Why are we so dependent on Taiwan for microchips? Why couldn’t these be manufactured elsewhere, in addition to Taiwan?
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Like Columbus Ohio? https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/newsroom/news/intel-announces-next-us-site-landmark-investment-ohio.html#gs.tqr722
Samsung is building a $17 billion dollar chip plant in Taylor TX (near Austin). https://news.samsung.com/global/samsung-electronics-announces-new-advanced-semiconductor-fab-site-in-taylor-texas
This is either a subtle or obvious or recursive answer, but … TSMC is the leader in state-of-the-art semiconductor fabrication because they run the highest volume of wafer starts, more than anyone else. And because they run more wafers, they can offer the highest quality at the best price. And because of their highest quality at the best price … they’ll continue running more wafers than anyone else, using that money to invest in state-of-the-art improvements … and the cycle repeats.
As for how they came to own this volume/quality/technology cycle … Intel of course used to be the best, because of x86 PC and laptops, and Intel’s relentless “tick-tock” model that no one else could keep up with. But then PCs stopped being essential, and Intel lost to ARM in mobile. TSMC won most of that business (including the iPhone). Samsung is another close second to TSMC because of their being one of the largest electronic OEM consumers of ICs, plus their best-in-class manufacturing DRAM and NAND memory wafers (which TSMC does not manufacture).
Texas Instruments is building a new semiconductor factory in my town. $4B facility with 3k new jobs. https://www.kxii.com/2021/11/17/texas-instruments-selects-sherman-new-plant-site/
We are rich countries in West.
We used to make everything ourselves.
Then our workers got rights.
Rights led to higher wages.
Higher wages led to less profit for boss man
So industrial tycoon boss men took their industries out of the west to have cheaper exploited labour to allow for us to easily afford everything on earth.
Because we decided to shutter all manufacturing in the US so Wall Street could maximize profits with cheap overseas labor. The industrialists put our people out of work and forced the vast majority of the once prosperous middle class into low wage service jobs thus gutting both the spirit of the nation as well as decimating our ability to produce anything at all. At this point we don’t even have a fraction of the required skilled labor to staff a single facility let alone be able to produce and manufacture the silicone wafers required to meet the country’s basic needs.
Easy answer, the smaller the chip, the smaller the dick. I study human biology and electrical engeneering. Why u think africa has no chip production, they only salvage motherboards and old pc’s. My professor calls this the dick’n chips phenomen.
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