[HN Gopher] TSMC begins producing 4-nanometer chips in Arizona
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TSMC begins producing 4-nanometer chips in Arizona
Author : heresie-dabord
Score : 337 points
Date : 2025-01-11 15:45 UTC (4 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.reuters.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.reuters.com)
| Over2Chars wrote:
| About time.
|
| I seem to recall some detail about how they don't do the
| packaging, and that' still on the mother island.
|
| This suggests that may be the case:
| https://www.theregister.com/2024/10/04/tsmc_amkor_arizona/
|
| It's a move in the right direction, but not as much as may be
| needed.
| alephnerd wrote:
| Packaging isn't done by TSMC.
|
| Packaging is extremely low value and commodified, so companies
| prefer to contract it out to OSATs like Amkor.
|
| Same reason why most companies became fabless - margins are
| much more competitive this way compared to owning your own fab.
| typ wrote:
| This margin-oriented mindset is arguably one of the driving
| factors that makes the US lose its industrial base.
| alephnerd wrote:
| Companies in every country have this mindset.
|
| Even Taiwan has largely offshored packaging to ASEAN,
| China, and India. And Taiwan got packaging because the
| Japanese manufacturers offshored to there.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| Aren't Intel and Samsung doing packaging research in the
| US?
| alephnerd wrote:
| The research capacity for almost everything
| semiconductors related was almost always in the US, but
| before the CHIPS act, there wasn't much of an incentive
| to invest in expanding that capacity here (aside from
| Texas and Arizona, who had very strong semiconductor
| public-private programs), because the margins are just
| too dang low to attract any private investment
| domestically.
|
| The semiconductor industry is multifaceted, and it's very
| difficult to be competitive in every single segment of
| it.
|
| For example, Taiwan does great at fabrication, but is
| horrid at chip design. Israel and India are major chip
| design hubs but are horrid at fabrication. Malaysia is
| THE packaging and testing hub, but weak at fabrication
| and nonexistent in design.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| NY?
| alephnerd wrote:
| NY dropped the ball in the 2010s with their
| Nanotechnology Initiative, because it became a jobs-for-
| votes scheme in upstate NY, and their key private sector
| flagships (IBM, AMD, Kodak) collapsed and divested out of
| the semiconductor industry (eg. IBM Micro + AMD becoming
| GloFlo, GloFlo and IBM in a decade long legal feud,
| Kodak's collapse, Apple leaving IBM for Intel and later
| TSMC).
|
| That is not to say NY's semiconductor industry is dead -
| it's fairly active, but it's largely legacy nodes
| targeted at commodified usecases such as Automotive.
| nickpinkston wrote:
| The difference is that only recently with the CHIPS Act
| did the US gov't put money to support strategic
| industries at large scale.
|
| The US in its history after the 60's would invent a lot
| of core industrial tech, but then we'd let Japan,
| Germany, etc. actually commercialize because we didn't
| want to pick winners.
|
| We invented CNC machining, SMT / pick-n-place for PCBs,
| industrial robot arms, etc., and these were all American
| dominated, but foreign countries supported homegrown
| companies long-term, and those American companies went
| bust.
| dingdingdang wrote:
| Indeed, Apple* seem to be one of the only companies with
| the long term vision to integrate vertically and improve
| industry as a result. The short term pennies-on-the-dollar
| of outsourcing is just brain-dead and non-innovative.
|
| *this is an observation from someone who has never bought a
| new apple product due to their increasingly closed eco-
| system
| markhahn wrote:
| odd that you're not an Applehead but still think they're
| somehow "improving" the industry.
|
| perhaps you mean "they provide competition among peers
| like Samsung and Sony, without which the industry would
| go slower, perhaps with worse products"?
|
| ah, just noticed that you qualified "bought a new
| Apple..."
| teitoklien wrote:
| No, its a global product silicon chips, america ships em to
| 100+ countries and will lose its edge if it doesnt stay at
| the top.
|
| Margins are crucial for this, the driving factor that made
| US lose its industrial base, is red-tape, red-tape, red-
| tape, red-tape, political interference, militant unionism
| (unions are good and fine, militant unions are not), and
| foolish gov laws which did not make sure that labour
| standards are consistent for all products in american
| market, to make sure slave-labour or extremely shoddy
| labour standard based countries do not erode away great
| american jobs and its industrial base.
|
| Margins are fine, and good. Unfair competition, rules and
| red-tape for domestic manufacturers but none for foreign
| companies, is what killed it.
|
| It's cheaper for a chinese company to ship to american
| households than it is for a local american company to an
| american household... , this is purely because of crazy gov
| regulations.
| dcrazy wrote:
| Are you proposing that the United States should operate
| factories without regard to margin?
| grayhatter wrote:
| Well... farming exists....
|
| I'm not sure I agree microchips are as critical as stable
| food supply, but I'd be willing to entertain the idea
| they're close enough to be treated specially.
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| For some reason I'm concerned with being able to find the labor
| required to make this succeed. I really wish them the best.
| bwb wrote:
| There were a ton of media scare articles on this when it came
| out. It turns out it didn't pan out and staffing sounds solid.
|
| https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/whos-afraid-of-east-asian-mana...
|
| Point #1 on: https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/at-least-five-
| interesting-thin...
| mywittyname wrote:
| It's not like silicon chip manufacturing was an industry that
| many Americans could get a job in. So it makes sense that the
| country wouldn't have that many people able to fill these
| roles, or universities churning out people with those skills.
|
| It's a chicken and egg problem. Which is why this fab will
| import worker while local universities put into place pipelines
| to educate potential candidates and hopefully make the industry
| self-sufficient.
| dotdi wrote:
| Can't wait to see the factory in Germany also starting to pump
| out chips.
| Cumpiler69 wrote:
| German TSMC fab will produce 16nm there, not 4nm though. Useful
| for the auto industry but much lower margin and less
| strategically important than 4nm fab in the US.
| KronisLV wrote:
| That's still nice, especially considering that it's somewhere
| between Haswell and Broadwell from 2014.
|
| Maybe not the kind of progress or initiative that gets
| headlines, but neither is it trying to push as far as what
| Intel has been trying to do for the past few years.
| Cumpiler69 wrote:
| Sure, but coming dead last behind Taiwan, Korea, US, Japan
| and China in the race to cutting edge semiconductor
| manufacturing is nothing to brag about. That's like
| celebrating for coming last.
|
| This means you're getting the lowest industry margins,
| meaning less profits, less money for R&D, less wages and
| also less geopolitical leverage. This is nothing to
| celebrate but should be an alarm clock for our elected
| leader to wake the f up.
|
| A lot of semi research is done in the EU, like at IMEC in
| Belgium, but few of it ends up commercialized by EU
| companies, so EU taxpayer money gets spent but other
| nations get to reap the rewards.
| bwb wrote:
| Small steps, hopefully they move up from there.
| lm28469 wrote:
| I don't think they want cutting edge tech, they want to
| be able to not have to stop their entire industry during
| the next pandemic/war/whatever just because they can't
| get their hands on a $2 chip made on the other side of
| the world
| looofooo0 wrote:
| Well big part of the EUV tech used stems from Europe.
| Cumpiler69 wrote:
| False. EUV tech is 100% researched and manufactured in
| the US.
|
| Edit to answer @ looofooo0: EUV tech comes from Sandia
| Labs research that ASML licensed, and the EUV light
| sources (there's no such thing as an EUV laser, the Trmpf
| is a regular laser firing into tin droplets for EUV
| generation) are made by Cymer in the US which ASML
| integrates them into their stepper which is a relative
| commodity item in comparison to the light-source.
| looofooo0 wrote:
| ?? ASML builds the EUV machines in Europe. Zeiss builds
| the optical compentents in Europe. Trumpf builds ne EUV-
| Laser in Europe.
|
| Moreover, most of the tech stems from the European-funded
| EUCLIDES (Extreme UV Concept Lithography Development
| System) project.
| cromwellian wrote:
| You're forgetting about 2 decades of US DoE funding of
| EUV research through EUV-LLC which ASML joined late. A
| lot of the early groundwork and foundational research was
| done by DoE including using US built synchrotron
| accelerators to try out various early approaches.
| mainecoder wrote:
| Europe takes credit for ASML we can't do it without them
| the lions share of the work it takes to make the machines
| is due to ASML, it would be nice if they had big tech
| companies of their own. They decline of Europe is already
| happening the wealthy aren't as greedy there at least not
| greedy enough to work as hard as the American thus
| eventually US interests will control Europe.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| > but few of it ends up commercialized by EU companies
|
| ASML is massive, no?
| buran77 wrote:
| > nothing to brag about
|
| Maybe some things shouldn't be about bragging but about
| getting the job done, and cutting edge isn't the only way
| to do it. If anything, the problem here isn't that it's
| "just" 16nm but that the EU isn't developing a end-to-end
| (research to manufacturing) true home grown industry and
| still relies a lot on external partners like Intel to do
| it from the outside.
|
| But a good first step to develop enough talent locally
| that can later flow into domestic alternatives.
| dingdingdang wrote:
| Agree with this take. Additionally it brings geopolitical
| stability by not putting the onus on just one-to-two
| countries (Taiwan, US) to produce the majority of the
| worlds info-tech infrastructure. A 16nm process is still
| very very modern in the grander scope of things.
|
| Be interesting to see if there's integration with
| research environments within the EU.. otherwise it could
| fizzle in terms of it's true potential positive impact.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| It's all well and good shooting for the best, latest
| semiconductors. It's also well and good securing the
| source of the rest of the chips used by the rest of the
| devices in the world. Cars, consumer goods, every
| industrial machine ever, etc ... A stable domestic supply
| chain might pay dividends, especially if international
| order degrades at all.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| Have you seen the salaries at IMEC?
| leoc wrote:
| Strategic for that same German auto industry, though. I
| assume that the Covid disruption to the supply of boring but
| essential microcontrollers for cars was a wake-up call.
