TSMC's Arizona Plant to Start Making Advanced Chips
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It is also important to point out, the achievement here is how fast TSMC manage to set things up and running even without the home ground advantage. Intel couldn't even replicate this time frame if it was their Intel 7nm Fab. And of course the greatest record was that with enough planning and permission done before hand TSMC manage to have the fab built and running within 18 months in Taiwan. ( Arguably closer to 12 months )
This also means unless a miracle happen or US Gov being unfair with certain things the chances of Intel catching up with its current team, management, board members and investors, against TSMC in terms of capacity, price, and lead time as a foundry is close to zero. ( I am sorry but I lost all faith and hope now Pat Gelsinger is out. )
Once TSMC 2nm hits the ground later this year, TSMC US will also start their 3nm work if they haven't started now.
Yes. There used to be a saying the most expensive Fab ( or factory ) isn't the most advance Fab, but an empty Fab.
You cant built without first ensuring you can fill it, you cant fill it without first ensuring you can deliver. And Intel has failed to deliver twice with their custom foundry. Both times with Nokia and Ericsson. How the two fall for it twice is completely beyond me, but then Intel are known to have very good sales teams.
Intel will need another Apple moment that has huge demand, little margin, but willing to pay up front. On the assumption that Intel is even price competitive. The Apple modem may be it. But given the current situation with Intel as they want to lower Capital spending I am not even sure if betting on Intel is a risk Apple is willing to make. Comparing to a stable consistent relationship with TSMC.
You can't start a war when you are truly broke, much like China is today. And China is aging super fast, unlike Germany or US during the 30s.
They're undergoing a difficult time sure, but broke seems like a stretch.
Japan has struggled for 30 years, but during most of that time have they been broke? Most countries in the world would love to "struggle" like Japan.
What does broke mean?
China still has a currency earning export juggernaut and world class companies.
And, they build everything they need for war.
Russia with its energy and China with its manufacturing has sufficient assets to wage a World War 3 whether the U.S. wants it or not.
Wars aren't financed the same as peacetime economies.
Countries impress factories and manpower into service.
In some ways, if your country is sufficiently self sufficient, it's much cheaper than running a peacetime economy.
Of course, if you lose, then you're wrecked.
Having debt to GDP ratio of 310% and local governments being unable to pay out salaries for many months is a big sign of being broke. (google or chatgpt the salary news, they are everywhere)
Consumer spending dropping 20% y/y in November in Beijing and Shanghai is a sign of being broke.
52,000 EV-related companies shut down in China in 2023 and an increase of 90% on the year before, where most EV companies were the targets of government subsidies, is a sign of being broke.
30% drop in revenues from land sales in 2024, which the local government derive most of its revenue on, is a sign of being broke.
China is not self sufficient; it imports 80% of consumed soybeans and other food products, and 90% of semiconductor equipments. Nor is it even remotely at the same level as Japan when Japan entered the lost decades. 600M Chinese citizens earned less than $100/month as of 2020. Recently, a scholar reported 900M Chinese citizens earned less than $400/month.
How would you handle the eloquent counterargument that spiraling deflation is not a sign of being broke? Deflation doesn't, in and of itself, signal anything except that the real value of a currency is going up.
China is one of the worlds largest creditors [0]. They may have a lot of organisational problems - I'd go as far as saying they are guaranteed to given they are quite authoritarian. But they aren't broke.
None of those metrics signal problems in and of themselves, and when put together ... they still don't. The consumer spending drop is the closest to something that might be a problem but it needs some supporting data to make a case.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_international_investment_p...
China being the largest creditor doesn't mean much when a lot of their debt is issued to belt and road countries that can never be paid back, and will be written off in the future. It does have a large US debt holdings, but that has shrank from 1.27T (2013) to 772B (2024), and a large part of that being used for cross border transactions.
Individuals have a problem. Corporations have a problem. China may or may not have a problem. It depends on how reasonable their bankruptcy laws are. Cleaning out the system of people who aren't using capital effectively is a healthy thing to do.
And I have to say, this idea that we should focus on China's debts and dismiss their credits is suspect. I mean sure, if we ignore all the assets and income streams then they do have a problem. But that isn't reasonable. You can't ignore the strengths to make an argument they are weak.
If we are talking about China's credit, China has a lot of subprime loans to belt and road countries that have very little income, and lot of subprime loans to their citizens, which recently a scholar reported that 900M of them make less than $400/month.
