[HN Gopher] TSMC ups Arizona investment from $12B to $40B with s... ___________________________________________________________________ TSMC ups Arizona investment from $12B to $40B with second semi fab Author : totalZero Score : 344 points Date : 2022-12-06 13:35 UTC (9 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.cnbc.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.cnbc.com) | aresant wrote: | This + the recent news that Apple is planning to diversify | production out of China (1) is hard not to read into regarding | the US' view of where US/China relations are heading . . . any | geopolitical armchair experts have a view? | | (1) https://www.wsj.com/articles/apple-china-factory-protests- | fo... | uni_rule wrote: | Policies like this actually move pretty slowly. This is still a | reaction to Ukraine in february, not planning for anything in | particular, just the possibility of a fucked status quo. | vinibrito wrote: | Or maybe even a reaction to the pandemic. Which means a | couple years ago at least. | hayst4ck wrote: | I think not being able to procure n95 masks because mask | production was all off-shored, particularly to China, was a | real wake up call that supply chain security is integral to | national security. | | Ukraine was the moment that showed that: "No two countries | that both have a McDonald's have ever fought a war against | each other." is a false idea. | | Hong Kong made it clear that the idea of increasing | prosperity in China will not lead to it's liberalization, | nor can China be relied upon to be bound by documents that | are "historical documents that no longer have any practical | significance." | markus_zhang wrote: | I read it as an interest exchange between US and China. US has | the upper hand here so managed to grab some good stuffs fron TW | while China probably got the permission to go in the future. | MegaSec wrote: | Good. | bfrog wrote: | It's interesting to see semi fab factories becoming a hot thing | here in the states with an entire campus being rolled out in Ohio | along with expansions and further growth in the southwest. Can | only mean good things for workers as more options become | available. | FpUser wrote: | I guess this is TSMCs getaway if things will get sour with China. | Rapzid wrote: | In a sense.. Currently western liberal democracies have a | monopoly on the most advanced microprocessor manufacturing | tech.. And they plan to keep it that way indefinitely. | | This "sours the milk" so to speak and it makes it easier to | take TSMC off the board. | | For one, if there was ever any real consideration by China of | forceful takeover it would be made clear TSMC would not be a | spoil of war. This makes a scorched earth threat even more | credible. | | For two, it disincentizes playing games with Taiwan as a pawn | based on the wests reliance on chips flowing out. Knowing the | chips are flowing in large quantities from other countries | removes the lynchpin status. | | Third, it stabilizes supply in the chance that something does | happen. Maybe a natural disaster. Maybe a blockade. | starkd wrote: | I think it makes it more likely that China is going to swallow | up Taiwan without even firing a shot. Wargame simulations are | giving a dim prospect for defending the island. US has removed | fighter jets from Japan. And public opinion in Taiwan for | resisting China has slightly shifted toward accomadation. I | hope I am wrong. | FpUser wrote: | >"I think it makes it more likely that China is going to | swallow up Taiwan without even firing a shot." | | I am not sure about "without even firing a shot" part but | golden parachute type people and important staff will most | likely be relocated to the US right before that and the rest | of Taiwanese will have to suck it up. Yes very sad story and | I hope it does not happen. | philliphaydon wrote: | > And public opinion in Taiwan for resisting China has | slightly shifted toward accomadation. | | Huh? No it hasn't. Taiwan doesn't want to end up like Hong | kong. They know the 1 country 2 systems doesn't exist. Taiwan | is already an independent country. They just want to keep | status quo so China will leave them alone. | boc wrote: | If China really thinks their completely untested military can | easily pull off the largest amphibious assault in history, | they deserve the results. It would be an absolute bloodbath. | Wargame simulations are ways for the pentagon to get more | money from congress... the reality is that invasions aren't | easy to hide and never go quite as planned. | | If you disagree just go read up on the wargames and | predictions for a Russian invasion of Ukrainian. Most people | thought they'd reach Poland in days, if not hours. And they | had the second most capable military in the world, on paper. | selectodude wrote: | It's also important to remember that a war game that your | military wins isn't a very useful war game. The whole goal | is to find blind spots in military strategy and planning. | "Nah we're good everything is great" is how you end up | getting worked by Ukraine. | DiogenesKynikos wrote: | > If China really thinks their completely untested military | can easily pull off the largest amphibious assault in | history, they deserve the results. It would be an absolute | bloodbath. | | For which side? No one knows. | | There would