|
| Speaking of the leading edge, though: while industrial
| policy, like other kinds of investment, is easier with the
| benefit of hindsight, there must be some regret at having let
| Global Foundries drop out of the peloton.
| PittleyDunkin wrote:
| What Europe wants is not necessarily profitability but rather
| resilience. You can't leave this kind of decision up to the
| irrationality of market forces. So--you're correct, germany
| (or the EU) _should_ subsidize chips if they want to weather
| the future.
| UltraSane wrote:
| How much does Germany's very expensive electricity affect
| TSMC's costs?
| varjag wrote:
| At that size of node, semiconductor manufacturing costs are
| not material constrained.
| UltraSane wrote:
| electricity is not "material" it is energy input.
| nothrabannosir wrote:
| I'm assuming he means capex vs opex ? Electricity is
| opex.
| markhahn wrote:
| chip fabs are big and contain a lot of things like pumps (and
| even a few very exotic lasers). but they're not power-
| intensive the way a steel plant is - or even a datacenter.
| Aldipower wrote:
| If you mean the Intel factory, this is delayed by 2 years. If
| it ever will come.. And the other planed Wolfspeed factory is
| cancelled completely.
| ulfw wrote:
| Both will never come. For obvious reasons.
| rajamaka wrote:
| What are the obvious reasons?
| Cumpiler69 wrote:
| I guess the expensive energy in Germany, lots of red tape
| and nimbyism, and not enough state subsidies which is
| what these companies were hoping for when they were
| fishing for places to open fabs.
| kuschkufan wrote:
| Well, your guess is off the mark.
| Cumpiler69 wrote:
| Care to explain why?
| PittleyDunkin wrote:
| There's also the fact that every single fab opened
| outside of Taiwan reduces Taiwan's national security.
| swarnie wrote:
| Is Taiwan's national security the major concern here? I
| assumed everyone was just bluffing at that until they can
| get their own supply.
|
| Getting dragging in to an East China unification war
| because you can't squeeze lighting in to rocks on time is
| a tragedy.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| > East China unification war
|
| Are you from China? I find this phraseology very odd
| PittleyDunkin wrote:
| Who cares? the situation is the same regardless: china
| wants taiwan, taiwan doesn't want to be a part of china,
| and the single largest factor blocking china from taking
| taiwan is TSMC. Not the american navy, not sanctions, not
| anything else. If TSMC weren't a factor they could simply
| destroy the island and move in.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| I care because I am interested in how language reflects
| and shapes beliefs and I have never seen that phrase
| before.
| mjh2539 wrote:
| This is too simplistic.
|
| The ROC has not had any formal military alliance with the
| United States since 1979. TSMC was not founded until
| 1987, didn't start producing chips until 1993. It was not
| even publicly traded until 1994 (and that was only on the
| Taiwanese stock exchange; it was listed on the NYSE in
| 1997).
|
| The reason the PRC hasn't done it is because it would
| make no sense politically or economically. They have a
| lot more to lose and a lot less to gain than Russia did
| in 2014 (Sevastopol was/is seen as integral to the
| Russian navy...there is no parallel with Taiwan as the
| PRC has plenty of excellent ports on the mainland).
|
| And the continued existence of Taiwan gives the PRC a
| convenient excuse to sabre-rattle.
| swarnie wrote:
| > Are you from China?
|
| No? I'm from the UK if it matters but i have no
| particular allegiance to east, west or chip manufacturing
| facilities.
|
| East China / West Taiwan is for lack of a better word, a
| meme. Unification war i guess i dredged up from 40k
|
| Either way my point stands. Every country that has
| supported Tiawan is scrambling to get chips online
| domestically because they don't need to get involved in
| the start of WW3. To claim otherwise is just
| disingenuous.
| markhahn wrote:
| No, the world outside PRC don't believe Taiwan should be
| "unified" against its will. The fact that Tiawanese
| industry is quite important is more of a gain factor, not
| polarity.
| swarnie wrote:
| Do they believe enough to go fight a war over it?
|
| If we assume everyone can make their own hardware at
| home.
| rad_gruchalski wrote:
| As long as TSMC is the major chip hub.
| corimaith wrote:
| Taiwan forms the first Island chain that currently keeps
| China's navy constrained.
|
| Loosing Taiwan is tantamount to accepting Chinese
| military hegemony in SEA and East Asia. No need to export
| ideology, it's more like if I put up tariffs against
| Chinese goods to protect domestic business and then a few
| PLAN warships park up right next to my trade corridors.
| rad_gruchalski wrote:
| > Is Taiwan's national security the major concern here?
|
| Yes. It's called "semiconductor shield". As long as China
| cannot manufacture chips like those made in Taiwan, it
| will thread carefully.
| antirez wrote:
| The point here would be that after N years, US workers at the
| site would gain enough insights to replicate the processes with
| American companies? Because otherwise what's the point? Will TSMC
| allow that? Because to just have more internal "normal" jobs in
| the US is a small gain. There is a big ST site here in Catania,
| while they produce many chips most of the workers are blue
| collars.
| smallerfish wrote:
| The point is redundancy in case China follows through on their
| threats to invade.
| Pet_Ant wrote:
| This redundancy makes me worried that the US will view
| Taiwanese sovereignty as disposable. While the US has given
| much for the defence of Ukraine, it's always been careful to
| make sure it's not enough for Ukraine to win but only enough
| to make it expensive for Russia hopping they'll reconsider.
| Russia has won there and I suspect they'll joe be willing to
| let China have the islands now too.
| ForHackernews wrote:
| Short of nuclear weapons, I'm not sure what would allow
| Ukraine to "win". Even given all the hardware, Ukraine
| doesn't have the staff or experience to field a full NATO
| air wing and integrate it to fight according to NATO
| combined arms doctrine -- if that even WOULD produce a
| "win" (there is an untested assumption that a NATO-standard
| military could trounce Russia)
| XorNot wrote:
| Ukraine needs to hold the line, keep Russia sanctioned
| and let it burn itself out economically...or wait for
| Putin to die.
|
| The Russian economy is grinding to dust right now, and
| the Soviet vehicle inheritance evaporating.
|
| At some point, they stop being able to pay workers and
| troops, and while martial law can keep things moving,
| it's all getting much more expensive after that.
|
| Putin has been very careful to try and keep the war
| awaybfrom his Moscow powerbase...so it's clear he
| recognises his authority and position is far from
| unlimited.
| ForHackernews wrote:
| I agree with all that, but none of that translates to a
| traditional battlefield triumph. Maybe providing more
| long-range weapons would enable symbolic strikes near
| Moscow or on oligarchs' dachas, but that's the only case
| I can think of where materiel might help with that
| strategy.
|
| Ukraine needs more soldiers, hard without full
| conscription, with the pool of heroic volunteers already
| committed, and it needs more artillery shells, that NATO
| can't readily supply because NATO never imagined playing
| quartermaster this kind of warfare in the 21st century.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| Ukraine can't even properly equip the soldiers it already
| has. Supporting countries could dig a _lot_ deeper in
| their supplies, they will have ample time to rearm.
| Pet_Ant wrote:
| Ukraine needs boots on the ground. Finland and Poland
| from the West driving on Moscow for a regime change with
| the rest of NATO behind them.
|
| But apparently Ukraine are developing nuclear weapons so
| we'll see.
| phantomathkg wrote:
| Selling the secret sauce to US definitely make Taiwan
| disposable. But I also bet TSMC doesn't have a choice as
| whoever in power in US can also impose sanction/tariff or
| whatever they can to make TSMC to compile.
| Cumpiler69 wrote:
| TSMC is a publicly traded company and like all publicly
| traded companies it has no allegiance to any country
| (other than historical legacy and emotions) and will
| always relocate to where it's most safe and profitable
| for providing returns to its shareholders, just like how
| many profitable companies moved to UK, US and Switzerland
| during WW2 and how many EU companies are doing the same
| thing today.
|
| If the US will provide TSMC with better deals on all
| fronts than what the Taiwanese government can, then
| there's nothing that can stop them from slowly abandoning
| Taiwan and moving the HQ and vital operations to the US
| over time, especially that the Taiwanese government is
| not a major shareholder in TSMC.
| boxed wrote:
| Companies don't magically not have any humans in them as
| soon as they are on a stock market.
| mistercheph wrote:
| It's about as close as you can get though to capital
| efficiently allocating itself
| Cumpiler69 wrote:
| How does this invalidate what I said?
|
| Have you heard of Operation Paperclip? The moment China
| steps in Taiwan, all those vital TSMC engineers will be
| flown to the US along with the critical IP and given a
| blank cheque to replicate Taiwan operation on US soil
| ASAP. TSMC is preemptively building the infrastructure
| there in preparation for such an event, so it can outlive
| whatever happens to Taiwan. TSMC has little inventive to
| tie itself to Taiwan and its people who are not its
| employees. Every big company thinks and acts like this.
| Taiwan can't force TSMC to stay there if it doesn't want
| to.
| XorNot wrote:
| Paperclip happened _after_ Germany lost the war.
| Cumpiler69 wrote:
| I don't see how this is relevant or invalidates my point.
| You think the US will wait for the end of the war to do
| that or what?
|
| Also, German scientists who could leave the country were
| fleeing to the US before the Nazi regime started WW2 and
| also during the war, before it was a formal operation to
| gather them as prisoners of war when Germany lost.
| maxglute wrote:
| Reminder that TSMC WANTs to stay in TW... they did not
| want to expand in US at all. Arizona fab annoucement
| after months rumormill was big surprise at the time since
| TSMC did massive TW capex expansion and had no $$$ for US
| fabs, and it was combination of CHIPS carrots ($$$) and
| US sticks that got Arizona greenlit. Morris Chang
| publically said CHIPS would fail to get US semi
| leadership, that US policy is "doomed" / "futile", that
| is not the words of someone who wanted to erode TW's
| silicon shield. IMO TSMC Arizona's current (likely
| ongoing) dependence on imported TW talent makes it pretty
| clear TW is keeping tight leash.
