America, not for Hong Kong, but for Taiwan, WILL go to war and even shed blood for TSMC...the threat of China taking Taiwan is ONLY about China controlling TSMC & those semi-conductors, chips
1. TSMC manufactures some 61% of the world's "common" IC chips and some 93% of the world's "most advanced" IC chips, so it obviously behooves the West to prevent TSMC from falling into the hands of PRC!
2. However, there is an even more *established* reason *why* USA *must* defend Taiwan against takeover from PRC -- Taiwan happens to be *the* anchor island (being an "unsinkable aircraft carrier" as an island) of that proverbial Pacific "First Island Chain," which basically fences off PRC's PLA Navy from having direct access to the deep waters of the western Pacific Ocean. The waters directly off the shores of PRC are shallow and their PLA Navy's submarines are, therefore, easily detected and monitored; however, Taiwan's eastern seaports lead directly to the deep waters of the western Pacific Ocean and that will allow PLA Navy's submarines to escape into deeper depths to avoid detection and monitoring. Once into those deep waters, those submarines can travel directly to Guam, Hawaii, and even the West Coast of USA mainland, and conduct attacks while submerged from offshore. The same actions can also be conducted against many allies of USA in East/Southeast Asia, so the strategic military value of Taiwan for collective national security in that region is of *Paramount* importance!
3. USA used to be a leader in IC chip manufacturing, but is currently not able to compete at the "most advanced" realm against the likes of TSMC and Samsung, because prior globalism-driven outsourcing of IC chip manufacturing to overseas locations caused domestic IC chip manufacturing infrastructures and talents to become stale. And then there had also been significant mismanagement at Intel Corp by prior "bean counter"-oriented executives, although it is now finally on the path towards recovery with its current CEO, who has an "engineering"-oriented background. Intel Corp now has its best opportunity to recover, but total return to that "leadership" level in IC fabs is still some years away.
4. Interestingly, Morris Chang, when initially soliciting funding and business relationships during his startup period for TSMC, had pitched his visions for an IC fab foundry industry to Intel Corp, but got rejected out-of-hand. The rest, as they say, is history, with Intel Corp even now relying on TSMC to (foundry) manufacture its most advanced IC chips until its own future IC fabs can be built and tuned for production operations.
5. USA would like to recover its prior IC chip manufacturing prowess, but, as Morris Chang keeps touting, despite apparently not being understood by so many policy makers, that things are *not* as simple as before, and now requires that an IC chip manufacturing *EcoSystem* (beyond just some infrastructure components) must be established *before* successful operations can begin ... and this *EcoSystem* goes way beyond merely buying the latest ASML IC Lithography machines and lining up affiliated supply chain vendors! As with so many other industries, cultivating the required people talents and creating appropriate working/living environments will make, or break, such IC fab efforts! This apparent lack of understanding by policy makers is one of the critical weak spots with USA's current efforts to try and recover its prior IC chip manufacturing prowess.
#6. As an example, TSMC, at the behest of USA, is currently building a state-of-the-art IC fab complex in the Phoenix area, but has experienced some difficulties towards making great progress due to the nature of establishing business operations in USA, and due to some early difficulties with establishing that required *EcoSystem* to operate state-of-the-art IC fab operations in the Phoenix area. And Intel Corp being the legacy IC fab operator there does *not* help matters in trying to quickly recruit top talents (Phoenix might be talent-constrained for staffing of IC fabs?). By the time TSMC can get its Phoenix IC fabs into production, some 4 years will have elapsed since breaking ground; in contrast, TSMC's construction of another IC fab complex in Japan took only 2 years to complete and is already progressing towards production. TSMC is now contemplating building even more IC fabs in Japan, based on its positive experiences there. There is also an ongoing effort to build another TSMC IC fab complex in Germany, so diversification outside of Taiwan is definitely an ongoing activity that will benefit everyone worldwide, while providing enhanced national security as well!
I don’t think you understand just how big TSMC is, they don’t have a “Taiwan office”. They have 4 300 mm fabs alone, and this is tens of billions of dollars of investment. In any given year they will spend anything from $15B to $30B in capital investment.
Kind of dumb we are not making our chips here. 🙄
good question...this is why we will go to war over Taiwan.
You have any idea how many chip plants there are in the US? And TSMC is building a huge factory north of Phoenix. Ten year, six factory plan.
If Taiwan was in danger of loosing to China, they should dynamite and utterly destroy all of their chip factories
You write like a true Slav, or Eastern European.