If China has to take decisive steps to preserve whatever craziness is going on in the mainland, they're going to be preserving a system that has at least 10x-ed their wealth over the last 30 years while producing vast amounts of real capital that has catapulted their living standards up to a much more reasonable standard.
I wouldn't necessarily gamble on China because the system doing well looks unstable and could veer to disaster at any moment the central bureaucracy does something stupid. But we don't have strong evidence of a problem yet. We've got strong evidence they aren't acting like the US, but the US hasn't been setting an inspiring example in decades. As with a lot of economic problems, most of the damage from 2007 was doubling down on failing strategy rather than taking the hint that something needed to change.
And I'm not seeing evidence here that China is broke. They might muck this up, always an option, but they have all the tools they need to succeed in principle.
this is disinformation. source: relatives that were alive in California and other states at that time
The chip technology sanctions might slow development in that area in China, but I wouldn't count on it.
Here are some actual experts take on China: Longtime China bull Ray Dalio fears economy faces problems as severe as Japan in 1990 https://fortune.com/2024/09/18/ray-dalio-china-property-bubb...
or Private equity investors trapped in China as top firms fail to find exit deals https://www.ft.com/content/0575e216-8dae-4df6-bf50-312f78468...
or Starbucks reportedly mulling China business stake sale https://www.worldcoffeeportal.com/Latest/News/2024/November/...
Which is super interesting/ironic with the entire reason for an “apple modem” is due to Intels failure there a decade ago. Bonus irony for the subsequent acquisition.
> TSMC have red hot demand, it’s not hard to understand their urgency in setting up new fabs, wherever they may be. Intel don’t have the same incentive (...)
This is Intel's real problem.
They are also a competitor to many of their potential customers.
So, Intel needs to advance their foundry tech and they still may not get customers.
Basically what would it take for Intel to still have Apple as a customer even if Apple made their own ARM designs…
Intel doesn't have demand because they only make Intel chips, and they haven't been doing too well lately.
I think realistically you wouldn't port the exact same design between manufacturers. That would be a waste of money unless one manufacturer is really rinsing you.
More likely you'd switch manufacturers when you planned to switch process nodes anyway, in which case the increase in workload probably wouldn't be too bad.
They do it all the time when they change nodes.
It is not that it cant be done. It is not reasonable or cost effective to do it without some clear incentive.
The measurement is roughly equivalent to the density that feature size would allow in previous generations. Intel ditched the number anyway.
However, just like how quickly and suddenly Intel lost the lead, things may turn around for TSMC too: at some point, their research hits a dead end and somebody overtakes them too.
Perhaps I should have written with Disclosures. For the record I did invest in AMD when it was below $3 and TSMC at below $400TWD. None of these are investment advices so take it what you will. ( You get much better return with Tesla and Nvidia in the same period of time but then investment isn't always about best returns. ) And I was waiting to invest into Intel, unfortunately Pat is gone. To my words I said this in April 2023 [1]
"I am just worried if Stock price continue to fall, Pat may be forced out again by those stupid Board. And if Pat is out, I won’t invest in Intel at all."
As you will read in my reply below, I have a very negative view on Intel's board for a very very long time.
>However, just like how quickly and suddenly Intel lost the lead
It wasn't quick or even sudden. I wrote about it in 2014 and got a death threat from Intel Fan boys then. I have been questioning about Intel's management on GPU, Fab capacity allocation, CapEX, dividends etc for a very long time. For another point, TSMC never wanted to be the most advance manufacturing Fab. Them having leading node is purely accidental and Intel's slip up. They have been doing Intel -1 node for most of their history and are doing just fine. Providing Pure Play Foundry Services with Industry wide support on Tools at a reasonable / acceptable price for Fabless players. And right now, they are firing on all cylinders.
Again. None of these are investment advices and personal opinion only.
In that sense, I fully expect the incumbent top fab to maintain the lead for a number of years even when a "sudden" competitor enters the market with clearer path forward.
The US has the influence to force other countries to act in the US's best interest as well. It's pragmatic.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3_nm_process#cite_note-74
[2] https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/details/pro...
(Not intended as a snipe. I honestly just don't know where to look for that kinda info.)
Unfortunately, these numbers are arbitrary and companies are guessing what performs about like what based on numerous factors. Often wrongly - Samsung's equivalents were so bad Qualcomm pretty much abandoned them, and for good reason. Anyone who used an Exynos or SD888 understands why.
