TSMC says first advanced U.S. chip plant 'dang near back' on schedule. Here's an inside look at the Arizona fab

CNBC ^ | Published Fri, Dec 13 2024 Updated Wed, Dec 18 2024 | Katie Tarasov

[SunkenCiv]

On 1,100 acres in the Arizona desert north of Phoenix, a newly completed 3.5-million-square foot building is making history as the most advanced chip fabrication plant on U.S. soil. It's Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company's first of three Arizona fabs, which will total a $65 billion investment when they're complete at the end of the decade. Apple has committed to being the site's largest customer. Full production has been delayed until 2025, but pilot production has begun. CNBC got an exclusive first look at the fab, where TSMC chairman Rick Cassidy says the project is "dang near back on the original schedule."

TSMC's New Arizona Fab! Apple Will Finally Make Advanced Chips In The U.S. | 16:25
CNBC | 3.73M subscribers | 1,557,665 views | December 13, 2024

[SunkenCiv]

Years ago AMD was building fab capacity somewhere in the east, I'm thinkin' in the Carolinas? Anyway, they were billions into it and realized AMD wasn't going to survive the capex. Since this is an NBC branch, this is probably all about eulogizing Biden and the CHIPS Act.

[Tai_Chung]

I would have thought the US Military would be the largest customer.

I thought the whole point of building the plant is to not have to import our chips from Taiwan during a war with China.

[SunkenCiv]

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• U.S. Government Awards GlobalFoundries $1.5 Billion From CHIPS Act; Big Intel Subsidies Soon? [02/20/2024]
• TSMC to Bring 500+ More Migrant Workers to Arizona [07/03/2023]
• Intel CEO Defends China As One of The Largest & Most Important Tech Markets In The World, Says Growth Here Is Very Exciting [04/20/2023]
• Now the CHIPS Act Is Going To Subsidize Child Care Too [03/01/2023]
• Missing military pieces in the CHIPS Act - - Semiconductor legislation fails to put priority on military capabilities and lacks a mechanism to protect newly developed capabilities [08/03/2022]
• Interesting Sinema Tweet Just Posted [07/29/2022]
• Klaus Schwab Discusses The "European Chips Act" With EU Commission Leader, Von Der Leyen And The Need For A "Physical Brain For Digitalization And To Have It Located To A Certain Extent In Europe." [01/24/2022]

[DIRTYSECRET]

Shouda built it in Kansas for the same reason the Pentagon should be inland.

[Brian Griffin]

“$20 billion....20,000 wafers per month”

A million dollars to produce a wafer per month.

[Wayne07]

There are ~450 chips on a wafer, so $2222 per chip in the first month, $185 per chip after a year $15 per chip after two years...

[Nateman]

Hydrofluoric acid. You get that by having to destroy freon by heat. Freon is one of the many chemicals needed to make a Semiconductor. For the imaginary problem of fluorocarbon pollution you create a truly dangerous chemical which itself must be destroyed. A Fab is actually a pretty scary place to work inside considering the dangerous chemicals used.

[Nateman]

The width of a Silicon atom is about .2 nanometers (nm). A 4 nm chip means 20 atoms thick. Chip making is basically at the bottom by this point.

[bigbob]

Waal Hot Durn!

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Wow, it takes only 2,000 employees to run a $20,000,000,000 fab?

[The Duke]

This should be secondary to bringing back pharmaceutical production.

[linMcHlp]

BTTT

[TheBattman]

I would put them at the same priority level.

[RitchieAprile]

‘Dang near’ - is that project management terminology?

[SunkenCiv]

It’s his generation, young CEOs drop f-bombs.

[SunkenCiv]

They be tiny. ASML makes the highest-res ultraviolet lithography equipment in use, it was interesting to see that in the video.

[snip] A human hair is 100,000 nanometers wide. As you can imagine, then, the human eye can’t see anything that’s 1/100,000th of the size. It’s not even visible to most microscopes, instead requiring atomic force microscopes. A strand of human DNA is 2.5 nanometers, which makes it incredibly small, but still larger than some of the transistors currently in development. Atoms and quarks are both smaller than a nanometer. While they vary in size, atoms can be anywhere from .1 to .5 nanometers in diameter... Silicon has an atomic radius of .117 nanometers, which is smaller than Gallium’s .122. Even though the differences in atomic size can be small between two elements, these changes can be significant when discussing nanotechnology. [/snip]

https://www.waferworld.com/post/how-small-can-transistors-get

[Zathras]

The military doesn’t use 3nm and smaller process.
This is mostly Apple

[Zathras]

Fabs are mostly using robotic handlers.
The wafers are way too valuable to risk anyone dropping them plus having people inside the clean room causes contamination and thus yield issues.

[Zathras]

It took ASML over 20 years to make it work.
Back even in 2010, Intel figured they would never get it working.