[HN Gopher] The World's current and next Innovations depend on a...
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The World's current and next Innovations depend on a single
country, Taiwan
Author : burgerquizz
Score : 127 points
Date : 2021-01-01 14:08 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (erickhun.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (erickhun.com)
| ipnon wrote:
| TSMC is in a league of its own. Only Samsung currently has the
| capacity to compete on a similarly international level. There are
| a variety of startup competitors from mostly China and the US,
| but TSMC is so technologically advanced, and the demand for ever
| faster chips is so great, that they will easily retain the
| dominant global position for at least the duration of the 2020's.
| bob1029 wrote:
| It might seem like Samsung is caught off balance by TSMC's
| recent progress, but they are still very much in this race.
|
| I haven't worked for Samsung in ~7 years, but last I recall
| they were aggressively pursing all manner of value optimization
| angles. They also have an existing presence in the US, whereas
| TSMC is going to be about 5 years out on their US factory.
| Keeping American workers around to inject ideas into your
| manufacturing process can be invaluable if you have typically
| been operating the business like a Borg cube (i.e. relentless
| standardization throughout, potentially at the cost of more
| complex value-add proposals).
| lumost wrote:
| Fabs seem like a classic example where the market will trend to
| a monopoly. Each generation makes fabs themselves more
| expensive along with the incremental R&D . As each generation
| largely obsoletes the previous, the price of being second goes
| up.
| 8fhdkjw039hd wrote:
| Drexlarian nanotechnology?
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| It seems that any activity where R&D is a significant chunk
| trends towards a monopoly.
| magicsmoke wrote:
| Also a perfect case study of where the free market worldview
| and the nation-state worldview bump heads. The free market
| tends towards a single global monopoly for these highly
| capital intensive industries in the name of economic
| efficiency, but this inevitably erodes the sovereignty and
| independent action of countries that have to depend of the
| good graces of wherever this monopoly has its HQ.
| nickpp wrote:
| Until a startup with an innovation in fabrication itself
| comes along disrupting the industry and rendering all those
| incumbent investments suddenly obsolete.
|
| Happened again and again. In free markets, of course. Even if
| they may trend to, only controlled markets reach monopoly.
| lumost wrote:
| There are plenty of counter examples, and I'd dare say the
| majority of notable historical "true" monopolies were
| disrupted due to government intervention rather than
| disruption. While intel has had a process lead for decades,
| they've never had a monopoly on fabrication.
| nickpp wrote:
| Do you have some examples? Any monopoly I know of was
| government granted, usually through regulations. I
| actually know of much more examples of disruption...
|
| Now the market can arrive to a state of monopoly due to
| some powerful player, but as long as the startup
| mechanism is functioning, competition will arrive and
| disrupt.
| lumost wrote:
| Standard Oil, US Steel, AT&T are the best known examples
| in the US. None of these (including AT&T) were government
| granted. They also share a few key traits
|
| 1) They dominated their "primary" markets
|
| 2) Their primary market was deep, and competing with them
| was cost prohibitive for any economic entity as in lose
| the GDP of a small country expensive.
| nickpp wrote:
| Ok, I can't talk about the first two because, frankly,
| it's been a while.
|
| But AT&T - you kidding me?! It was illegal to even bring
| your own phone device to their network! It was a
| classical example of government protected monopoly.
|
| A free market will break its own monopolies. A market
| corrupted by government regulation will need government
| intervention.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| Maybe after twenty to fourty years this will happen. So
| far, this hasn't happened in this field.
| imjustsaying wrote:
| >The world's current and next innovations depend on a single
| country: Taiwan. It's probably one country you might never hear
| about, or perhaps confuse with its neighbor, Thailand, or even
| think it's a part of China.
|
| >I've been living in Taiwan for 3+ years, and am baffled that I
| never pay attention to semiconductors.
|
| I can't imagine how baffled he's going to be when he discovers
| Taiwan considers itself part of China.
| teacpde wrote:
| The blog post seems to have good logic reasoning regards
| semiconductors, but it is wired to open with statements that
| involves political views.
| ipnon wrote:
| This is misleading. The two dominant parties are the KMT, the
| descendants of the post civil war military dictatorship that
| wants political union with the People's Republic of China, and
| the DPP, which wants to preserve Taiwan's independence as its
| own liberal democratic nation.
|
| The DPP has won the last 2 elections, so it is fair to say that
| more Taiwanese believe Taiwan is an independent nation than
| not.
| chillacy wrote:
| Afaik Taiwan considers (or considered) itself to _be_ China:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan,_China#Background_and_a...