I feel like we should have landed on a better tracking system now, like perf/watt, but here we are.
Seeing as Intel 7 is formerly Intel 10nm, there is at least a reasonable argument in that Intel's number is one size(?) smaller than it should be.
Also, it depends on the metrics but TSMC’s N4 is a mainstream foundry logic node. Who is using Intel 4/3 outside of Intel?
> Our Intel 3 is in high volume manufacturing in our Oregon and Ireland factories
https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/intel-3-3nm-class...
Can be, not "is". I will believe them when I see it.
But for those living close to the plant, I'm not so sure:
"Environmental, and public health groups, including the Sierra Club, are urging President Joe Biden to veto a controversial bill that exempts most semiconductor companies applying for federal CHIPS Act funding from having to complete essential environmental reviews, as required by the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA."
“Exempting the semiconductor industry from NEPA is completely unwarranted, especially considering the projected significant increase use of PFAS and other toxic chemicals by the industry and their track record of releasing these dangerous chemicals into the air and water surrounding the facilities,” said Tom Fox, Senior Legislative Counsel at the Center for Environmental Health"
https://www.sierraclub.org/press-releases/2024/10/environmen...
(Any deals the US has with Taiwan, will always have a military backdrop, they just recently took deliver of some nice new military hardware). Stuff you will never see in Ukraine. )
At least for this particular technology, IBM did not deliver everything needed to do this.
"So, when we went to .13u, .13u the people began to change from aluminum to copper. And IBM was the leader for the copper metal. They had the longest history of developing copper technology. They worked for more than ten years on copper. TSMC didn't have any experience in copper at all. So, when we decided we need to adopt copper, okay. So, the copper is one story and low-k material is another one. IBM decided kind of low-k material is a spin-on material called SILK. IBM had a Research Consortium that IBM-- Samsung joined them, I think, ST Micro joined them. Several companies joined the Consortium.
"And UMC joined them. But we didn't join them. They all used that spin-on low-K material. But we decided to use CVD - instead of flourine-doped it's a carbon-doped made by Applied Materials. They're called Black Diamond. So, we choose Black Diamond. The reason we chose Black Diamond was very simple, because I suffer at .18 with a spin-on. I wouldn't touch spin-on again. <laughter> But they didn't go through that. So, we were very, very lucky. TSMC became the first company in the world which was able to ship a manufacturing wafers with the copper and low-k, because IBM failed... Later on they found reliability the problem."
https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/10279267...
I am not so sure tsm was first. Depends on how you define lowk.
then still US should put more money into Intel
What makes you think so?
In any event it appears that reunification is essentially inevitable and the only question is when. China doesn’t appear to feel especial urgency about it.
I'm speculating, but if China invades Taiwan, it's cheaper for the US to bomb the fab in Taiwan to not let it get into Chinese hands in case of an invasion. They could additionally offer generous asylums to Taiwaneese researchers and engineers. Then whatever happens to Taiwan happens?
https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2024/11/08/200...
The article mentions that Arizona was set to ramp 4nm, which is presumably what they have now.
TSMC's manufacturing process using ASML EUV machines is different from Intel or Samsung.
People think you just buy an EUV machine, and you can start printing money. Far from it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_Administration_Regulati...
And in fact, the machines that make these chips are restricted by US export law:
https://www.asml.com/en/news/press-releases/2024/asml-statem...
>The Department of State: the ITAR administered by the Directorate of Defense Trade Controls relate to defense articles and defense services on the US Munitions List and section 38 of the Arms Export Control Act
>The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC)
>The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), which controls the export and re-export of commodities related to nuclear reactor vessels, per the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 The Department of Energy (DOE), which controls the export and re-export of technology related to the production of special nuclear materials, per the Atomic Energy Act of 1954
>The Department of Defense (DoD) and Department of State Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program: items that are sold, leased, or loaned by the DoD to a foreign country or international organization under the FMS program are subject to the Arms Export Control Act instead of the EAR.
Furthermore, packaging and testing was largely outsourced and the domestic semiconductor industry imploded in the 2010s with IBM Micro and AMD's failures.
The same thing happened to Japan when they began offshoring Memory Fabrication to South Korea and Taiwan in the 1990s-2000s.