|
| >Taiwan can't force TSMC
|
| IIRC TW foreign minister said a few years ago it was pure
| American wishcasting to expect TSMC employees to be
| evacuated before TW women and children. Around the same
| time TW politicians rebuffed the idea that TW would
| destroy their own fabs. That's TW's leverage, they
| control who gets on and off the planes and boats. Reality
| is if PRC makes a move, they'll lock down the airfield
| and shores, that's PRC's leverage - to control if planes
| and boats get to leave in the first place. Ultimately, TW
| politicians knows locking semi talent on the island is
| leverage, especially if they lose, because most of them
| won't have a ticket off the island.
|
| Not to mention paperclip is the victors getting the
| spoils, and US is far from assured any victory or there
| would be any TSMC employees left to paperclip if
| motivated PRC wants to deny. Or that TSMC is like 70k
| people excluding their families. 300k if you include
| other direct TW semi employment. More if you include
| indirect (supply chain), and ultimately there's
| considerable sole source semi suppliers on TW that TSMC
| US won't be functional just like how ASML can shut down
| hardware by stopping inputs for maintenance. It's not
| just packaging and domestic talent that's another
| bottleneck, TSMC Arizona stops with TW inputs as much as
| it doesn't without ASML ones. And so far there's no real
| public plan to reshore that supply chain in US.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| In the game betwen China and the US, the legal status and
| 'allegiance' of TSMC is not relevant. What is relevant is
| who controls the fabs, i.e. where the fabs are physically
| located.
|
| It is also naive to think that governments (US and
| especially ROC/Taiwan) do not have influence over TSMC.
| This sort of thing is not necessarily measured by level
| of shareholding.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| > _they'll be willing to let China have the islands now
| too_
|
| The islands are Chinese. The US back Taiwan as an anti-
| communist and anti-China (divide and conquer) tactic,
| including because its location. If the communists had lost
| the civil war, the mainland and Taiwan would all have
| remained under ROC control and it would have been
| interesting to see what the US would have come up with,
| instead (academic and thought experiment but interesting to
| imagine nonetheless).
|
| In Ukraine the US don't want to be dragged in a war against
| Russia and things have played well for them so far (really
| the US are the only winners so far).
| throwaway494932 wrote:
| > The islands are Chinese.
|
| "In June 2008, a TVBS poll found that 68% of the
| respondents identify themselves as "Taiwanese" while 18%
| would call themselves "Chinese".[33] In 2015, a poll
| conducted by the Taiwan Braintrust showed that about 90
| percent of the population would identify themselves as
| Taiwanese rather than Chinese.[34]" [1]
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwanese_people
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| That is quite irrelevant in addition to being misleading.
| rob74 wrote:
| The same way as Ukrainians wanting to live in an
| independent country is irrelevant?
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| Change of subject? Russia's main aim in Ukraine was/is
| regime change ('main' because they obviously do want to
| annex the Donbas), a bit like what happened in Iraq in
| 2003...
|
| I did not expect to be able to seriously discuss
| geopolitics here, TBH, it never works and it is never
| possible to dig deeper. Case in point...
| rob74 wrote:
| Actually I agree with you - if Russia's main aim in
| Ukraine was changing the regime, that would have turned
| Ukraine into something like Belarus, which I don't really
| consider independent...
| suraci wrote:
| I like thought experiment.
|
| let's think
|
| 1. CCP took over California by force 2. CCP killed
| everyone who resists 3. CCP leaved, but built a puppet
| regime 4. The puppet regime rewrite schoolbook, taught
| everyone they're not American 5. 100 years later, a poll
| found that 68% of the respondents identify themselves as
| Californians
|
| I must admit this is a bad thought experiment because
| Americans lives in a stolen land, it's not same as Taiwan
| ozborn wrote:
| Taiwan has an aboriginal population as well, there are
| very few countries where the original settlers are
| recognizable as the current population without squinting.
| China is one of the worst offenders, with the westward
| expansion of the Qing Empire contemporary with American
| westward expansion. Moreover, when America started
| serious decolonizing in the 20th Century (Philippines)
| and ending residential schools, China invaded Tibet and
| continues to pursue aggressive assimilation in its
| Western regions.
| suraci wrote:
| China is not a single-ethnicity country. For thousands of
| years, most of the time, the majority and minority ethnic
| groups have lived together on this land. There have been
| wars and integrations thousands times and thousans years.
| this must be hard for you to understand, right? I can
| understand that you might unconsciously use your own
| history to comprehend the history of Asia. In addition,
| all forms of ethnic separatism have the support of the
| United States. But I think you already know this.
|
| BTW, the Qing Empire is rule by a minority ethnic(Man Zu
| )
|
| And, by race, we are all Asians, can you understand the
| difference?
|
| You are like comparing the genocide of Native Americans
| to a war between two Native American tribes.
| Pet_Ant wrote:
| We wouldn't let native american tribes take each others
| land nowadays either.
| YetAnotherNick wrote:
| TSMC being 2-4 years ahead of Samsung/Intel has nothing to
| do whether US would be willing to go on a nuclear war and
| move the entire world decades if not millenias back. No one
| can go on a direct war with a country with nukes unless
| they are ready for mutually assured destruction.
| questinthrow wrote:
| Russia thought the same when it thought it could hide
| behind its nukes. Alas.
| YetAnotherNick wrote:
| And it did. US could do very very significant harm to
| Russia's military if nuclear retaliation wasn't a threat.
| And probably that would be cheaper than the
| weapons/training that they are giving to Ukraine.
| oremolten wrote:
| >As of September 30, 2024, the U.S. Ukraine response
| funding totals nearly $183 billion >Russia's official
| 2022 military budget is expected to be 4.7 trillion
| rubles ($75bn), or higher, and about $84bn for 2023
| Pet_Ant wrote:
| Sorry, but this leads to nuclear proliferation. This
| means unless you have nukes, you are a nobody.
|
| At this point it's better to just have that nuclear war
| instead of the rest of us being pawn of nuclear states.
| There is no dignity in this.
| mainecoder wrote:
| Well I commend you that would rather live in a post
| nuclear hellscape dystopia rather than be the citizen of
| a vassal state of a Nuclear Power.
| ekianjo wrote:
| > Taiwanese sovereignty as disposable
|
| Your are describing the statu quo as almost no country
| officially recognizes Taiwan
| cyanydeez wrote:
| the current regime will make choices based on what's
| profitable for the companies involved. It's unlikely that
| losing TSMC will improve profits for American companies, so
| having this redundancy is for short term applications.
|
| The business interests _are_ the political landscape today.
| WhereIsTheTruth wrote:
| "invade" = western propaganda
|
| The proper word is "reunite", as it was agreed with the US
|
| It sure gonna hurt the US Military industrial complex, no war
| = no money
|
| "1982 U.S.-PRC Joint Communique/Six Assurances
|
| As they negotiated establishment of diplomatic relations, the
| U.S. and PRC governments agreed to set aside the contentious
| issue of U.S. arms sales to Taiwan. They took up that issue
| in the 1982 August 17 Communique, in which the PRC states "a
| fundamental policy of striving for peaceful reunification"
| with Taiwan, and the U.S. government states it "understands
| and appreciates" that policy. The U.S. government states in
| the 1982 communique that with those statements "in mind," "it
| does not seek to carry out a long-term policy of arms sales
| to Taiwan," and "intends gradually to reduce its sale of arms
| to Taiwan, leading, over a period of time, to a final
| resolution." The U.S. government also declares "no intention"
| of "pursuing a policy of 'two Chinas,'" meaning the PRC and
| the ROC, "or 'one China, one Taiwan.'""
|
| https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF12503/1
| thworp wrote:
| > "invade" = western propaganda
|
| > The proper word is "reunite", as it was agreed with the
| US
|
| So the US and the PRC had some milquetoast diplomatic
| correspondence which did not include Taiwan. If the PRC now
| occupies Taiwan against the will of its people and
| population, presumably under fire from the Taiwanese army,
| it' just a "reunification"?
| WhereIsTheTruth wrote:
| Taiwanese are pro-reunification, Tsai wich is pro-US and
| pro-indepandance had quit due to her party loosing local
| elections
|
| https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/Taiwan-elections/Taiwan-
| s-T...
|
| https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b4/2024_
| Leg...
| thworp wrote:
| An election result is not a single-issue poll and the
| current government supports the status quo anyway (just
| being fundamentally more open to dialogue). A clear
| majority of the opulation supports de-facto independence
| (the current status) or even formal independence [0].
|
| [0] https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2023
| /09/02/...
| WhereIsTheTruth wrote:
| "It's only a democracy if the results suits our
| interests"
|
| You are not being objective, a poll is not a vote
|
| In a vote, the registered population gets to vote using
| official ID
|
| In a poll, only 'god' knows who the respondents are
| sct202 wrote:
| Very misleading to link to the legislative election
| results, when the KMT party only won 33% of the
| Presidential vote. And on top of that the KMT's actions
| when in power are to preserve the status quo (effectively
| independent, make money, avoid war), even if their long
| term vision is peaceful unification with a democratic
| China.
| ekianjo wrote:
| China has no needs to invade when they can do a very
| effective blockade without firing one shot.
| ForHackernews wrote:
| I know Intel has also opened a site nearby. Rumor is that many
| of the TSMC staff, having seen the lifestyle of American
| engineers in Arizona have started quietly applying with Intel.
| vessenes wrote:
| No that's not the goal -- having the fabs onshore means US
| intelligence agencies and executive/legislative branch will
| have access. This is contra to Taiwan where the Taiwanese
| government oversees this access.
|
| Some people might like the sound of this, some might hate it,
| but day to day, there are significant portions of the US gov
| workforce who deal with counter espionage, corporate safety,
| and of course more publicized are the parts that enforce or
| "request" compliance with US goals, mandates, projects and so
| on.
|
| Once a factory is on shore, literally on your sovereign land,
| you have a lot more say.
|
| No different than wanting your banking managed on networks in
| your country, or your weapons manufactured in country.
