Hacker News Reader

Comment by AxiomaticSpace | Hacker News Reader

This is just anecdote, but my roommate's dad works in construction management specifically for semiconductor fabs, and he was working for about a year on one of Intel's new fabs in Arizona up until a few months ago when the entire project was suddenly scrapped. IIRC he got the sense it was someone high up in intel that decided to pull the plug on it.

View on HN

I left the semiconductor industry 30 years ago but back then every company had "a fab that hasn't been completed in Arizona" that people would talk fondly of perhaps opening one day if business picks up. Seems like not much has changed.

I always thought it was funny that for my entire lifetime people have talked about Arizona being perfect for fabs because it's dry there and not subject to tremors meanwhile Taiwan where 60% of all chips are produced (and 90% of the most sensitive ones) is tropical and has earthquakes fairly frequently.

I can only imagine what the Taiwanese can do in Arizona. Truly a synergy for the ages.

Maybe that's why yields there are better? [1]

[1] https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/semiconductors/ts...

Once you're in a air-conditioned environment the outside world doesn't matter.

More likely he compared the 4nm yield to the 3nm yield in Taiwan?

The moisture of the outside world might not matter. But aircon doesn't protect you from earthquakes, alas.

Yep, you need to install a ground conditioner for that.

So, how many earthquakes there were?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Tainan%E2%80%93Chiayi_ear... has a recent example. Google or your favourite LLM can easily give you more or even a complete list of earthquakes in Taiwan.

I meant this part of USA

Why do you think the Chinese people from Taiwan want to do anything in Arizona? They're there just to placate the orange guy's rage. They'll never do anything special there.

Then why would nations around the world protect Taiwan?

China Airlines recently opened a new direct flight route between Taoyuan and Phoenix. They've been plastering it all over their plane signage. I thought it was funny that the flight must be pretty empty other than the handful of TSMC employees that need to go there.

Apparently China Airlines and Starlux are both going to fly that route next year. I have a hard time imagining there's demand for one let alone both.

Phoenix is the fifth largest city in the United States. It is also one of the major hubs of the west, being in a good location (midway north), having good weather for planes, and having America West headquartered there.

I would think there should be plenty of traffic going through there to Taiwan, similar to the amount going through a hub such as Chicago or NY.

From Wikipedia:

PHX was the 11th-busiest airport in the United States in terms of passenger boardings and 35rd-busiest in the world in 2024. The airport serves as a hub for American Airlines and a base for Frontier Airlines and Southwest Airlines.

FYI to all: China Airlines is a Taiwanese company (ROC) and has no affiliation with mainland China (PRC).

Earlier this year Eva Air also announced a direct route to Dallas, supposedly starting next month. At the time I felt like it was a tariff negotiation tactic because that one also does not make sense.

Maybe chaos monkeys help innovation

Chaos monkey yes...but more like desperation for survival. Its the same mentality that drives Israel. As been shown a few times, it mutates into a sick culture with unintended consequences...but obviously it does produce results.

"death river strategy"

Tell us more about your insights, as a clueless outsider

You as a Chinese bot, is obviously very familiar with sick cultures coming from one.

Semiconductor fabs require a significant amount of water, with some large facilities consuming up to 10 million gallons of ultrapure water daily. Water is something Arizona is lacking.

I thought these days the fabs in water-scarce areas collect their waste water. re-purify it, and re-use it. So their actual drain on outside water sources is far lower.

> It will initially have a water recycling rate of around 85 percent, with a goal to achieve 90 percent. Currently, the company’s water resource center has an efficiency rate of 65 percent, converting industrial wastewater for use in the company's operations.

https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/tsmc-breaks-groun...

https://www.azcentral.com/story/money/business/tech/2025/10/...

There were 2 under construction, this is a local news story that they completed "Fab 52" instead of "pulling the plug". Fatter NYT story here: https://archive.is/WmXxl

Some pictures (provided by Intel) from inside: https://semiwiki.com/forum/threads/chinese-media-given-tour-...

