past.
It's advanced machines doing most of it, and there is an operator handling each machine. The machines are extremely expensive, the building is extremely expensive, the ventilation/filtration/air control system is expensive etc.
These are not smartphone factories.
What is expensive is running these fabs/lines at half the capacity.
> These are not smartphone factories.
Exactly!
The article about the Ohio plant was quoted for the 50,000 jobs figure.
I am interested in manufacturing in general coming back to the U.S., so it intrigued me that S. Korea is making the "world's largest chip center" contrasted with all of the news I've been hearing over the past 5 years about chip manufacturing as an investment strategy in the U.S.
By the time a fab is completed, it is often no longer in the "latest manufacturing nodes", specifically when it was not in the "latest manufacturing nodes" even at planning stages.
That small price delta will be nothing if that happens.
also in the new and upcoming space age that is budding, quality assurance is a number one concern.