|
| That said, generally states have competed for sites like this,
| and cities like San Jose, Austin and Portland have benefited
| from having large silicon industry economic bases. I can't
| speculate if TSMC will benefit local industry that much, but I
| imagine it can't _hurt_ -- it's extra jobs, and probably a
| boost for suppliers that are convenient to the foundries.
| wdb wrote:
| I wished they produced the chips in Europe instead of United
| States.
| Cumpiler69 wrote:
| They do in Dresden Germany, but not nearly as cutting edge as
| the ones in US and Taiwan. US is a more useful strategic ally
| for Taiwan than EU. Not to mention the more expensive energy in
| Germany vs the US.
|
| EU finds out the hard way that not having had energy
| independence plus a weak/non-existent military relying mostly
| on the US, has costly second order externalities that voters
| never think about or factor in their decisions(I'm European).
|
| The best way to have peace is to always be ready for war. Being
| a non-armed hippie pacifist nation sounds good in some utopic
| fantasy world like the Smurfs, but in reality it only invites
| aggression from powerful despots like Putin and Xi and even
| your strong ally, the US, can exploit your moment of weakness
| and security dependence on it, to push its own agenda and trade
| terms on you.
|
| After all, whenever EU falters, America gains:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jE-E1lQunm0
| jraby3 wrote:
| That's true, but there is a large financial cost to always
| being ready for war. The US has spent 80 years being the
| "policeman of the world" for good or bad. Lots of bad
| decisions but the world also takes for granted the open seas,
| etc. that come at a great cost to Americans in reduced social
| services like health insurance and higher education.
| throw5959 wrote:
| Nonsense, Americans pay the most for health insurance. It's
| merely about how you use the money. Same with education.
| The American economy is so great it could afford an entire
| second military industrial complex and still have enough
| money left for healthcare and education.
| Cumpiler69 wrote:
| Firstly, you don't need to spend America levels (more than
| than the next world powers combined) to have an efective
| military deterrent, since currently most EU member states
| barely spend 2% GDP on defense which is too little. You can
| have a strong military AND welfare services if you're smart
| about your state finances which many EU members are
| not(looking at you Germany), especially since defense
| investments create more jobs and innovations flowing back
| into the state coffers. Switzerland is a good example.
|
| Secondly, America's defense is way more expensive than it
| needs to be due to a lot of high level corruption and
| lobbying from the military industrial complex profiteering
| when it comes to purchasing decisions, where a 10$ bag of
| bolts is bought by the military for 50K$, shovelings
| taxpayer money into the right private industry pockets. EU
| can achieve similar results with way less cost if it wanted
| to by minimizing this style of corruption but that's easier
| said than done. The only one rivaling America's military
| inefficiency is Germany who spends more than France, a
| nuclear power with aircraft carriers, but can't afford to
| issue underwear and dog tags to new conscripts.
|
| Thirdly, America's lack of social services is not due to
| its powerful military, but due to political choices and
| inefficiencies. It could easily have better welfare if it
| wanted to since it can afford it with the world's largest
| GDP, but it chooses not to, since the current status quo is
| enriching a lot of private enterprises and parasites, while
| the concept of even more welfare is usually not a popular
| topic with the US voters which see welfare recipients as
| lazy and an unnecessary money sink funded by higher taxes
| on the middle class which they don't want. So their issue
| is social and political, not economical.
| _heimdall wrote:
| > Firstly, you don't need to spend America levels (more
| than than the next world powers combined) to have an
| efective military deterrent,
|
| Would you consider most European countries to actually
| have an effective military deterrent?
|
| By troop count, munitions stock, or the number if tanks
| and jets I don't see anyone as having a particularly
| impressive military in Europe. That doesn't mean they
| couldn't organize one if needed, but that's a different
| issue.
|
| > Thirdly, America's lack of social services is not due
| to its powerful military, but due to political choices
| and inefficiencies.
|
| You're missing a big factor here, cultural differences.
| America was built on the idea of people making a way for
| themselves and living or dying by their own successes or
| failures. We've moved pretty far away from that and do
| now have social programs and safety nets, smaller than
| many European countries' nets, but the expectation of
| making a way for yourself is still under the surface.
| Many people simply don't want the level of welfare
| programs seen in other countries.
| riffraff wrote:
| > By troop count, munitions stock, or the number if tanks
| and jets I don't see anyone as having a particularly
| impressive military in Europe.
|
| compared to what? Who does Europe need to fight who has
| more ammo, tanks, jets and _nukes_? Russia has proven
| itself unable to take on Ukraine with half-assed support
| by the west, China and India are far away.
|
| Shall Europe prepare to fight the US for Greenland?
| _heimdall wrote:
| Russia has an estimated 1.5 million troops and plenty of
| equipment. They have seemed to _still_ be very lacking in
| military logistics, which is crucial, but they also haven
| 't seemed to be throwing everything they have at Ukraine.
|
| I'd strongly recommend you not underestimate Russian
| ability by assuming Ukraine is the best they could do.
| That doesn't mean they are going to invade further into
| Europe, but we're talking about military size and
| deterrence here.
| adgjlsfhk1 wrote:
| that was a somewhat defensible if somewhat silly position
| back in 2022, but in 2025 with part of Russia occupied by
| Ukraine, the Soviet stockpiles emptied, and North Koreans
| being brought in to fill the gaps, what the hell are you
| talking about?
| _heimdall wrote:
| I actually expected them to do better (militarily,
| obviously worse for Ukraine) in the first few days of the
| war. They showed the Russian military hadn't learned much
| from their previous logistics issues, but resources
| wasn't the problem.
|
| Sounds like we just have different expectations of how
| stretched the Russians are today, nothing wrong with
| especially as I'm assuming neither of us have access to
| the most meaningful field assessment reports.
|
| My view on how the Russians have handled the war, since
| losing their chance at a quick sweep, has been that they
| are doing only enough to keep pressure and roughly
| maintain the front line gains they made. Sure that line
| has moved, and Ukraine did a pretty impressive job
| capturing some Russian territory which I don't think was
| expected by many, but the Russians seem to be balancing a
| lot more than just a single goal of victory.
|
| I'm curious where you are getting reliable Intel on the
| Russians current stockpile of munitions, I haven't come
| across anything meaningful there publicly beyond
| potentially politically motivated statements and
| reporting regurgitating those same claims.
|
| Edit: its worth noting there are other reason the North
| Koreans may have sent troops. If the country is feels the
| military needs actual combat experience for whatever
| reason, for example, they could send troops regardless of
| whether it actually helps the Russian effort.
| jpalawaga wrote:
| People don't want to be taken care of if they're sick or
| injured? They'd rather be backfired or dead because of an
| accident? Unless if they participate in the American
| employment cabal?
|
| Please. People want to be taken care of. America was
| built by people escaping famine and people escaping poor
| living/working conditions.
|
| In other words, it was built by people trying to make a
| better living for themselves. Living or dying by your
| success or failure wasn't a desirable feature, it was an
| incidental side effect of colonizing a new land.
| freehorse wrote:
| But being the "policeman of the world" has helped with
| preserving dollar's status as the major currency for
| international transactions between third countries, and in
| particular for oil, which in turn makes the dollar a
| desirable currency, because everyone has and wants to have
| dollars, and has allowed the federal central bank to print
| the trillions of dollars it had been printing over and over
| without it losing its value. Any other country's currency
| would have been super-inflated if they did the same.
| shafyy wrote:
| > _Lots of bad decisions but the world also takes for
| granted the open seas, etc. that come at a great cost to
| Americans in reduced social services like health insurance
| and higher education._
|
| Thanks for the laugh
| Dalewyn wrote:
| The reason the US defence budget is so sky-fucking-high
| is because we effectively pay for everyone's military,
| though.
|
| I doubt the other budget line items would see an increase
| with defence cuts, but we certainly don't need the entire
| defence budget for just our own sake. _America_ doesn 't
| need 11 nuclear aircraft carriers or nearly 2500 F-35s,
| among other excesses.
|
| Also: Attitudes like yours sincerely make me want to see
| America First pushed more literally to the point of
| leaving those who don't appreciate us to fend for
| themselves. Japan, EU, and so on.
|
| Obama already declared we aren't the world police
| anymore, for better or worse.
| 3688346844 wrote:
| Any talk that assumes the US defense budget is massive is
| silly. It's approx 12% of the federal budget and 3.4% of
| the nation's GDP. It seems large because the US is rich
| and it seems large compare to the EU because most of the
| EU, besides Poland, decided it was a lot cheaper to have
| a token force and leave the real work to the Americans.
| Dalewyn wrote:
| Using the left-hand list here as a reference: https://en.
| wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_with_highest...
|
| It takes _all nine_ of the top 10 countries besides
| America (#1) to finally match and exceed the American
| defence budget. Of those nine, only two (Germany and
| France) are EU members.
|
| In a word, the American defence budget is fucking massive
| and _we_ certainly don 't need anywhere even remotely
| most of it for ourselves.
| xienze wrote:
| You're missing the parent's point. It's large in absolute
| terms but not as a percentage of GDP (3.5%). And for
| countries spending less, once again the point is that
| they'd rather spend less and lean on the US when things
| really hit the fan (see: European countries not chipping
| in the requisite 2% of GDP for NATO funding; roughly half
| of that "OMG so massive" US military spending goes
| towards NATO).
|
| Edit: yes my bad, I was meaning this comment for another
| poster in the thread.
| Dalewyn wrote:
| ...But that's exactly what I'm saying?
|
| Seriously. You just more or less repeated what I've been
| saying, minus the potentially spiteful sentiment.
|
| From my original comment:
|
| >The reason the US defence budget is so sky-fucking-high
| is because we effectively pay for everyone's military,
| though.
| _heimdall wrote:
| Size of the budget is all in the eye of the beholder
| though. I don't think its unreasonable for someone to see
| 12% of the total budget going to defense as massive,
| especially when the country isn't actively at war.