be so many factors at play, both military and | economic, that it is almost impossible to predict how | things would play out. All anyone knows is that China's | capabilities have increased many times over in the last 20 | or so years, and that they are increasing every year. | However, no country on Earth has fought a war on this scale | for decades (with the possible exception of Russia and | Ukraine right now), so no one knows what the outcome would | be. | fintechjock wrote: | > US has removed fighter jets from Japan. | | They're phasing out older variants of the F-15 C. They will | be replaced by F-15 EXs when they are ready, and until then | the old F-15s will be replaced with F-22s | warinukraine wrote: | Remember when Warren Buffet invested into TSMC and someone said | he must know something we don't? | criddell wrote: | I keep wondering if this is different than when Foxconn | announced a $10b investment in Wisconsin but carried through | less than 10% of that? | totalZero wrote: | Judging by the pictures, TSMC is building a lot of | expensive-looking stuff out in Arizona. I know they're both | Taiwanese companies but this project seems a bit different. | | https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Tech/Semiconductors/TSMC- | to... | PartiallyTyped wrote: | TSMC has had a license to print money for a while now given | how huge ASML's backlog is. | chrisjc wrote: | Is ASML even going to be able to meet the demand created by | all these fabs opening up across the US (and rest of the | world)? | | The stories I've heard about what it takes to build a | single machine would suggest to me that scaling up would be | a huge feat and I could only imagine take years to | accomplish. | | Then again, perhaps TSMC and their peers had predicted this | kind of growth and already placed their orders long ago? | imhoguy wrote: | Maybe they will just move a chunk of existing fab? | [deleted] | tooltalk wrote: | ASML has now $32+B worth of backlog and they are still | able to make only ~40+ EUV per year. | tooltalk wrote: | Buffet probably knows little or nothing about the fab | industry and probably didn't make this investment decision. | | TSMC is upping their investment in the US, but I agree with | Morris Chang that the US operation won't be as lucrative -- | ie, thye won't be able to maintain 50+% profit margin. | Further, TSMC really didn't have any competition in the last | 2-3 nodes and Samsung was largely absent in 7/5/4nm, but | Samsung is going mass production with 3nm GAA pretty soon and | TSMC is going to have to put up a good fight to maintain | their dominance. | Lind5 wrote: | Astounding amount of semi investments. $500B in this list alone | https://semiengineering.com/where-all-the-semiconductor-inve... | adam_arthur wrote: | Onshoring is a logical result of improved automation. | | When labor costs lessen, transportation and logistics become the | primary concern. Wouldn't be surprised if 100 years from now most | final good assembly is done locally. | | Of course sometimes raw materials and inputs are more expensive | to transport than the finished good, so there will always be | cases where long distance transportation of finished products is | still preferred | conradev wrote: | Onshoring in this case is a logical result of improved tax | incentives. Almost every cost is higher in the US - not just | labor. | | Improved automation does reduce costs, but those cost | reductions are even better in places where manufacturing is | already cheap. | | Semiconductors have a very high value to weight ratio, so | shipping them globally makes more sense than it does for other | items. | rdevsrex wrote: | Which is driven by concerns over the safety of Taiwan's fabs. | thereddaikon wrote: | The highest costs in Semiconductor fabrication are the | specialized machines needed. Most of them are at best dual | sourced. Many are single sourced. The fact a technician in | the US can make $100k when their counterpart in China would | make $50k doesn't matter when the EUV Lithography machine is | hundreds of millions of dollars. | andrewmutz wrote: | Who makes those expensive machines? Are they made in-house | by companies like TSMC? Or are they purchased from others? | And whats the geopolitics of that part of the supply chain | (made in taiwan? made in china? made elsewhere?) | pkaye wrote: | The machines are made by other companies. Lithography is | the most expensive now and its made by ASML in | Netherlands is the only solution for EUV lithography. But | there are many steps in manufacturing and a machine for | each. The major equipment manufactures are spread across | US, Europe and Japan. In the US the three big equipment | manufacturers are Applied Materials and Lam Research and | KLA. | | The costs are probably driven by extreme engineering | requirements (temperature, pressure, corrosive chemicals, | low contamination) and R&D costs to meet these | requirements. The production volumes are not high either. | Its not like they are building millions of these | machines. | | Asianometry on YouTube is a good source for this kind of | topic. | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ge2RcvDlgw | thechao wrote: | In many ways, ASML: | | https://www.asml.com/en/products/euv-lithography-systems | briffle wrote: | ASML is the very high end, but there are many