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Comment by kragen | Hacker News Reader

People in the US really have a hard time hearing this:

It's probably because TSMC is in China. They're across the straits from the world center of the electronics industry, instead of across the Pacific, and they can hire the sort of people who pay private tutors for their kids instead of the sort of people who refuse to wear facemasks in a pandemic of a deadly respiratory infection. TSMC executives in Arizona have been consistently amazed at the laziness and ignorance of the workforce there.

60 years ago the US had the human capital and industrial base to found Intel. Now it probably doesn't have the human capital and industrial base to sustain it.

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TSMC is based out of Taiwan; China is West Taiwan. /joke

The narrative on "people who refuse to wear facemasks.." needs to be diffused if not wearing them for other reasons, eg: lessening the impact of particulate air pollution while commuting on a moped or, manufacturing not adequately maintaining their HEPA air filters during the "burn-in" test flow of server racks with fans pegged at 100%, 24/7.

Speaking of diffusion, what's with some of boxed retail processors with laser engravings on the heat spreader as being "Diffused in China"? Oh right -- TSMC and other foundries are not responsible for the entire chip manufacturing cycle.

"Diffused in China" chips are probably packaged in Malaysia.

Packaging began moving to China in the 2000s when Malaysia reached Mexico level salaries and costs, but it's returned to Malaysia (along with Thailand, Phillipines) after trade wars with South Korea and Japan happened.

I meant TSMC in Arizona, and the company is based in Taiwan.

I was alluding to this likely being a management problem at Intel.

Yes, as I said, the company is based in China. Maybe you're trying to say Taiwan isn't in China because it isn't governed by the CPC, which makes as much sense as saying Switzerland isn't in Europe because it isn't part of the EU. Even if it were correct, it's irrelevant to the advantages I'm talking about.

TSMC in Arizona is implementing fabrication processes brought to production readiness by the hard work and expertise of people at TSMC in China, which can draw on the whole Chinese electronics ecosystem that doesn't exist in the US anymore.

Taiwan is not in China, period. Yes, a good portion of its population arrived there from China 70 years ago (and others hundreds of years previously). It _used_ to be part of China over 130 years ago, but it's no more in China today than the Alsace is in Germany or the South Tyrol is in Austria.

You're free to define the words you use however you like, of course, but I am using the term "China" in keeping with how most people in both Taiwan* and the rest of China normally use it. I would appreciate you not attempting to redefine my words into nonsense with your idiosyncratic definitions.

Moreover, you are responding to a substantive discussion about how economic and cultural factors affect innovation with trivial flamebait about how words should be defined, apparently in order to promote some kind of political agenda.

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* Whose constitution is written in Chinese and calls it by a name translated as "The Republic of China".

That’s like saying DRC and Congo are the same country because they both have the word “Congo” in their country’s name.

Anyway you’re welcome to think whatever you like, but the actual political reality is that the PRC which is commonly referred to as China, and the ROC, which is commonly referred to as Taiwan, are two separate and independent countries. One is in now way part of the other (despite China wishing it were so and including Taiwan as part of China in their domestic maps).

>but I am using the term "China" in keeping with how most people in both Taiwan* and the rest of China normally use it.

Vast majority of people in Taiwan don't call Taiwan "China". Yes the official name is "The Republic of China" but that is rarely even used other than extreme formal settings. And even when they do use the official name, the term "China" is very rarely used apart from Pro-Bejing Camp but "Republic of China".

In "normal" day to day usage it is simply known as Taiwan. Even Chinese people calls it Taiwan.

Muddling the word when even natives don't use it is simply causing unnecessary confusion for the sake of either political correctness or blatant trolling.

> in keeping with how most people in both Taiwan* and the rest of China normally use it.

I lived in China for 6 years, and also worked in Taiwan. I can tell you that is _not_ how most people in Taiwan and China use it. People in Taiwan most certainly do _not_ refer to Taiwan as 中国 (ZhongGuo), and people in China refer to Taiwan as 台湾 (TaiWan). The CCP does consider Taiwan a "renegade province" of China under its "One China" policy, but wishing something is true doesn't actually make it so, and in practical terms Taiwan is no more under Beijing's control than Ireland under the control of Westminster.

While your experience is interesting, I think this ideological stuff about government control is still at best only indirectly relevant to the question of why TSMC can do things Intel can't.

This entire Taiwan/China sub-discussion is because you wrote:

> It's probably because TSMC is in China.

>which makes as much sense as saying Switzerland isn't in Europe because it isn't part of the EU.

Because China is a country and not a region? Would you put Canada as America simply because they are all in North America?

Circular argument is circular. Generally your comments are higher in quality than this.

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