| shafyy wrote:
| > _The reason the US defence budget is so sky-fucking-
| high is because we effectively pay for everyone 's
| military, though_
|
| Yes, but don't act like that is some kind of selfless
| act. In the end, it benefits the US more if they do that
| and have military bases and influence all over the place,
| than not doing that. If that also protects their allies,
| even better, since then it can be used to better justify
| the international meddling (as you're doing now).
| ekianjo wrote:
| > but there is a large financial cost to always being ready
| for war. The US has spent 80 years being the "policeman of
| the world" for good or bad.
|
| The US has never gone through the stage of being "ready for
| war" and instead went for the "living from one war to the
| next"
| csomar wrote:
| > takes for granted the open seas
|
| The open seas is a myth. It is the American seas unless you
| have a lot of nuclear weapons.
|
| > that come at a great cost to Americans in reduced social
| services like health insurance and higher education
|
| But also brought lots of business and investment too. On
| total it's positive, otherwise the US would not do it. *I
| am not saying the distribution of the incoming wealth was
| equal.
| markhahn wrote:
| are you claiming that the US disadvantages non-American
| traffic? like Chinese vessels are less safe, or not free
| to travel, or prone to piracy?
|
| I think that's not the case. you can make a case that
| Russia's "shadow fleet" is being treated with some bias,
| but then again...
| tonyhart7 wrote:
| well, EU are enjoying NATO Protection (what I mean nato is
| only few nato country that really spend money on their
| military)
|
| some country didn't spend as much even almost downscale its
| military and you expect the same benefit while didn't want
| any cost associated with it, how it make sense and fair for
| everyone???
| 127 wrote:
| You should update your information.
| gazchop wrote:
| We should have our own sovereign comparable technology
| companies in Europe by now.
|
| Fail.
|
| Sold the fundamental industries out to Philips who sold it to
| the Chinese.
| UltraSane wrote:
| Europe really dropped the ball on semiconductor manufacturing.
| cma wrote:
| They are the critical only manufacturer/supplier of EUV
| machines.
| ulfw wrote:
| Says the US who can't manufacture anything modern unless they
| urge a Taiwanese manufacturer using European lithography
| machines to make chips. Let's please not do this senseless
| patriotism that so en vogue in the US right now.
| UltraSane wrote:
| The United States possessed approximately 12% of the
| world's global chip manufacturing capacity as of 2021. This
| is a notably lower percentage of global capacity than the
| US enjoyed just a few decades previously (37% in 1990, for
| instance), before countries such as Taiwan and China ramped
| up their semiconductor production capabilities. Despite
| this decline, the semiconductor industry remains quite
| lucrative in the US. According to the Semiconductor
| Industry Association (SIA), semiconductors exports added
| $62 billion (USD) to the US economy in 2021, more than any
| product other than refined oil, aircraft, crude oil, and
| natural gas. Many of these imported chips return to the US
| in the form of finished consumer electronics.
|
| Although the US held just 12% of the world's total
| semiconductor manufacturing capacity in 2021, US-based
| companies held approximately 46.3 percent of the total
| semiconductor market share. This seeming discrepancy can be
| explained by both the dollar value of imported US
| semiconductors, outlined above, and the fact that many US-
| based companies own and operate semiconductor fabrication
| plants in other countries, such as Japan. In such cases,
| the manufacturing capacity is added to that country's
| capacity rather than the capacity of the US, but the
| profits typically count as part of the US economy.
| mrtksn wrote:
| That narrative doesn't make sense, making Taiwanese build and
| run a factory in USA is not much different than an oil rich
| Arab country luring a western institution opening a campus in
| their desert. Its good to have but it doesn't make you a
| superconductor superpower.
|
| To be fair, the USA does have many of the key companies and
| technologies that make these ICs possible in first place so
| it's not exactly like that but in the case of TSMC it kind of
| is.
| UltraSane wrote:
| Top 5 Countries That Produce the Most Semiconductors:
| 1 Taiwan 2 South Korea 3 Japan 4
| United States 5 China
|
| According to https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-
| rankings/semicondu... the US has 95 fabs as of 2024 and 12%
| of Advanced Processes Market Share. The US had 37% in the
| 1990
|
| Germany has 22
|
| France has 5
|
| Spain has 1
|
| UK has 16
|
| Ireland has 3
|
| Italy has 2
|
| Sweden has 1
|
| Finland has 1
| timewizard wrote:
| It's simpler than that. The USA holds the majority of the
| IP.
| PittleyDunkin wrote:
| What a ridiculous thing to say about the home of ASML.
| whatevaa wrote:
| Would not have been competitive due to labor costs. Also the
| chemicals used in manufacturing are quite toxic.
| markhahn wrote:
| do you really think fabs are labor-intensive, or that they
| discharge toxic waste?
| mrtksn wrote:
| IIRC, this isn't happening because Europe doesn't have a large
| enough industry to purchase chips at the scale required to have
| such a huge investment.
|
| This one in USA is for political reasons and likely will be
| feasible only if US manages to preserve the global political
| order.
|
| Maybe Europe could have had force having a latest node FAB by
| banning exports of EUV machines and have factories built in
| Europe through flying Taiwanese engineers to build and operate
| it and call it huge success like USA is doing now.
|
| I don't know if its worth the cost though. Sure it is good to
| have it bu in USA's case they even haven't built the industry
| around it, they will produce the chips in USA, call it "Made in
| America", collect the political points and ship the chips to
| the other side of the planet for further processing.
|
| Is it really that big of a deal to have European machines being
| operated by the Taiwanese in the USA to print chips that need a
| visit to China to become useful? If the global world order
| collapses, will the 330M Americans be able to sustain the FAB?
| If it doesn't collapse, will that be still a good investment
| considering that Taiwanese have the good stuff for themselves
| and integrated into the full chain without flying parts across
| the world?
| earnestinger wrote:
| Well they made the fiirst step. They have the fab, other
| parts of industry may emerge with time
| alecco wrote:
| Previous discussion (16 hours ago)
|
| Apple will soon receive 'made in America' chips from TSMC's
| Arizona fab (tomshardware.com)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42699977
| cyanydeez wrote:
| The good thing about apple prices is they could easily not
| change any of their prices and just swallow the loss in profit.
|
| But doubtful, it'll definitely be a premium made-inthe-usa
| labeling for government & school use.
|
| Just grift grift grift, then graft graft graft.
| boringg wrote:
| They could do that -- then equity would correct investors
| would be like wait what. Exec and employee comp would
| decrease. Pressure to deliver consistent returns is real
| assuming its a material cost difference.
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| Does this mean that you will see entirely made in the USA Macs?
| swarnie wrote:
| Depends, Do you have 10 year olds who will work for 18c an
| hour?
|
| Or do you have consumers who will pay for the difference?
| declan_roberts wrote:
| Unfortunately the USA doesn't have religious prisoners who
| can be coerced into a factory as slave labor.
| nemomarx wrote:
| we do have a lot of prisoners though, and they do various
| factory kinda jobs. probably not high skill ones though?
| 0_____0 wrote:
| It depends, there are definitely things like carpentry
| and other manufacturing that prisoners do that I wouldn't
| call 'unskilled' by any stretch. One big reason to pay
| prisoners appropriately is that otherwise they affect the
| labor rate for trades that overlap with how prison labor
| is currently utilized.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > One big reason to pay prisoners appropriately is that
| otherwise they affect the labor rate for trades that
| overlap with how prison labor is currently utilized.
|
| Ask tradespeople how much they like competition from
| prisons or, in Germany, subsidised workplaces for the
| disabled.
| swarnie wrote:
| You might be on to something though!
|
| If you dont mind dropping the religious aspect i think
| you already have the rest via the Prison-Industries Act;
| as cheap as an Asian child but with the strength and
| intelligence of the US adult prison population.
|
| Hold on im going to write this down.
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| What's more interesting is that if you do it correctly,
| someone could leave jail / prison with interesting niche
| skills you could technically hire for, assuming they
| prove they are reformed.
| soseng wrote:
| It seems that Arizona is #3 for the total number of for-
| profit prisoners. There may be untapped potential for
| slave labor and finding creative ways to imprison
| Americans here.
|
| Stat: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1356957/number-
| prisoners....
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| Not sure the religious remarks intention, but there's
| jails / prisons where prisoners do labor in exchange for
| very low compensation. Considering you get billed for
| being jailed, I would personally prefer working than to
| mount up debt I have no way of managing.
| morgango wrote:
| I believe that is a reference to the treatment of Uyghurs
| in China.
| foobarian wrote:
| Wait what you get billed for jailtime???
| deaddodo wrote:
| In very limited situations, in general (there are 50
| states, I don't know the nuances of each).
|
| Usually only in pre-sentencing stays such as the drunk
| tank, pre-arraignment holding, etc. If you're sentenced,
| you aren't charged for _that_ time. Additionally, it 's
| usually waived during sentencing (if it goes that far) as
| a part of your Credit-Time-Served conversion.
| deaddodo wrote:
| I'm a huge proponent of incarceration reform, especially
| in regards to making the system more rehabilitative
| versus retributive. But it does no one any good spreading
| FUD.
|
| > there's jails / prisons where prisoners do labor in
| exchange for very low compensation
|
| Sure, but the work isn't allowed to be for private
| entities. They're doing government-related busywork in
| 99% of cases (pressing license plates, printing/cutting
| papers for the court, working on machinery for the
| police/courts, working the kitchen, etc.)
|
| More importantly, they're not just paid monetarily but
| receive reduced sentences for the work.
|
| > Considering you get billed for being jailed, I would
| personally prefer working than to mount up debt I have no
| way of managing.
|
| You're conflating two separate systems. _Prisons_ are
| where you go for long stints and generally worry about
| Good Time /Work Time. You _can 't_ be charged a daily
| fine for prison time.
|
| _Jails_ are intended for short stays (the drunk tank,
| transport to court arraignment, etc) and _can_ have daily
| fines attached, in most states. In cases where county
| jails are used post sentencing for short-moderate stays,
| daily fines are generally far more limited /disallowed.
| rbolla wrote:
| There's a program where prisoners are used as adhoc
| firefighters in CA.