That said, from a NatSec perspective legacy processes (28nm, 48nm) and compound semiconductors would be much more critical (and a significant amount of funding has been devoted to that).
Yep. They still own the IP from the IBM Microelectronics days.
Much of the breakthroughs in EUV were done in Upstate NY (especially at SUNY Albany, SUNY Polytechnic, and RPI), and a lot of that was co-owned by IBM, ASML, and TEL.
> They just don’t want to assume the risks
The capex - and pretty much.
Semiconductor Fabrication is high cost, low margins, so it's difficult to spin up without industrial policy.
Albany deserves it's own special section of hell.
the US is selectively getting involved in worldwide conflicts to deter China from invading China, and its awkward, with arduous contrived rationales to maintain its people’s support
and once we get stateside semiconductors at low enough nanometers we wont have to do any of that any more
I cant wait
good thing there are 185 other countries that could care if they really did. this wont be controversial to point out, in the future. it will be a time period that made little sense.
1. Taiwan is not China, any more than Ukraine is Russia, except if you believe all the propaganda coming from the mainland (or Russia). Ask any Taiwanese, and while many consider and appreciate a solid Chinese cultural heritage, they consider themselves independent and want nothing to do with China (except business). Newer generations of Taiwanese are even more independently-minded and consider themselves even more Taiwanese than the previous generations.
2. Even if for some reason you truly think that it is the same country or should be the same country, it is immoral to wish that a peaceful, independent, democratic, and open society like Taiwan's should be brutally attacked and absorbed by a war-mongering, authoritarian/dictatorial, opaque country. (Things could be different if mainland China was democratic, but it isn't, and won't be for a long time.)
3. Even if for some reason you are ok with the above, odds are that the difficulty and complexity of an attack on Taiwan would end up being extraordinarily costly for China (and Taiwan of course). It could lead to all sorts of escalations in the region, sanctions, the collapse of trade with China from the US and other countries, nuclear proliferation (see Ukraine considering developing nuclear weapons if they don't get security guarantees), and who knows what else.
both entities would have territorial disputes with other neighboring regions, that we don't agree with, since we care about those region’s self determination too
some parts of the ROC have dropped claims to the mainland
and its all so hilarious that it reminds me how we, the US, shouldn't be involved, and wont be after the semiconductor problem is hedged
Whether the US should be involved or not is a valid question: moral, practical, diplomatic. A very recent parallel is that of the war in Ukraine: should the US be involved and be isolationist, or not? I for one think that a more than fair case can be made that holding the moral high ground will also, coincidentally, lead to more stability and more economic rewards. So it's a no-brainer and I don't share your isolationist view.
You should, incidentally, remember that US support for Taiwan goes back to a time when Taiwan didn't even have a semiconductor industry. It's unclear that US support would cease entirely if the US was fully independent in that industry, and it's also unclear whether that will happen in any short-term horizon, or at all.
Do you even realize that there are many other conflicts that also involve American values that we aren’t involved in?
Its hard to tell. Its a very selective morality as I already mentioned.
Regarding conflicts you care about subsidizing, there are 185 other countries that could as well. Go ask them and see how absurd it sounds, because the same standard actually applies to the US, you just aren't willing to see that.
And yes, the China situation is a mockery of the nation state concept and is hilarious to me and many others. What is happening in the east should be ignored until a nation state concept emerges that we can relate to.
Let me rephrase: thats whats going to happen after the semiconductor situation is hedged. Everyone knows it, TSMC knows it. Thats why TSMC drags its feet with many excuses about talent because they need to delay as well, for the current personnel’s entire lifespan to be honest.
Taiwan might be considered a de facto independent country, but according to most institutions it's officially part of China.
1. Taiwan's official name is Republic of China (ROC): it regards itself as part of China, and the sole legitimate seat of China's government. It's true however that "it has not formally renounced its claim to the mainland, but ROC government publications have increasingly downplayed this historical claim". [1]
2. In 1971, the UN General Assembly Resolution 2758 "recognized the People's Republic of China (PRC) as 'the only legitimate representative of China to the United Nations'". [2]
3. Only 11 (tiny) countries officially recognize Taiwan as an independent country, i.e. maintain full diplomatic relations. [3]
4. The U.S. official position is that "The United States has a longstanding one China policy", and "we not support Taiwan independence". [4]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan#Foreign_relations_and_i... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_General_Assembl... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_relations_of_Taiwan#Fu... [4] https://www.state.gov/u-s-relations-with-taiwan/
Do you believe North Korea to be a democratic republic?