other | manufacturers as well. Canon and Nikon both make | lithography systems used in many wafer fabs. | r00fus wrote: | I really doubt anyone else than ASML can do 4nm (which | this factory is planned to target). | brookst wrote: | Capex amortizable across the life of the fab and usually | treated beneficially for tax purposes (though these fabs | are so tax-special that may be meaningless). Opex is with | you forever and affects the economics of the business much | more profoundly. | fundad wrote: | "Tax incentives" like writing off Capex have been there for | the taking. So yes, the improved tax incentives with | bipartisan support translates to stability for investors. | ouid wrote: | the cost _reductions_ are necessarily worse in the places | where costs are lower. I think you didnt do that math right. | You might be right that the logistics for shipping silicon | are still so good that this does not reach the amdahl limit, | but it is not a consequence of your argument. | adam_arthur wrote: | The cost difference between US and China for a fully | automated factory is negligible. Even considering real estate | costs and taxes. | | No tax incentive needed to onshore in the long run | CHY872 wrote: | While semiconductor fabs are highly automated, the machines | are complex enough and do extreme enough things that they | break a lot, requiring human intervention. MTBF for many of | the machines used can be measured in hours, it's not like | you can set up and go home. TSMC has around 65k employees | overall - a cursory search did not yield their makeup by | job breakdown, although from 1997 through 2003 around 50% | of their employees were 'factory' workers via [0]. | | I'd expect high-margin items like semiconductors to be more | amenable to onshoring anywhere - certainly Intel has almost | all of its fabs in highly developed countries, but I think | this is hardly a cost efficiency move - rather it's a hedge | against the failure of globalization and the risk of the US | losing access to advanced semiconductor technology in case | of strife in Taiwan. Russia has already lost this access. | TSMC took in about $56B in '21, of which about $28B was | 'cost of revenue', the amount they needed to spend on | supporting this revenue (marketing, legal, production, | e.g., not building factories or R&D). There's certainly | room for increased production costs while maintaining a | profit. | | [0] - https://www.researchgate.net/figure/TSMC-personnel- | structure... | richardwhiuk wrote: | This isn't onshoring - onshoring would be moving to Taiwan - | this is the Taiwanese Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation. | philwelch wrote: | It's onshoring from the perspective of an American company | that contracts out to TSMC fabs, such as Apple, AMD, nVidia, | Marvell, Qualcomm, or other major TSMC clients. Sony is also | a TSMC client so if TSMC built fabs in Japan, Sony would be | onshoring. | lifeisstillgood wrote: | This is onshoring - to the shores of a country whose national | sporting league called _The World Series_. | | There is a distinctly USA centric view of the world :/) | _-david-_ wrote: | MLB isn't a national thing. There are two countries (US and | Canada) who have teams. | throwaway4good wrote: | This has got nothing to do with improved automation. | totalZero wrote: | It would make more sense to put the mega-fabs where electricity | is cheapest in the Americas, and that certainly isn't Arizona. | pvarangot wrote: | ASU has a good optical engineering program too, electricity | is no the only variable. | thehappypm wrote: | Isn't solar the cheapest energy per KwH? A sunny place like | Arizona with tons of empty space should be able to cheaply | deploy lots of energy. | zdw wrote: | There's also a nuclear plant nearby in AZ: | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palo_Verde_Nuclear_Generating | _... | | Nuclear + Solar seems like it would be a pretty ideal mix | in a hot climate, especially given that peak demand for air | conditioning coincides with solar maximum output, and | Nuclear could handle some of the base/overnight load. | jfghi wrote: | Do these plants not require tons of water? | zdw wrote: | from the wikipedia link - they use sewage/greywater for | cooling: | | > The power plant evaporates the water from the treated | sewage from several nearby cities and towns to provide | the cooling of the steam that it produces. | miguelazo wrote: | This treated sewage is the water that Vegas now provides | for general use, and what AZ will need just for its | people in about 5 years. Wasting it on chip production is | going to go over slightly better than the Saudis wasting | groundwater on alfalfa. | redtriumph wrote: | This may not be true today. But when I first arrived in | US in AZ, I was told Phoenix boasts highest numbers of | golf club concentration in entire US, despite high water | requirements of a golf club and being in middle of | desert. | | I suspect the ongoing Western US drought would have | worsened the water situation. | rsj_hn wrote: | Arizona has the reputation of being a desert, but in | reality it is a state that is half-desert and half- | mountain, and has a tons of water. Enough to waste on | ubiquitous golf courses and alfalfa farms. There is a | canal system taking the water from the mountains to the | drier south