| lovich wrote:
| 13th amendment buddy. Slavery was never fully outlawed in
| the US
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| People already pay a premium on Macs to be honest. Every
| hard drive upgrade is ridiculously overpriced.
|
| "Minecraft proves that the children yearn for the mines"
| Clamchop wrote:
| Way less than they used to. The Mac "premium" has been
| declining for decades.
|
| Stands to follow that many of their new customers are
| price-sensitive.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > The Mac "premium" has been declining for decades.
|
| Ever tried to configure storage on anything Apple? The
| markup is _ridiculous_ , but on the other side, it blows
| a lot of the competition out of the water.
| dangus wrote:
| This is a dumb tangent that's been beaten to death, but
| yes Apple base model systems to tend to be somewhat
| untouchable in value around when they're released. Buying
| something anywhere close to the form factor of a Mac mini
| with the same performance is nearly impossible.
|
| We also shouldn't beat this horse to death because it's
| not hard to plug in a USB/Thunderbolt SSD and there's
| essentially no performance penalty.
|
| Or if you have a MacBook Pro you can get one of these:
| https://9to5mac.com/2022/05/20/macbook-pro-flush-sd-card-
| tra...
|
| Not the fastest thing in the world but it gets the job
| done.
| jsmcgd wrote:
| Humanoid robot workers are going to have a massive impact
| on industries like this. 'cheap labor' will no longer be
| isolated to certain regions.
| randomopining wrote:
| Marginal cost added probably isn't that much. How many
| manhours does a mac take to build?
| dangus wrote:
| Got any more of that hyperbole? Or maybe outdated
| xenophobia?
|
| The average manufacturing salary in China is around $13,000
| a year, in a country where cost of living is 50% lower than
| the US and rent is 75% lower.
|
| China is actually a place with relatively high
| manufacturing labor costs these days, but it's a production
| center for a lot of industries and holds a lot of the
| ecosystems and institutional knowledge (not unlike all the
| automotive parts suppliers in the American Midwest).
| bfrog wrote:
| https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-knowingly-used-
| child-l...
|
| And yet...
| umanwizard wrote:
| None of the people assembling Apple products in China are
| 10-year-olds making $0.18 an hour.
| bfrog wrote:
| https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-knowingly-used-
| child-l...
| zitterbewegung wrote:
| The closest you can get is the Mac Pro line starting with the
| Trashcan Mac Pro.
|
| https://www.cnet.com/tech/computing/after-federal-break-
| appl...
| dtquad wrote:
| So many people wanted this to fail.
| UltraSane wrote:
| Why?
| YetAnotherNick wrote:
| Many commenters on HN have this weird idea that if Taiwan is
| slightly ahead of competition, US would defend Taiwan against
| a country with nukes. Or that TSMC superiority is Taiwan's
| national security issue.
| UltraSane wrote:
| The US would probably defend Taiwan if the CCP invaded it.
| I don't think we would ever use nukes.
| ekianjo wrote:
| Defend with what exactly?
| UltraSane wrote:
| Taiwan from the invading CCP military.
| YetAnotherNick wrote:
| You think if say US bombs all the CCP's planes, CCP would
| sit silently and accept defeat? Same thing happened with
| Ukraine. NATO couldn't escalate the war at any cost, so
| they can just play safe and only do things that don't
| risk escalation.
| varjag wrote:
| If the Russia case suggests anything it's that yes,
| they'll sit silently and absorb the losses behind all the
| nuclear bravado.
| _heimdall wrote:
| I'm not sure I would consider Russia having sat silent
| though. They've continued the war for nearly 2 years now
| (or 10 if you go back to 2014) and have worked with
| allies to have foreign troops fighting on Ukrainian soil.
| varjag wrote:
| The full scale invasion is entering its fourth year in
| fact. But I was addressing the nuclear war fears
| expressed above. Experience show you can hit anything in
| Russia (including the Kremlin) without nuclear
| retaliation.
| _heimdall wrote:
| Yep, it takes me about a month to get the new year in my
| head apparently, I did the quick math based on 2024.
|
| Anyone expecting nuclear retaliation for the strikes that
| have been made inside Russian territory has no grasp on
| what it really means for a country to use a nuke, or has
| no confidence in a nuclear power understanding the basic
| game theory of what would come next. Russia would never
| use a nuke when a small number of missiles or drones made
| it past their air defence and cause minor damage on
| Russian soil.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| The NATO strategy in Ukraine hasn't been great _for_
| Ukraine, but the old cold warriors of the 1980s would be
| pissing their pants to find how well it worked _against_
| the Russians.
|
| Wiping out significant portions of their army, navy, and
| air force for a fraction of a single year's budget and
| not a single American death?
| suraci wrote:
| Love it! Kill Russians! Ukrain ruins and dead bodies!
| Expensive energy price! NOT A SINGLE AMERICAN DEATH!
|
| Bravo!
| ceejayoz wrote:
| From a geopolitical standpoint, for the US specifically,
| yes. It's probably the most cost-effective (in money and
| lives) military spending the US has done since WWII.
|
| From a human standpoint, I wish they'd given the
| Ukranians ATACMS and HIMARS and F-16s on week two, when
| it was abundantly clear they had the will to fight. The
| dribbling out of slowly expanding limits has been painful
| to watch.
| XorNot wrote:
| Nuclear weapons don't win wars though. Once you launch,
| you're dead. The retaliation will guarantee your own
| destruction.
|
| The Cold War led to the arms build up it did because of
| exactly this paradox: on close inspection, it seemed
| unlikely the US would lose the Eastern seaboard cities
| just to protect Berlin, for example.
| nwatson wrote:
| Taiwan would strike Three Gorges Dam and kill millions.
| CCP should focus on Siberia.
| api wrote:
| Honestly, if China wants to just go take that Eastern
| half of Russia they are welcome. Nobody would stop them
| and much of the world would cheer.
|
| I've wondered if China encouraged Russia to invade
| Ukraine to weaken them so they can become a Chinese
| vassal state to supply raw materials.
| knowitnone wrote:
| the West can take the other half
| maxglute wrote:
| No they wouldn't, TW doesn't have the ordnance or ability
| to deliver said ordnance to structurally damage a gravity
| dam, especially one size of three gorges. They're much
| better off hitting PRC coastal nuclear (something that
| worries PRC planners), either way, it's suicide by war
| crime.
| UltraSane wrote:
| Is it still a war crime AFTER the CCP invades with the
| goal of completely replacing the Taiwanese government?
| mainecoder wrote:
| You cannot destroy the Largest Dam ever built with
| conventional Ballistic Missiles but you can level the dam
| with a nuclear weapon, in which case why use the nuke on
| a dam why not use it directly on population centers.
| UltraSane wrote:
| because destroying the damn would kill a LOT more people.
| Millions.
| knowitnone wrote:
| you really think the CCP cares?
| sashank_1509 wrote:
| Doesn't TSMC building a plant in US, offset the need for
| US to invade Taiwan. Perhaps Taiwan expects US support
| out of goodwill, but I think Taiwan overestimates how
| much goodwill drives US politics. Taiwan might have had a
| better chance of getting support, if it maintained a
| monopoly on circuit production.
| sofixa wrote:
| > Many commenters on HN have this weird idea that if Taiwan
| is slightly ahead of competition, US would defend Taiwan
| against a country with nukes. Or that TSMC superiority is
| Taiwan's national security issue.
|
| Well... TSMC is definitely a component of Taiwan's national
| security. It's called the "Silicon Shield" for a reason.
|
| And the US definitely has more reasons to go to war, and
| more importantly, _threaten_ war to prevent one breaking
| out, over Taiwan if it knows there will be a massive
| economic impact.
|
| And China definitely knows that if Taiwan is important for
| the US, it's almost certain the US would defend it.
| jmartin2683 wrote:
| They want war? Someone else's, at that?
|
| Crazy.
| sghiassy wrote:
| I think it's the opposite. They want the US to defend
| Taiwan
| UltraSane wrote:
| The CCP keeps saying that Taiwan is part of China.
| gadders wrote:
| Why do you think it's a weird idea? It's a strategic asset
| as much as oilfields are.
| YetAnotherNick wrote:
| Because Samsung and Intel would probably close the gap by
| the time the war is done. They are just 2-4 years behind
| with the gaps already closing in.
| energy123 wrote:
| Some people are against industrial policy (like the CHIPS
| Act) because they don't believe that market failure exists.
|
| Some people are against Biden/Dems.
|
| Some people are clueless about the foreign policy and the
| geopolitical reality in Asia and take the status quo regional
| power balance as a given.
| rtkwe wrote:
| Not on the I want it to fail side but my main question is why
| we put this water intensive industry in Arizona instead of
| further east where water is less stressed as a resource?
|
| Seems like it would be way better off being somewhere in the
| eastern half of the country or at least not in the Southwest.
| TrapLord_Rhodo wrote:
| water is a non-issue. The main issue in deciding where a
| factory should go is which state will give you the most to
| do it.
| wumeow wrote:
| Many commenters just hate America.
| markhahn wrote:
| Like who? Rabid globalization fans?
| Aissen wrote:
| I wished we used the node names, like TSMC N4/N4P/N4X, because
| nanometers are meaningless.
| stingraycharles wrote:
| As such I'm going to assume it's the least impressive variant
| of 4NM.
| arnaudsm wrote:
| Are transistors per square mm a better metric ?
| robertlagrant wrote:
| Per square foot please. This is America.
| huijzer wrote:
| Per square banana please. This is the internet.
| sumtechguy wrote:
| I thought libraries of congress were the correct way to
| measure?
| rvnx wrote:
| 1.31 x 10-8 football fields.
|
| (1 football field = 91.44 meters)
| rad_gruchalski wrote:
| > (1 football field = 91.44 meters)
|
| By? Which football? The real football, or the football
| played mostly with hands?
| koakuma-chan wrote:
| Americans need to stop measuring things in feet :)
| PittleyDunkin wrote:
| Bruh, you're never gonna be a good trad wife as a man.