1. How the PRC (mainland China) regards Taiwan (or ROC).
2. How Taiwan regards itself. This has changed over time.
3. How third-parties play that situation.
Since Nixon's visit to China in the 1970s, the world recognized that it was pointless to deny that the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) ruled mainland China for good. From there, the PRC progressively got official recognition in institutions like the UN. In order not to inflame the PRC's leadership and keep access to mainland China, many countries state that they do not recognize or encourage Taiwan's independence. But note that they also maintain de facto diplomatic relationships, being careful not to use the name "embassy" or "consulate".
In reality, Taiwan has been absolutely independent since the 1950s. It's just that it's not officially recognized by most institutions and countries for diplomatic reasons.
I'll add that the "one China policy" is ambiguous by design. It doesn't mean that it must happen in the foreseeable future. It also doesn't mean that the PRC should be allowed to take over Taiwan through military might.
In the end, no matter what the various parties' policies are, almost nobody in Taiwan at this point believes that a peaceful so-called "reunification" is desirable or possible. I put the word "reunification" in quotes in particular because the CCP never controlled Taiwan, and also because in general the historical argument doesn't make any sense. Personally, I think that the principle of self-determination is what should apply here, for moral reasons. [1]
[1] https://asiatimes.com/2022/12/us-mulls-scorched-earth-strate...
The Chinese who ran from the communist revolution, invaded Taiwan, setup their own military dictatorship, and they were extremely brutal to the natives Taiwanese. (Sadly this has been their lot through several occupations by different entities.)
During more recently history they have been polishing more democratic values and life for the natives has improved.
But for Taiwan to be free, in any proper sense, the Chinese occupiers must leave.
We are not talking about remaking history here. We are talking about the present and the future of Taiwan. Its population and culture are what they are now.
Chiang Kai-shek's move to Taiwan and subsequent rule was indeed at times brutal, and the immigration massive in relative terms. But that move took place in the 1950s, and since that time amends have been made. You will see monuments and remembrance days related to those events. Taiwan is now a thriving (if at times feisty) democracy where minorities are protected.
During my last trip to Taiwan, I revisited the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall.[1] What struck me is the museum underneath. Here, for all to contemplate, is a documentation of Chiang Kai-shek's life and rule. The striking part is that the errors and brutality of his rule are also well-documented and preserved, officially accessible to all. Try to find anything like this kind of recognition of past mistakes in mainland China (hint: you won't find it).
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiang_Kai-shek_Memorial_Hall
Per your argument this is so far in the past that the invasion and occupation doesnt matter anymore To the winner goes the spols right. The rights of the natives are well past their sell buy date.
How many years do you count from an occupation begins until it does not matter anymore how or what the nation was has no meaning anymore?
20 years? 40 years?
Do you care to then apply your time of expiration of a nation and its peoples to other conflicts we have had have had in the world?
Or is Taiwan a special case?
Regardless of whether you think it's a state, it is an entity with agency that makes its own rules that its companies (like TSMC) follow.
(see the Santa Clara section here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Superfund_sites_in_Cal...)
See also the US sanctions on SMIC.
It was Japanese OSAT players like Hitachi that sparked the Penang packaging cluster in Malaysia in the 70s-90s and Japanese Memory firms like NEC+Hitachi that started South Korea and Taiwan's fabrication industries.
Taiwan didn't truly become a leader in the cutting edge fab space until the 2010s when US, SK, and Japanese players dropped the ball, and Apple chose TSMC in the 2010s due to their patent litigation with Samsung (nixing South Korea).
Intel did try doing this in the 2000s, but couldn't justify the resourcing needed for this due to x86 as well as their restrictive licensing of Intel Atom.
Meanwhile, ARM was fabless and just licensed to anyone (a major reason why Chinese challenger brands exist in the Chips space today)
Fundamentally, you cannot be both an IP creator (eg. Design) and chip fabricator, as both functions have different economics and competitive structures, and one BU inevitabely holds the other back.
> Samsung's foundry business probably would have been a bit better off, but overall it would still be TSMC as the leading foundry
Samsung, SK Hynix, and other Korean players dropped the ball due to the Apple lawsuit as well as the 2016-17 SK-China trade war (impacted SK exports to China - including intermediate parts) and the 2019-23 SK-Japan trade war (a number of critical components in fabrication are supplied by Japanese firms like Tokyo Electron and Nikon and were impacted by mutual tariffs)
Vertical integration can win too, it worked for Intel for decades.