| ipnon wrote:
| Taiwan is split politically on the issue of whether or not it
| is a part of China or a unique independent nation.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| It is also a status quo not really worth rattling at the
| moment, since all indications are that when Taiwan changes
| its mind the PRC will start treating it like a breakaway
| province and start the invasion.
| throwawaysea wrote:
| That's not what GP means. He means they consider themselves
| to be the "true" China and the "true" ruling faction of
| China.
| echelon wrote:
| > Taiwan considers itself part of China.
|
| China, not the CCP. They view themselves as the rightful
| leadership party.
|
| This is very historical though. When polled on whether Taiwan
| would want to become part of China, remain independent, or
| become part of the US (!), the majority wants US Statehood.
|
| I'll go look up sources and cite them in just a bit.
|
| Edit: Wikipedia cites
| https://web.archive.org/web/20090326142909/http://www.tvbs.c...
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/51st_state
| magicsmoke wrote:
| Wouldn't be surprised. Taiwan only exists as an independent
| entity because of American actions in Asia.
| publicola1990 wrote:
| Yet it was American actions that handed over Taiwan's seat
| in UN and Security Council to PRC.
| magicsmoke wrote:
| Yep, at the end of the day the whole fiasco between
| Taiwan and the PRC isn't really about Taiwan. It's about
| US-PRC relations and who gets the final word in Asia.
| Taiwan is just a game piece.
| lumost wrote:
| Assuming the respondents were not answering in jest, the odds
| of this ever happening round to 0.
| inetsee wrote:
| I think you have it backwards; China considers Taiwan to be
| part of China. https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/china-taiwan-
| relations
| ipnon wrote:
| The Cross-Strait issue is explicitly mentioned in the
| preamble of the PRC'S constitution.
|
| >Taiwan is part of the sacred territory of the People's
| Republic of China. It is the lofty duty of the entire Chinese
| people, including our compatriots in Taiwan, to accomplish
| the great task of reunifying the motherland.
|
| http://en.people.cn/constitution/constitution.html
| publicola1990 wrote:
| Taiwan also claims the entire mainland as their territory,
| and KMT especially continuing to claim Taiwan as the "true"
| China.
| lumost wrote:
| The current govt of Taiwan held the China seat on the UN
| Security Council until 1979. The history on this issue is
| complex.
| dirtyid wrote:
| >The world needs (and want) better semiconductors
|
| Does it really? What kind of exclusive capabilities would
| humanity meaningfully lose if we regressed back to 14nm? Ray
| tracing?
|
| More realistic title is lack of foresight allowed Taiwan to
| monopolize leading fab production for next 5-10 years. A mistake
| every major party is rapidly correcting. TSMC is one US sanction
| or one Chinese glitterbomb away from being irrelevant. Long term
| money is on Samsung.
| tristanj wrote:
| TSMC is the 11th most valuable company in the world, with a
| market cap of 489B US dollars.
| person_of_color wrote:
| What's the "next TSMC" (as an investor?)
| hydroreadsstuff wrote:
| I would look at the smaller Chinese (not SMIC) ones. Without
| looking I'd guess they are already highly valued. I have no
| idea though how long it could take to overtake
| TSMC/Intel/Samsung.
| ipnon wrote:
| TSMC is just beginning to reap the rewards of its market
| dominance. Samsung is a similarly promising investment, but
| they are listed in South Korea, which is normally
| inaccessible to Western investors. If you're convinced of
| TSMC I'd also look into shorting Intel. That bird has flown.
| trixie_ wrote:
| XSD is a good ETF for semis
| hourislate wrote:
| >Today's TSMC's monopoly is probably the result of a 40 years
| relationships with partners, with tight relationship and trust
| between each others.
|
| From the following link:
|
| https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Technology/TSMC-and-Google-...
|
| _Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. is working with Google
| and other U.S. tech giants to develop a new way of making
| semiconductors more powerful._
|
| It seems they're getting some help (how much?) from companies
| like Google, AMD, NVIDIA, Apple, etc when it comes to chip
| packaging.
| samfisher83 wrote:
| Intel had the manufacturing edge for a long time. Things change.
| Just because one company is up now doesn't mean it will be up
| forever.
|
| I think one thing TSMC does better than intel is they have a more
| long term view. They aren't as concerned about hitting next
| quarters earnings. Their single biggest shareholder is the
| government of Taiwan. One of their board members a is Taiwanese
| minister, So I think the government wants to make sure TSMC is
| around for the long term. They also provide a lot of jobs in
| Taiwan. If have ever been to Hsinchu you could see how many jobs
| the semi industry provides. Everything from engineers to more
| blue color workers.
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