| You're just not that pretty.
| greggsy wrote:
| I won't be surprised if the US plants started referring to
| the 4NM nodes in their imperial form (1.575 x 10-7")
| _Algernon_ wrote:
| Scientific notation would be to logical. Instead they'll
| make a new tiny unit that subdivides the inch into
| 1/81975489347.7 of an inch.
| bee_rider wrote:
| Angstroms aren't imperial, but they are non-SI, so if we
| want to be petty they'd probably be the way to go.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| God yes.
| vonneumannstan wrote:
| Well in that context TSMC N4P tells you no more information
| than 4-nm does.
| nsxwolf wrote:
| No information, but at least it doesn't mislead into thinking
| there are 4nm transistors, or transistor gates, or some
| discrete feature of any sort that's that small.
| looneysquash wrote:
| Nice. Maybe we should have re elected that guy.
| randomNumber7 wrote:
| Maybe you should have developed a technology to upload his
| brain.
| icf80 wrote:
| they are making wafers, those have to be sent to china to make
| the finals chips... in the case of a war this is not great
| declan_roberts wrote:
| A step in the right direction but we still have an ocean to
| cross for our domestic semi industry.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| to taiwan
| victorbjorklund wrote:
| Taiwan [?] China
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| Until 2027 - when the packaging facilities are complete in
| Peoria.
|
| Rome wasn't built in a day.
| losvedir wrote:
| It's interesting to me that this is in Phoenix. Does that mean
| good things for the city? I thought they were in a desert and
| running out of water, and not well positioned for climate change.
| On the other hand, maybe with more solar panels, electricity and
| manufacturing will be cheaper there in the future?
| imzadi wrote:
| I live here and we are definitely looking toward impending
| water shortages, and no one care at all. Nestle is in the
| process of building a 200 acre coffee creamer factory. The
| major flower delivery services grow their flowers here. We have
| tons of cotton and alfalfa fields. There are 100s of golf
| courses and in the wealthier areas everyone has a lush green
| lawn.
| 0_____0 wrote:
| Sounds like a resource that isn't appropriately priced
| amelius wrote:
| priced -> rationed
| mrsilencedogood wrote:
| in capitalism, prices are literally how rationing
| happens. the theory is that it distributes the resources
| to those who can make them most productive. here,
| theoretically the water will be used more productively by
| chipmakers than by farmers, so the chipmakers will be
| able to out-bid the farmers and the water will be
| allocated to them. this is the "invisible hand" of the
| free market.
| loeg wrote:
| Also worth pointing out that residential water uses like
| bathing/washing water and especially drinking water will
| easily outbid alfalfa farmers.
| amelius wrote:
| No, rationing is the complete opposite and ensures that
| not just rich people can have access to a resource.
|
| This is basically why the word "rationing" exists in the
| first place.
|
| What good is being "productive" (whatever your definition
| of it) if poor people die from lack of access to water
| because chips need to exist.
| mantas wrote:
| What's the point of rationing water to monoculture
| alfalfa fields? Looks like chips factory in that area
| makes much more sense.
| kragen wrote:
| We aren't talking about drinking-water quantities of
| water here but about irrigation quantities. Poor people
| in Arizona are not in danger of dying from thirst. Think
| _Milagro Beanfield War_ , not _Dune_. Poor people in
| Phoenix get their water from the water utility, which
| gives you 3740+ gallons of potable water per month for
| US$4.64: https://www.phoenix.gov/waterservicessite/Docume
| nts/Rates_Ef...
|
| That works out to 0.032C/ per liter. A quarter (25C/)
| will buy you 760 liters of water, enough to survive for
| three months. That's about 1000x lower than a price at
| which even Phoenix's homeless might start dying of thirst
| due to the cost of water. (Homeless people don't pay the
| water utility, but they get water from people who do.)
|
| Poor people in the country get their water from wells,
| which cost money to drill but basically nothing to pump
| more water from.
|
| Rationing might be a reasonable thing to do to keep the
| aquifer from being depleted, but it would be likely to
| hit poor people much harder than rich people, because
| poor people don't have the political influence to prevent
| the enactment of regulations that would hurt them badly,
| such as a requirement for an environmental review before
| drilling a new drinking-water well.
|
| Rationing _could_ cause poor people to die from lack of
| access to water. Markets won 't, unless you're talking
| about something like a Mars colony.
| amelius wrote:
| Well if you put it like that then I'm starting to wonder
| what shortage we are talking about in the first place.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| A bunch of entities have perpetual promises for specific
| amounts of water, and sometimes the promises are too big
| and can't be fulfilled, or a city needs some water and
| can't get it allocated, or stuff like that. So,
| shortages.
|
| Add in some market mechanics and that problem disappears.
| The only entities left without water are the ones
| unwilling to pay a small fraction of a cent.
| derektank wrote:
| Phoenix the city is limited by its existing water rights but
| the geographical area isn't really that constrained; water
| rights are just held by private parties, particulaly farmers.
| ~70% of all water used in the state is used in agriculture.
| Industrial and residential consumers simply have to purchase
| those rights if they want to continue to expand in the area and
| chip making is a high value add industry.
| azemetre wrote:
| Is there any historical reason why farming is a big industry
| in a state associated with deserts? Did manufacturing never
| take root there until after WW2 when air conditioning became
| more affordable?
| kragen wrote:
| Farming isn't an industry. It's just how you have a
| civilization when population density is higher than a
| hunter-gatherer lifestyle can support. People have been
| farming in Arizona for several thousand years.
| hosh wrote:
| I don't know why this was down voted. This is
| historically true.
|
| The modern canal that runs through Phoenix is built on
| top of ruins of a much older canal built by indigenous
| people for farming.
| stackghost wrote:
| >Farming isn't an industry.
|
| It both is and isn't. Have you seen PETA footage from
| inside factory farms? It's hellish in that special way
| only the industrial revolution could produce.
| kragen wrote:
| We're talking about irrigated fields here, not factory
| farms, which are certainly nightmarish but don't use a
| major percentage of Arizona's water.
| prova_modena wrote:
| As of 2019, 72% of Arizona's water supply was used for
| agriculture.
|
| https://www.arizonawaterfacts.com/water-your-facts
| kragen wrote:
| Yes, that's the basis of what we're talking about here.
| chrisco255 wrote:
| Agriculture is an industry. Of course it is. It employs
| people, it makes use of technology, it is a distinct
| sector of the economy.
| hosh wrote:
| Industry refers to a particular way of doing things that
| involves portable use of power. Instead of relying on
| natural cycles (wind-, water-driven machinery), it
| involves the use of engines (steam, gasoline, electrical)
| to drive tractors, pumps, produce industrial-scale
| fertilizers, etc. These engines can be constructed where
| there are lack of natural resources, or made portable,
| thus decoupling them from locations of natural resources.
| That decoupling is what allows industrialized systems,
| including industrial agriculture, to scale.
|
| Agriculture is largely practiced with industrial methods
| now, but it's been around a lot longer before proto-
| industrial methods (water and wind mills). For example,
| Egypt, as a civilization, benefited from the natural
| flooding and silt of the Nile. It's been the bread basket
| for empires for several thousand years. They were not
| using industrial methods two or three thousand years ago.
|
| There are also other forms of agriculture that is not
| easily recognized by the narrow lens we have today --
| such as perennial food forests, hidden in the ruins of
| Amazonian jungles, or the Pacific Northwest, or the
| forest that used to cover the lands between the
| Appalachia and the Mississippi river. Those were not
| organized with the concept of employment, and it is
| distinctively low-tech.
| epmatsw wrote:
| It's sunny for a lot of the year. Ex. you can get an extra
| harvest of alfalfa per year compared to other climates.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owieQnPYfT8
| hibikir wrote:
| I am sure that some people will question some of the
| historiography there, but Cadillac Desert is a book all
| about the history of water management of the great plains,
| from Kansas onwards.
|
| TLDR: America has spent a whole lot of money trying to make
| land more productive for farming, including land where it
| probably doesn't make much economic sense once you account
| for the infrastructure costs.
| azemetre wrote:
| Thanks for the rec, another comment mentioned water
| rights and that never came to my mind.
| derektank wrote:
| Farming isn't really that large of an industry in Arizona
| today, maybe 2% of GDP tops. But my understanding is that
| surface water rights were allocated over a hundred years
| ago and naturally those rights were allocated to the people
| that wanted them then, i.e. agricultural landowners.
| hosh wrote:
| Before Phoenix the city was founded, there was a canal
| built by the indigenous people who live there in the lower
| Sonoran.
|
| That canal became the basis for Phoenix, and eventually,
| the big canal that transport water long range through the
| state.
|
| The other is that, with sufficient water, you can grow year
| round.
|
| Not that I think industrial ag is good for society.
|
| Phoenix itself is a metro area whose primary economic
| driver is real estate speculation. Many older citrus
| orchards has been surrounded, and sometimes bought and
| redeveloped.
| johnvanommen wrote:
| > Is there any historical reason why farming is a big
| industry in a state associated with deserts?
|
| California is a desert too.
| ahoka wrote:
| I guess the Mexican border has something to do with it?
| hosh wrote:
| Water in the fabs gets mostly recycled. There's an old
| slidedeck from Intel's Chandler (Phoenix metro area suburb) fab
| about it. This includes discharging what isn't recycled to
| refill ground aquifer.
|
| From what I understand, the area is more seismically stable, so
| the special building structures and equipment for more
| seismically active places are not needed.
|
| There is the presence of ASU. The ASU president had been hired
| a while back to implement a very different kind of university
| system focused on broadening (not gate keeping) higher
| education and building up innovation. This includes both
| improving graduation rates in the traditional tracks and
| expanding non-traditional educational tracks. I don't know if
| all those were considered by TSMC; they like hiring engineers
| straight out of college and training them in their methods.
| kevinpet wrote:
| There's no problem with residential water use in Phoenix. There
| are still farms that could be shut down if water is needed.
|
| The biggest problem seems to be parochial NIMBYs. People don't
| like that TSMC needed to bring in Taiwanese workers to staff up
| the plant. They are currently posting AI generated renderings
| of factories with billowing smoke stacks when talking about the
| proposed Amkor semiconductor packaging plant in Peoria.
| therein wrote:
| > There are still farms that could be shut down if water is
| needed.
|
| Wow, that's good, glad you clarified that.
|
| I was worried there weren't any farms that could be shut down
| if water is needed.
|
| Can you imagine a world where we can't shut down farms to
| produce 4nm chips?
|
| I am just so glad we can shut down farms to produce chips.
|
| Farms are useless, but chips, we need it for the control
| grid. I am just glad we are all on the same page.
|
| Who needs food when you have 4nm chips.
| Apes wrote:
| Hello, sir? I think you need to go to the hospital, because
| it seems like you had a stroke or something else serious
| happen to you.
| zaik wrote:
| 20 dollars? I wanted a peanut!