Most players in the hardware industry try to specialize in one function and do that very well, as this builds your competitive advantage AND allows you to leverage partnerships to further enhance your moat by building an ecosystem.
For example, ARM is purely design driven - targeted specifically at low power compute usecases - and licensed it's IP out to just about any player, which allowed an ecosystem to develop.
Nvidia did the same thing by remaining fabless and only concentrating on GPUs.
TSMC concentrates only on fabrication and doesn't dare enter design because they know all their customers would leave overnight because they would not want to subsidize a potential competitor.
Intel was in too many segments, which meant it was inevitably competing with everybody, which forced everyone to leverage partnerships to challenge the big baddie.
A similar thing happened to Samsung to a certain extent as well.
I think realistically it'd be more fair to say that 3nm is coming in 2025 and there's a huge distance between 2025 and 2028 (when they'll start doing 3nm and 2nm in the US). Right now, AMD, Nvidia, and Qualcomm aren't doing 3nm. If the world lost 3nm today, it'd basically be Apple's products that would get hit. It'd definitely screw over Apple and it'd mess up the future plans for AMD, Nvidia, and Qualcomm, but it's not like the industry has been using 3nm for over a year. No, only Apple.
The big problem is that there's a big difference between "we'll be bringing 3nm to the US in early 2026" and "we'll be bringing 2nm and 3nm to the US in 2028". If they started making 3nm in the US in early 2026, that's going to be less than a year behind most companies using 3nm. Qualcomm and Nvidia will probably start shipping 3nm in February 2025 and AMD will probably start shipping 3nm in late 2025.
If TSMC's US fab were 12-18 months behind their Taiwan fabs, it wouldn't really be a problem, except for Apple. Everyone else is waiting 18 months for TSMC's latest gen stuff anyway.
The problem isn't that the US fab can't do 3nm today. TSMC's Taiwan fabs aren't doing 3nm at scale unless your name is Apple. The problem is that their US fabs won't be doing 3nm for around 3 years after the industry moves over to 3nm. If the US fab could satisfy 4nm demand and Taiwan disappeared today, it'd mostly hit Apple's product line. The issue is that in 2026 or 2027, every company will be relying on 3nm and if Taiwan disappeared then, it'd hit the whole industry's product lines.
But it's possible that Intel's 18A will do amazing and Intel will be able to manufacture at scale and a lot of TSMC's business will move to Intel. Then the US (Intel) would be manufacturing more advanced chips than TSMC in Taiwan. TSMC isn't expected to make the move to High-NA EUV for a few more years so Intel has some time when it could overtake TSMC.
> I think realistically it'd be more fair to say that 3nm is coming in 2025
Almost everyone but Apple decided to skip N3B and wait for the later N3E. Intel decided to just be late with N3B, launching their laptop part in September and the desktop part in October. Apple, Qualcomm, and Mediatek all have N3E parts on shelves and in consumer's hands. 3nm is here, now. Two generations of TSMC 3nm have ramped to full production.
The difference isn't revolutionary, but noticeable. Whoever has it will have a competitive advantage.
levels.fyi says principle level engineers are making $86,000 annually in Taiwan, with zero shares. $49,000 being the average for [software] engineers in Taiwan
there will be a shortage at that compensation range, which they can solve with higher cash and amplify with shares and a competitively short cliff like Meta and others have, of 3 months or less.
> Cost of Living Including Rent in Taipei is 59.0% lower than in San Francisco, CA
Salaries tend to scale with cost of living. The cost of living in Taiwan is lower than the US. The difference is particularly large if you compare Taipei, the capital where the cost of living is likely the highest, to San Francisco. Presumably, the salaries would be higher if they hire people from the US.
With the first type of statement, the industries are pursuing a call effect, an excess of demand, which translates into the second statement.
they are incentivized to underpay americans, complain that they "can't" find talent, to ensure the relevancy of Taiwan
but their arguments are weak and solved with compensation
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases...
Everything I’m saying here is a documented. Biden has been in public service since 1973; look up his Senate voting record. Look up the ownership and political stances thereof for any given traditional media outlet; newspapers, websites, etc.
“Biden is a lefty” is a false, lazy canard.