Free Republic

Atop a newly completed, 3.5-million-square-foot building that stands on 1,100 acres in the Arizona desert north of Phoenix is a giant logo of a microchip wafer and the letters TSMC.Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company's first Arizona chip fabrication plant, or fab, is making history because it's the most advanced chip fab on U.S. soil, and Apple has committed to being the site's largest customer.CNBC first visited the fab in 2021, not long after TSMC broke ground. The company initially announced the plant would cost $12 billion and pump out 5-nanometer chips by the end of 2024. Three years later, that price...

The Biden administration laid out an ambitious new goal for the US: produce 20% of the world’s most advanced semiconductor chips by the end of the decade. It currently makes 0% of the so-called leading edge logic chips that are considerably more powerful than older-generation semiconductors, making them crucial for everything from mobile phones to AI to quantum computing. The legislation allows the White House to spend $50 billion in taxpayer dollars — $39 billion specifically earmarked for manufacturing — to try and help reignite American manufacturing in the years ahead.