Colorado and New Mexico
And, TSMC might not put in back door surveillance features, like the Intel chips made in Israel.
hhhmmm
Let's get some Facts in order on this topic --
1. TSMC manufactures some 61% of the world's "common" IC chips and some 93% of the world's "most advanced" IC chips, so it obviously behooves the West to prevent TSMC from falling into the hands of PRC!
2. However, there is an even more *established* reason *why* USA *must* defend Taiwan against takeover from PRC -- Taiwan happens to be *the* anchor island (being an "unsinkable aircraft carrier" as an island) of that proverbial Pacific "First Island Chain," which basically fences off PRC's PLA Navy from having direct access to the deep waters of the western Pacific Ocean. The waters directly off the shores of PRC are shallow and their PLA Navy's submarines are, therefore, easily detected and monitored; however, Taiwan's eastern seaports lead directly to the deep waters of the western Pacific Ocean and that will allow PLA Navy's submarines to escape into deeper depths to avoid detection and monitoring. Once into those deep waters, those submarines can travel directly to Guam, Hawaii, and even the West Coast of USA mainland, and conduct attacks while submerged from offshore. The same actions can also be conducted against many allies of USA in East/Southeast Asia, so the strategic military value of Taiwan for collective national security in that region is of *Paramount* importance!
3. USA used to be a leader in IC chip manufacturing, but is currently not able to compete at the "most advanced" realm against the likes of TSMC and Samsung, because prior globalism-driven outsourcing of IC chip manufacturing to overseas locations caused domestic IC chip manufacturing infrastructures and talents to become stale. And then there had also been significant mismanagement at Intel Corp by prior "bean counter"-oriented executives, although it is now finally on the path towards recovery with its current CEO, who has an "engineering"-oriented background. Intel Corp now has its best opportunity to recover, but total return to that "leadership" level in IC fabs is still some years away.
4. Interestingly, Morris Chang, when initially soliciting funding and business relationships during his startup period for TSMC, had pitched his visions for an IC fab foundry industry to Intel Corp, but got rejected out-of-hand. The rest, as they say, is history, with Intel Corp even now relying on TSMC to (foundry) manufacture its most advanced IC chips until its own future IC fabs can be built and tuned for production operations.
5. USA would like to recover its prior IC chip manufacturing prowess, but, as Morris Chang keeps touting, despite apparently not being understood by so many policy makers, that things are *not* as simple as before, and now requires that an IC chip manufacturing *EcoSystem* (beyond just some infrastructure components) must be established *before* successful operations can begin ... and this *EcoSystem* goes way beyond merely buying the latest ASML IC Lithography machines and lining up affiliated supply chain vendors! As with so many other industries, cultivating the required people talents and creating appropriate working/living environments will make, or break, such IC fab efforts! This apparent lack of understanding by policy makers is one of the critical weak spots with USA's current efforts to try and recover its prior IC chip manufacturing prowess.
#6. As an example, TSMC, at the behest of USA, is currently building a state-of-the-art IC fab complex in the Phoenix area, but has experienced some difficulties towards making great progress due to the nature of establishing business operations in USA, and due to some early difficulties with establishing that required *EcoSystem* to operate state-of-the-art IC fab operations in the Phoenix area. And Intel Corp being the legacy IC fab operator there does *not* help matters in trying to quickly recruit top talents (Phoenix might be talent-constrained for staffing of IC fabs?). By the time TSMC can get its Phoenix IC fabs into production, some 4 years will have elapsed since breaking ground; in contrast, TSMC's construction of another IC fab complex in Japan took only 2 years to complete and is already progressing towards production. TSMC is now contemplating building even more IC fabs in Japan, based on its positive experiences there. There is also an ongoing effort to build another TSMC IC fab complex in Germany, so diversification outside of Taiwan is definitely an ongoing activity that will benefit everyone worldwide, while providing enhanced national security as well!
I thought there was a contract for them to open a factory in the states. Might have been with Trump and it was cancelled. ??
They are building it now ...it’s in Phoenix.
Thought so. Then they should close the Taiwan office. Mind you, China might still want their free wifi and Pinapple Cakes. ha
I don’t think you understand just how big TSMC is, they don’t have a “Taiwan office”. They have 4 300 mm fabs alone, and this is tens of billions of dollars of investment. In any given year they will spend anything from $15B to $30B in capital investment.