where people live. | | But the population pressures are realigning who pays what | for the water now, so I expect the alfalfa farms are | going to go, and chip fabs will take their place. | miguelazo wrote: | "Has tons of water"? LOL It is 5 years from rationing. | Vegas solved their problem 20 years ago, things in AZ | have gotten 10x worse. | eitally wrote: | The thing you don't mention is that Arizona is wasting | other people's water -- nearly 40% is sourced from rivers | originating in other mountainous states | | https://www.arizonawaterfacts.com/water-your-facts | rsj_hn wrote: | I don't mention it because it's not true. The idea that | if a river originates in one state, then that state owns | all the water from the river is not how ownership of | river water works. And in America, rivers often form the | border of states, so there are always competing claims | about which state gets which percentage of the river. | These are generally settled through treaties and | agreements among states, and those agreements were made | also for the Colorado river. Arizona is only taking its | share of the water as per the treaty, not someone else's | share. | miguelazo wrote: | And it's share of water was already insufficient a decade | ago, which is why the water table has run dry in many | rural areas, forcing people to truck in bottled water or | pack up and leave. | thehappypm wrote: | Do you mean the Colorado River? The one that flows | through the Grand Canyon? The canyon in Arizona? | r00fus wrote: | Yes, the Colorado River whose headwaters comes from the | state of Colorado. | StreamBright wrote: | It is but you also need controllable components with the | ability to quickly change output performance when | building solar as your peak source. Usually this means | gas turbines, in some cases this could also mean battery. | totalZero wrote: | I think that depends how much build-out you have to do in | order to install the kind of capacity required for a $40B | semiconductor fab, which would hypothetically need some | kind of major energy storage infrastructure or backup | source in the event that solar is the main source of | electricity. | | > Large semiconductor fabs use as much as 100 megawatt- | hours of power each hour, which is more than many | automotive plants or oil refineries do. [0] | | If a fab is running at that consumption rate for twenty | hours every day for one year, it will consume approximately | all of Arizona's 735,000 MWh of annual utility-scale solar, | wind, and geothermal net electricity generation. [1] | | Contrast that with the annual hydroelectric generation of | Itaipu Dam in South America, at 79,440,000 MWh in 2019. [2] | | [0] https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/mckinsey/dotcom/client | _serv... [pdf] | | [1] https://www.eia.gov/state/print.php?sid=AZ | | [2] https://www.power-technology.com/projects/itaipu- | hydroelectr... | thehappypm wrote: | Here is a solar plant in California, which broke ground | over a decade ago, that produces 550 MW of power, for | $2.5B. Build even a small version of one of these and its | 100 MW power needs are met. | | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topaz_Solar_Farm | Turing_Machine wrote: | The 550 MW "nameplate capacity" is peak. The capacity | factor of 26.6% means that it actually only produces | about 146 MW on average. Nuclear power plants generally | have a capacity factor above 90%. | thehappypm wrote: | 146 MW on average is still more than this facility needs. | j_walter wrote: | Nope...once all phases are built they will be using | ~250MW of power. | pfortuny wrote: | Not during the night and not when it is cloudy. Averages | are vey bad numbers for something which is on 24/7. | Turing_Machine wrote: | And definitely not if the clouds suddenly blow in when | the process is at a critical stage. | HDThoreaun wrote: | Electricity usage is much, much lower at night in Arizona | because everyone turns AC off due to temperature drop. | Plenty of baseload generators that can be better utilized | at night with increased manufacturing. | wewtyflakes wrote: | Do the plants typically run at night? Also, doesn't the | capacity factor account for these variations already? | Turing_Machine wrote: | No, you would need a large storage facility as well. | | A nameplate capacity of 550 MW with a capacity factor of | only 26% almost certainly means there are a lot of times | when it isn't generating any power _at all_ , or at least | none to speak of. | wewtyflakes wrote: | Right, but if those align with the times where the plant | is not used at all (night), does it matter? That being | said, I have no idea what the normal operational | schedules are for these types of facilities. | Turing_Machine wrote: | I'd wager a large sum that if you're investing $40 | billion in a plant, you're going want it running | 24/7/365. | computah4eva wrote: | HDThoreaun wrote: | Solar farms are one of the fastest electricity generators | to build. AZ will have no problem stepping up production | in the face of demand. | CydeWeys wrote: | > Large semiconductor fabs use as much as 100 megawatt- | hours of power each hour | | Ooof, this kind of writing where the author doesn't | understand units just gets my goat. Just say it uses 100 | MW! Geez. | totalZero wrote: | I prefer it as written, because the