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| Lots of the farms exist to provide year around salad. What
| is more important, year around salad or computer chips?
| Economically, for Arizona, the answer is pretty clear.
|
| This is also why I laugh when people in wet areas talk crap
| about my state's water problem. My state's problem is your
| problem too buddy.
| QuercusMax wrote:
| Also, eating raw salad veggies (lettuce in particular) is
| one of the best ways to get foodborne illnesses like E.
| Coli.
| alphager wrote:
| The US is a major food exporter with a supply around 125%.
| Shutting down a few farms in the desert seems worthwhile.
| adamc wrote:
| Doing anything that uses a lot of water in a desert seems
| problematic to me. Water is only going to get scarcer in
| the west as climate change goes on.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| > Water is only going to get scarcer in the west as
| climate change goes on.
|
| Predictions are all over the place but the average
| prediction seems to say that at least half the US gets
| _more_ water.
| adamc wrote:
| Not in the west, from what I've seen. The state I grew up
| in, Illinois, is definitely trending toward being more
| humid.
|
| If you've seen otherwise and have references, I'm
| interested. I'm thinking about where to live next.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| https://www.carbonbrief.org/explainer-what-climate-
| models-te...
|
| https://www.e-education.psu.edu/earth103/sites/www.e-educ
| ati...
|
| These are the ones that showed up first.
|
| Drying in the southwest is more likely than in the
| northwest, probably. The specifics are all over. But the
| bigger distinctions tend to be north versus south.
| mywittyname wrote:
| At least the fabs can recycle the majority of their water.
| Unlike farms which use more than is needed and are likely
| producing animal feed for international animals.
|
| I get your point, but not all farms are created equal. Is
| it really so bad to shut down farms that grow feed for Arab
| race horses to produce computer chips?
| therein wrote:
| > I get your point, but not all farms are created equal.
| Is it really so bad to shut down farms that grow feed for
| Arab race horses to produce computer chips?
|
| That, I agree. I noticed a sibling comment also mentioned
| that. If the farms in question are of that kind, it is
| reasonable. I'd just like to object to the creation of a
| general sense of sacrificing farms for fabs.
| timewizard wrote:
| Farms recycle the majority of their water as well. Just
| instead of it looping inside of a closed process it
| returns to the broader environment.
| lovich wrote:
| really stretching the definition of recycle there.
| Material staying within a closed loop is kind of a
| requirement for something to be recycled. The farms don't
| do anything to keep the water available and have to
| extract more water from other sources
| heavyset_go wrote:
| Water loss from evaporation and transpiration are
| inevitable, and run off is a large chunk of it. Nearly
| half of the water used in farming is lost, and some of
| that becomes run off that pollutes the environment and
| whatever bodies of water it reaches.
| mtoner23 wrote:
| theres not exactly a lack of food in this country
| pstuart wrote:
| A fair amount of that farm water is to grow alfalfa for the
| Saudi's dairy industry. So it's not all essential to US
| food security...
| awongh wrote:
| Arizona and California have outdated water management laws
| that basically mean that big agriculture gets free water.
|
| Until recently Saudi Arabia was using these laws to grow
| alfalfa in the desert.
|
| In California, water intensive crops like almond trees get
| free water.
|
| https://youtu.be/XusyNT_k-1c
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/03/climate/arizona-saudi-
| ara...
| csallen wrote:
| This is an extremely over-simplified take. It depends on
| entirely on what the farms are producing, their water
| efficiency, etc. Nobody would seriously suggest that people
| go hungry so that we can have more chips, so responding as
| if that's the actual suggestion is unwarranted.
| gosub100 wrote:
| > Who needs food when you have 4nm chips.
|
| Who needs logic and reason when you have false dichotomy?
| umanwizard wrote:
| It's also worth nothing that the TSMC plant is basically as
| far north as it's possible to be while still counting as part
| of the (huge) Phoenix metro area. The vast majority of the 5
| million residents of that metro area are nowhere near the
| plant and very unlikely to be affected by it in any way.
| chris_va wrote:
| Both are true.
|
| Looks like the fab requires about 40,000 acre-ft/yr of water.
| If they really do start running out of water, adding desal of
| AZ's brackish aquifers would cost the fab about $20m/year. Not
| really worth it for farming, but completely fine for a fab.
| stackghost wrote:
| >40,000 acre-ft/yr of water
|
| ... is "acre feet" a common measurement of volume in the USA?
| connicpu wrote:
| We'll use anything but metric lol. It's about 1,233 cubic
| meters of water.
| kkg_scorpio wrote:
| Which is incidentally only 1% off from half an olympic-
| size swimming pool.
|
| In other words, the fab requires about 20,000 swimming
| pools of water every year... or equivalently, 1 swimming
| pool every 27 minutes.
| bialpio wrote:
| For context, https://www.rubyhome.com/blog/swimming-pool-
| stats/ estimates that there are ~500k residential pools
| in Arizona. Note that those will likely be smaller than a
| half olympic-size swimming pool.
| ranger207 wrote:
| It is specifically for reservoirs and by extension
| municipal water supply systems because it's relatively easy
| to determine the surface area and height of a reservoir
| rad_gruchalski wrote:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acre-foot
|
| > The acre-foot is a non-SI unit of volume equal to about
| 1,233 m3 commonly used in the United States in reference to
| large-scale water resources, such as reservoirs, aqueducts,
| canals, sewer flow capacity, irrigation water,[1] and river
| flows.
|
| Seems to be.
| chris_va wrote:
| It's a surprisingly convenient unit of measurement.
| Rainfall and irrigation typically are 0-1m per year, so
| if you have a 10acre farm you need 10acre-m of water to
| grow... Though, can't mix units, that would be silly :).
| Glyptodon wrote:
| Yeah, not uncommon at all in most scenarios where water
| volume is large enough.
| schaefer wrote:
| Yes, It's from farming. To state the obvious, it's the
| volume of water you'd have if a foot of rain fell on an
| acre of field.
|
| So, it's the unit that gets used when discussing
| irrigation. Or water usage that competes with irrigation.
| :P
| chrisco255 wrote:
| Makes sense, since we usually measure rainfall in inches,
| it's pretty easy to look up weather records for an area
| to see what the minimum annual rainfall is expected to
| be.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| Don't chip fabs require a great deal of water? Wondering why a
| place like Arizona, with serious water issues, was selected.
| vondur wrote:
| According to TSMC: "To achieve our goal of 90% water
| reclamation, We will build an advanced water treatment facility
| (Industrial Water Reclamation Plant) at our Phoenix operation
| with a design goal of achieving "Near Zero Liquid Discharge".
| This means the fabs will be capable of using nearly every drop
| of water back into the facility."
| tw04 wrote:
| While they reclaim 90% of the water, given the immense amount
| of water they use, it's still an exorbitant amount.
|
| With all 6 fabs online, and water reclamation in place, it's
| expected to be the equivalent of 160,000 homes:
|
| https://www.phonearena.com/news/tsmc-access-to-water-us-
| fabs...
|
| Now you can and absolutely should (IMO) make the argument
| that the fabs are far more important than the agricultural
| use in the area which is far more wasteful. But someone has
| to step up and do that and none of the politicians in the
| area seem to have been willing to make a commonsense decision
| and say: we're done growing crops in the desert when we've
| got endless better options.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| Why not a place like Washington State or Oregon with
| abundant water and hydropower
| Clamchop wrote:
| Seismic activity appears to be at least one problem. The
| entire West coast of the contiguous US has lots of it.
| adrr wrote:
| Be easier just for Arizona to stop growing alfalfa. Its
| popular because they can grow two crops. According to the
| feds, there is 300,000 acres of alfalfa in Arizona. Cut
| that you have enough water saved for tens of millions of
| people. growing water hungry crops in the desert doesn't
| make sense.
|
| https://www.nass.usda.gov/Statistics_by_State/Arizona/Publi
| c...
| kragen wrote:
| I thought this would never happen. I was wrong.
| spprashant wrote:
| Can someone explain to me how they can keep the price of the chip
| production the same in the US compared to Taiwan?
|
| Labour, especially specialized labour, is a lot more expensive in
| the US.
| ajb257 wrote:
| It didn't say that it was the same price? Customers want them
| produced in the US, so will probs pay extra for it. Especially
| given that politically it's a good look for them
|
| Also, the US govt has put in a lot of subsidies
| zzzeek wrote:
| this likely helps:
|
| > Congress created a $52.7 billion semiconductor manufacturing
| and research subsidy program in 2022. Commerce convinced all
| five leading edge semiconductor firms to locate fabs in the
| United States as part of the program.
|
| > The TSMC award from Commerce also includes up to $5 billion
| in low-cost government loans.
|
| This is a big deal for the US Gov because chip manufacturing is
| ground zero for "staying competitive" against global
| competition, e.g. China, who is eating the US' lunch in most
| areas
| dangus wrote:
| At this point it's not really a lot more expensive especially
| when factories are so heavily automated.
|
| The US has had semiconductor fabs for many years that are still
| operating. It just so happens that TSMC has the best process,
| but I don't think that has anything to do with labor costs.
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