There was a big layoff a few months ago, maybe that lines up with the parent comment: https://www.azfamily.com/2025/07/15/records-intel-lay-off-ne...

Don't see much mention of Fab 62 from any source. Did it get the axe, "postponed", or kind of on schedule?

New CEO started in March, I vaguely recall him cancelling fabs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lip-Bu_Tan

So are they going to give back the money they got from the feds to build them?

The govt got shares instead already

Intel didn't cancel any fabs in Arizona, one just came online. They killed plans Fabs in Poland and Germany, and the Ohio fab is on hold. You don't get the money up front, so nothing to give back.

Though the relevant governments in Poland and Germany probably spent a lot of time and effort (and money). Only some of them they will get back.

But I guess that's a risk they knew they were taking.

I doubt there was much; the sort of outright subsidy the US sometimes does is usually classed as unlawful state aid in the EU (there are exceptions; in particular member states were allowed to bail out/nationalise their banks in the financial crisis. But subsidies to random foreign companies would generally be illegal; see the Apple tax case).

Well, I'm also taking about all the bureaucrats time wasted on wooing Intel.

The time of government officials and civil servants ain't free.

Didn’t the feds just get 10% of the company?

The way that worked is that part of the CHIPs act after Intel reached a milestone the USG handed them a bag of cash.

Intel failed at finishing a bunch of milestones so there was a large pot of money Intel did not get. Trump gave them that pot of money in return for 10% stock.

You can make up your own mind about whether investing money into a company that couldn't achieve milestones is a good idea.

I guess they could make the argument that holding 10% of the only company with an x86 license that manufacturers them at scale in the US was worth it.

If you consider it a hedge against missiles flying in the indo-pacific.

I don't know that I would but the US gov could - it's similar in terms of strategic goals as the Jones Act.

I mean the Jones act was pretty practical for it's time. When you could obtain a ship via a cheap lease from the US Navy then the lack of capital spend building the ship is fine to spend employing US sailors.

However, now that the navy is out of the business of buying overpriced ships to rent out (with the idea that they'd be repurposed if a war broke out) now the Jones act isn't very effective.

However, unlike the Jones Act there's no criteria that Intel be able to supply chips. At least with the Jones Act we're going to have US citizens practiced sailing ships. With the stock purchase Intel doesn't need to have capacity to build chips for missiles/drones/etc; especially with the government treating them as non-voting shares!

If the USG wanted a hedge they should've just forked some money over for an option to buy X chips for $Y. Or some more complex option about fab time / output. You hedge production concerns with futures not equity!

It's also not great to hedge by using a vendor that wasn't able to meet previous goals you gave them. Counterparty risk is a real thing.

Yeah hence the “I don’t know that I would” it was more an attempt to see it from their point of view and assume a rationale, there may not have been one or not a sensible one we can infer with what is publicly known, as an outsider I can’t say the US is a rational actor at this point.

Fabs need pretty solid foundations IIRC, the systems don't like vibration. So this won't have been a cheap build. I also believe the construction methods for clean room is like a VOC purge on steroids. Whatever else goes into this build would have a huge impact on potentially reclaiming it for VLSI.

https://www.wsj.com/tech/intels-chips-act-requirements-waive...

https://archive.is/nhLyB

I mean, not to sound rude, but of course it would be someone high up who would make that decision. It’s not like a grunt could decide to scrap a whole new fab

I could be wrong but I’d assume what the OP is trying to say is that the leadership of these companies does not want these fabs to actually open and work. That something transpired maybe between them and govt.

Yea fair. What I was trying to say was that it seemed like a decision that was less the construction/development team saying "this plan isn't workable for xyz reason and we need to reconsider our approach" and more someone high up saying "we are cancelling this and we won't say why".

well, intel is loser on semiconductor boom

Reply on news.ycombinator.com