additional | information of timeframe for measurement indicates that | the author is not talking about momentary/peak power. | j_walter wrote: | Which indicates the author knows nothing about how | semiconductor fabs use power. Power usage is stable with | a few percent...and 100MW is really on the low side for | this fab. If all 6 phases are completed as they are | expected to be...it's more like 250MW. | samcheng wrote: | The cheapest energy is from a hydroelectric plant built | generations ago. | | Fun fact: That's why Boeing first built their planes | outside Seattle - the electricity needed to refine the | aluminum was cheap. | | These days, you can see that effect in the large | datacenters that have sprung up near the Columbia River in | Oregon. | | I'd guess TSMC's siting decision had a lot to do with tax | breaks, labor pool, and cheap land. | atlasunshrugged wrote: | Probably also hedging for geopolitical risk? Not sure how | only having facilities in a country at least somewhat | likely to be invaded in the next few years affects the | stock price but it probably doesn't hurt to put one in | the middle of a country very unlikely to be invaded and | very likely to want to purchase chips built domestically. | gct wrote: | Fun fact most experts consider the US uninvadable: https: | //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_the_United_States#... | antonjs wrote: | Cheap, _seismically stable_ , land. | wikibob wrote: | Seismic activity | intrasight wrote: | Also, I would think that lots of water is needed, and Arizona | is pretty dry. | JumpCrisscross wrote: | > _would make more sense to put the mega-fabs where | electricity is cheapest in the Americas, and that certainly | isn 't Arizona_ | | Geologically stable. And at least for business, politically | stable. Same reason Walt Disney is frozen in Phoenix [1]. | | [1] https://www.alcor.org/ | CamperBob2 wrote: | Ah, the lesser-known Pascal's Wager business plan. | WatchDog wrote: | Semiconductors are probably one of the lightest products | relative to their costs. | | So as you alluded to, the long distance logistics of delivering | the finished products, have a negligent impact on it's price. | tester756 wrote: | People are cheap in semico in compare to building/equipment | throwaway4good wrote: | The geopolitical context for this is wild; and in some ways is | Taiwan selling its crown jewels and sacrifying its strategic | relevance for unclear returns. | | https://asiatimes.com/2022/12/us-mulls-scorched-earth-strate... | | US mulls scorched earth strategy for Taiwan | | US strategy to blow up Taiwan's semiconductor fabs to deter China | might do more harm than good | | The US is mulling disabling or destroying Taiwan's semiconductor | factories in the event of a Chinese invasion. This stark change | raises questions about its capabilities and commitment to defend | the island. | r00fus wrote: | The "mulls scorched earth strategy" part is completely solid | game theory. | | Always make it clear for your opponent that your worst-case | scenario will result in severe blowback if at all possible. | Then you can a) try to ensure that scenario never happens and | b) mitigate the outcome or response if it does. | rsj_hn wrote: | But it's only solid game theory if one side doesn't have | escalatory dominance. | | For example, during the cold war, the US always had far, far | fewer troops in Europe than the Soviet Union, and didn't have | anywhere near the sea-lift capacity to transport the | quantities of men and material necessary across the Atlantic | to defend Europe. But we had nukes, and so we had plans to | nuke Germany in case Warsaw pact forces invaded and made sure | the Soviets understood those plans. Nuclear weapons nullified | the escalatory dominance of the Soviet Union in a land war | against NATO. | | Now, the question is, who has escalatory dominance in Taiwan? | It's clearly China. All the US can do is blow up the chip | fabs, but China wants Taiwan for reasons that have nothing to | do with the chip fabs, and would still want Taiwan even if it | had no chip fabs. Even if it had no industry or population | whatsoever. Whereas the US only wants Taiwan for the fabs, | which China can destroy whenever it wants. | | Unless we actually put nukes in Taiwan or commit to defending | Taiwan with nukes, China will have escalatory dominance and | not the U.S. | | So that leads us to the second question -- what happens when | you threaten to escalate but the other side has escalatory | dominance? Then you end up making the situation worse, | because you are in effect provoking the other side to begin a | chain of events in which you are guaranteed to lose. That is | _not_ solid game theory. | CamperBob2 wrote: | I'll confess that I don't understand Taiwan's importance to | China. They can put a certain amount of their resources | into taking Taiwan -- which will absolutely _not_ gain them | access to TSMC 's production capacity under any conditions, | due to a web of Western dependencies that runs deeper than | any rabbit hole -- or they can put the same resources into | improving their own economic strength. Why wouldn't they | choose the latter? | | The reason I say I don't understand any of this is that the | same reasoning should have applied to Russia. If they had | spent a fraction of the effort and energy