Posted on 08/07/2023 3:48:30 AM PDT by FarCenter
The semiconductor industry’s leading manufacturer has become one of its top R&D institutions as well, raising the bar for the competition and changing the high-tech landscape.
On July 28, TSMC inaugurated its new Global Research and Development Center in Hsinchu, Taiwan, reinforcing its dominance of the semiconductor foundry (contract manufacturing) market and renewing its commitment to Taiwan even while it’s under pressure to diversify internationally.
More than 7,000 staff will relocate to the center by September, bringing together the people who research and develop leading-edge semiconductor process technology, and investigate new materials and transistor structures. All of this for practical application on behalf of the world’s most advanced IC design companies and more than 500 other customers.
The center is a large building situated near TSMC’s headquarters in the Hsinchu Science Park, which is also the site of its largest concentration of production facilities. It has a total floor space of 300,000 square meters, or roughly 42 soccer fields.
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Committed to Taiwan
With all the news about TSMC’s new factories in Arizona, Japan and probably Germany, it should be no surprise that some Taiwanese worry that the company is leaving them behind. The establishment of the Global R&D Center and the development of 2nm production technology in Hsinchu should reassure them that this is not the case.
“We heard voices saying we are moving away,” CEO C C Wei said at the inauguration ceremony. “But that is not going to happen.”
In fact, it would be next to impossible to replicate TSMC’s core operations – its experienced workforce, extensive facilities and corporate culture – anywhere else. This was underlined in July when the company announced that production at the first factory it is building in Arizona would be pushed out a year to 2025 due to a shortage of skilled workers.
There have also been reports that some American employees have trouble adjusting to TSMC’s always-on-call approach to work. As Morris Chang said last March while speaking at a semiconductor forum in Taipei:
"Work culture matters. There is a concentration of chip manufacturing in a few countries because they are competitive in what they are doing. For example, the US has excellent design capability because they are close to the market’s needs. On the other hand, Taiwan, Japan and South Korea have the competitive advantage in manufacturing. It’s the work cultures in those cultures that matter."
This does nothing to ease US politicians and strategists’ concerns about excessive dependence on Taiwan in the midst of a stand-off with China. Nor does TSMC’s steady accumulation of intellectual property. Apparently, they will just have to get used to it.
WALK DOWM MEMORY LANE not long ago when the U.S. was the leading chip maker in the world and invited Asia to visit our factories.
By some estimates, it produces 80% of the world's most advanced chips but sits right next to China. China is hungry for U.S chip technology to steal (much of which it is ostensibly being denied), but if China attacks Taiwan to takeover TSMC, it destroys the industry it wants to dominate (destroys it in the sense that if it starts a war, its enemies will not send new chip designs to TSMC).
Furthermore, if China were to start a war, advanced chip manufacturing in the world would come to a near standstill because there aren't that many non-Chinese manufacturing facilities in the world.
I would appreciate your thoughts on this, FarCenter.
I was thinking along those same lines.
This is Taiwan’s ace in the hole. China won’t mount a hostile invasion of Taiwan because it won’t risk destruction of its semiconductor industry.
China is hungry for chip technology, but not necessarily US chip technology. The US is only one player in the capital goods and software needed to build chip foundries and do chip design, fabrication, testing, and packaging. The Netherlands, Japan, South Korea, and other countries in Europe, as well as Taiwan, all have significant shares of the technology pie.
The US has enough essential patents and technology through companies like Applied Materials, Lam Research, KLA, Mentor, etc. so that it is able to be the “dog in the manger” with respect to China. However, it needs cooperation from The Netherlands, Japan, and South Korea to actually stifle Chinese development. It doesn’t have a dominant position by itself.
I scour the press for comments on this issue but keep coming up empty. I'm glad to see someone else reach the same conclusion.
>>invited Asia to visit our factories.
Morris Chang, founder of TSMC, worked 25 years at Texas Instruments after being denied a PhD from MIT.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morris_Chang
Yes, I should have mentioned Netherlands, Japan, and South Korea. Major players all.
Obama pushed Intel into backing DEI and packed HR w ObamaBots.
Internally there was a huge power struggle and good people were forced out.
Hopefully they can make a comeback
I don’t think Brian Krzanich had to be pushed very hard.
The CEOs Otellini, Krzanich, and Swan are a big part of Intel’s lack of technical leadership. Their backgrounds are in marketing, operations, and finance respectively.
Our entire town experienced the giant tech sucking sound. It never recovered. The people that made the company were forced to train their foreign replacements.
As far as qualified workers, our public high school went from a high proficiency to 10% in reading and math in twenty years
As far as qualified workers, our public high school went from a high proficiency to 10% in reading and math in twenty years
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