My understanding is that 1 company in Taiwan makes the greatest chips in the world and no one else can replicate them. How is that possible?
In: Engineering
That’s not entirely true
TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited) is one of the premiere chip manufacturing companies in the world but they are hardly the only one.
They are of note because they make everything from common chips used in everything from cars to cellphones to AMDs processors. Apple, Nvidia, AMD, and Qualcomm for example all use TSMC to manufacture their chips.
But Samsung (Korea) and Intel (US) also have chip foundries of that caliber.
TSMCs secret is just that they have large numbers of highly experienced people working for them and have developed very good processes. Samsung and Intel are similar in that regard, but TSMC is special in that the Taiwanese government has in a sense made semiconductor manufacturing the countries primary industry.
Other companies like Texas instruments can also make microchips and have facilities all over the US but can’t make chips as complex as Computer microprocessors. Importantly though there’s nothing stopping them from investing capital to build such a facility, they just don’t want to. (Developing an in house microprocessor to compete with AMD and Intel at this point would require an outrageous investment)
Israel is also another big up and comer in chip manufacturing.
Why TSMC is of note is the Pandemic showed just how vulnerable the US and the West are to losing access to TSMC production. If China for example were to invade Taiwan it could be a really big problem for the economy and availability of these chips.
This is why TSMC is building a Chip Foundry in Texas right now so chip production can happen domestically in the US.
Latest Answers