they've | historically devoted to harming other countries on | improving their own country instead, they would be way | ahead of the game... yet they didn't, and don't show any | indication of changing course. | | Is the same irrational thinking present among China's | leadership? If so -- and their pathological obsession with | Taiwan certainly suggests that it is -- then things are | really going to suck for everyone involved. | rsj_hn wrote: | Really you need to understand your opponent's utility | function before immediately leaping to making summary | judgments that China is not acting in its own interest. | | For example, knowing that mainland China and Taiwan are | the remnants of a civil war, in which mainland China has | wanted to absorb Taiwan long before it had any chip fabs, | as China views itself as the nation of the Chinese people | as a whole, with Taiwan a historical part of China. This | is the Chinese view. You may not _agree_ with this view, | but that doesn 't give you the right invent some fake | view and ascribe it to the Chinese, one that is easier | for you to understand. 600,000 Americans died in our | civil war and great slaughter and economic destruction | was committed in order to prevent a portion of the US | from seceding. Was that irrational? Maybe to your payoff | function, but not to those of the US at the time. | | This idea that Taiwan = place where chips are made is a | decidedly American view but is not the Chinese view. | Chips wont be made in Taiwan in the future, and they | weren't made there in the past. Taiwan is much more than | this, it is a population of Chinese people living in a | region that was viewed as a historical part of China, and | thus China views Taiwan as a rogue province first, and a | chip maker second. Just because _you_ view Taiwan as a | chip producer does not mean that China does, or that | China even cares about the chip production nearly as much | as the "rogue province" part. | | Being able to step outside of your own values and | understand someone else's values is table stakes for | doing this game theory exercise. | | Moreover, the assumption that the military development of | China which is ostensibly done to become strong enough to | conquer Taiwan (but which would probably happen anyway) | somehow comes at the expense of Chinese "development" -- | is just not how China (or anyone else) views development. | Most people view development as both military and | economic. China's rise necessarily includes military | power, and it's not at all clear that their military | investment is so high as to cause their overall rise to | be slowed. Certainly the US is more than happy to spend a | trillion on defense each year and invade some country | ever few years, yet we attribute much of our development | to the growth of _our_ military-industrial complex. | | > If they had spent a fraction of the effort and energy | they've historically devoted to harming other countries | on improving their own country instead, they would be way | ahead of the game... yet they didn't, and don't show any | indication of changing course. | | That is a fantastically uninformed reading of history. | Either indulge in propaganda that vilifies the behavior | of your enemies and attributes to them irrationality, or | you predict your opponent's behavior, _but not both_. | Russia isn 't the one who invaded or attacked 125 | countries in the last 30 years. Is America acting against | its own interests by doing that? No, they may be acting | against _your_ interests, but they are not acting against | their own interests. If you truly believe a nation is | consistently acting against its own interests, that just | means you are confused about the facts or about the | nation 's interests. And if you think one nation is out | to "hurt other nations" rather than defend what they view | as their own legitimate interests, then you aren't tall | enough for the ride that is geopolitics. | tooltalk wrote: | >> The US is mulling disabling or destroying Taiwan's | semiconductor factories in the event of a Chinese invasion | | I think this completely bogus. Firstly, the geopolitical | tension in the region isn't about to go off anytime soon -- | Taiwan just elected pro-China KMT party last week. | | Second, Taiwan is one of the largest investors in China. In | fact, most of CCP's chip initiatives in China are spearheaded | by Taiwan-expats (ie, ex-TSMC/UMC engineers) dreaming of | striking rich in China. Take for instance Mong Sang Liang, a | Berkeley PhD and former head of TSMC R&D, now co-CEO of SMIC in | China. | | Third, those fabs are both capex and opex intensive. These fabs | are not self-healing perpetual machines -- those expensive | equipments need constant babysitting by various foreign vendors | just to ensure they are running 24x7. I doubt that Taiwanese | would agree to such an extreme plan. | [deleted] | MrMan wrote: | Why Arizona why not NY state | russianGuy83829 wrote: | Thats why Buffet bought that stock a week ago.. | brookst wrote: | It's good news geopolitically, and the construction will produce | a lot of jobs. But people should temper long-term job | expectations. | | This huge of an investment in a tech where TSMC will face | competition from fabs in lower-cost countries almost certainly | means the company believes it can use extensive automation to | avoid having labor costs sink their ability to compete on price. | | (Yes, there may be a window where they don't have to compete on | price, but you build fabs for 5-10 years of production) | bmitc wrote: | > It's good news geopolitically | | I actually think the opposite. It will be good for global | supply chains but not geopolitics, because it reduces the | reliance on Taiwan thus opening it up for assimilation. | mlindner wrote: | I think it actually increases assimilation with the US | instead. One of the things that improved US relations with | Japan when there was fear that they would take over the US | was when they started building a bunch of US-based | manufacturing. | kibwen wrote: | That's describing something different. In the 80s the US | was worried that Japan would dominate the US economically. | The dynamic here is that Taiwan is worried that China will | dominate Taiwan militarily. The assimilation being | referenced above is not between the US and Taiwan, but | between the Taiwan and China. | kube-system wrote: | The US has no such fear about Taiwan. Taiwan has a fear | that they will be invaded by China if they do not have | industry that is too important to China to be interrupted | by war. | brookst wrote: | Are you saying China is more likely to invade Taiwan if | the destruction of TSMC's Taiwanese fabs could be | mitigated by buying the same products from TSMC's US- | based fabs? | ido wrote: | I believe what they are saying that the US is less likely | to risk war with China to protect Taiwan if they can get | chips sources domestically. | kube-system wrote: | I phrased that wrong. I meant that they want to be | important to the world in general (and the US), not | specifically China. | baybal2 wrote: | ianai wrote: | Nope. Chips clearly have a national security component. | Ensuring local supply reinforces national security. Which | reinforces geopolitical commitments through making those | commitments more credible. | | Edit-removed a comment | SteveNuts wrote: | The geo in geopolitics means the whole planet, not just the | USA. Destabilizing Taiwan could have major effects | mlindner wrote: | > Nice try though. | | I think you shouldn't use that type of wording on hacker | news. It's clearly against the rules. | brookst wrote: | Even if it were bad for Taiwan, geopolitics is about more | than Taiwan. | | But I'm not sure this is bad for Taiwan: today, China can | wipe out TSMC overnight. With these fabs there will be | Taiwanese revenue streams coming from mainland US, which | streams can support Taiwan government and military. | | Walk me through why it's bad for Taiwan to be more | economically diversified? | Animatronio wrote: | Well for one the US won't be so inclined to defend TW so | much. Sure, there will be posturing, maybe even a proxy war | like in Ukraine, but generally speaking the US will not be | sending troops anymore, now that the golden goose has | nested on its shores. | boc wrote: | Or conversely the US will commit even more resources to | the defense of Taiwan now that their own domestic supply | of chips is safe. | | The US had no strategic interest in Ukraine yet we've all | seen the reaction. The US will gladly defend Taiwan and | create the hill for the CCP to die upon. | Animatronio wrote: | Now please explain why would the US send troops to defend | TW if there's nothing actually valuable there anymore? | Ukraine was hugely important for it's position next to | Russia, and so is TW. And still, no US troops on the | ground in Ukraine, and there won't be any in TW. This is | a smart way of giving up on TW without actually admitting | it, and there's nothing to be ashamed of, really. | brookst wrote: | You seem to be asserting a few contradictory things: | | 1. Taiwan can only be defended with US troops on the | ground | | 2. Ukraine has no US troops on the ground and is being | successfully defended | | 3. The US would only put troops on the ground to protect | valuable things like TSMC fabs | | 4. (by implication) if China attacks Taiwan and destroys | TSMC fabs tomorrow, the US would have no incentive to | defend Taiwan because the fabs are gone | | I don't see it. Ukraine looks likely to survive as a | country without US troops on the ground. Ukraine, as you | note, has no fabs or similarly valuable assets. Why can't | those exact same conditions play out in Taiwan, which is | also much much much harder to invade with ground troops | than Ukraine was? | Animatronio wrote: | 1. The topic was US defense of TW. How exactly would it | be defended by the US without troops? 2. Ukraine is | defended by the Ukr army - with copious amounts of ammo | and weaponry yes from NATO but no troops. At the same | time the US never said they would send the army into | conflict to defend it; when it comes to TW, despite the | strategic ambiguity or whatever it's called, the general | belief is there would be US boots on the ground. 3. The | US would send its soldiers if there was something | valuable obviously - be it fabs or oil or whatever, but | not just to fight China for a random island in the | Pacific. Otherwise they would have done it already on the | countless atolls that are being fortified. 4. Yes, pretty | much that. Just that it would not be obvious, but rather | a long war of words would precede it... Again, nothing | wrong with it. As long as no lives are lost I guess it is | for the better. | ti00 wrote: | Far beyond the value of TSMC, Taiwan is the lynchpin of | the first island chain [1]. Taiwan remaining friendly to | US interests is crucial to the integrity of the first | island chain and thus the US island chain strategy[2]. In | the event of conflict with China, control of the first | island chain would allow the US to effectively interdict | all maritime trade to China by denying access through the | chokepoints created by the first island chain. This is | frankly much more valuable to the US from a strategic | perspective than TSMC (though TSMC is obviously very | important). | | You can also note the importance that Chinese planners | place on this as well by looking at the Belt and Road | Initiative, in particular the land-based projects that | aim to connect China to European markets via rail [3][4]. | | 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_island_chain | | 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_chain_strategy | | 3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Eurasian_Land_Bridge | | 4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China%E2%80%93Central_As | ia%E2%... | boc wrote: | The US isn't giving up Taiwan- it's the perfect | opportunity to humiliate the CCP. China is in way over | their heads if they actually believe they can achieve a | naval landing on a fortified island without air | superiority. It would be an absolute massacre. | | Additionally, the US could simply embargo Chinese supply | lines and dare them to engage. | anonymouslambda wrote: | I volunteer you to go fight in Taiwan to "humiliate the | CCP". | dotnet00 wrote: | They might do it because of the value in denying China | access to Taiwan. Even assuming that Taiwan blows their | semiconductor fabs to prevent China from getting them, | there's still all the know-how and all the other stuff | that the US wouldn't want China potentially getting its | hands on, like American weapons. There would also be the | consideration of the risk to Japan (and other friendly | nations in the region) created by allowing China to just | take Taiwan without at least Ukraine levels of backlash. | mupuff1234 wrote: | I'm guessing Taiwan received quite a carrot in order to | get their approval for the TSMC expansion. | Animatronio wrote: | No carrot I'm afraid :D I think this decision was 100% | made by TSMC and the US. Both get what they want: - | continuity of operations and safety for TSMC - locally | sourced chips for the US and most importantly - much | diminished importance for Taiwan, meaning they do not | have to defend it with troops (which is the most | important aspect of war - see Afghanistan, Vietnam, and | so on). | bmitc wrote: | > geopolitics is about more than Taiwan | | That's obvious and wasn't stated otherwise. | yyyk wrote: | It may be a useful talking point to get the public to do the | right thing on Taiwan, but frankly there's no meaningful | economic reliance on TSMC/Taiwan and policy makers know this. | totalZero wrote: | Absent any form of fab redundancy in the global economy, the | fabs make Taiwan fragile in the eyes of the Western powers. | Taiwan is safer when it is not a pressure point for the | entire Western economy because it's easier to defend | territory that can withstand a few hits. | baybal2 wrote: | mlindner wrote: | > This huge of an investment in a tech where TSMC will face | competition from fabs in lower-cost countries almost certainly | means the company believes it can use extensive automation to | avoid having labor costs sink their ability to compete on | price. | | What countries are you imagining that will suddenly become | competitive in semiconductor manufacturing? As far as I know | there are no up and coming companies of note. (Companies in | China are not of note as they have been permanently prevented | from further advancement.) | anonymouslambda wrote: | "Permanently prevented" -- semi manufacturing is an | engineering problem, not magic. Engineering problems can be | solved, unless you think Chinese people are inherently | inferior engineers. | sidibe wrote: | Yup, this isn't making the cheapest t-shirts possible. The | cost of labor is nothing compared to the revenues. For a fab | you want a stable government and environment, and good | tax/trade situation, and reliable, quality labor. | Jenkins2000 wrote: | I remember reading that making chips requires a lot of water, | something that Arizona is running out of, will this be a problem? | jiggyjace wrote: | Arizona is not running out of water. There's a lot of | fearmongering surrounding water levels at Lake Mead or with the | Colorado river, but Arizona doesn't get the majority of its | water from those sources. It also uses 10x less water with a | population of 7m as it did in 1950 with a population of 0.7m. | | Arizona has a state-of-the-art water portfolio that uses lots | of reclaimed water and is not reliant on micro or even macro- | climate trends. A megadrought has impacted the area for the | last few decades and only now are Arizona cities talking about | the needs for conservation and possibly cuts in the next decade | or so, but if climate models hold up the drought will be over | in that time frame anyway. | nickphx wrote: | No, Arizona is not running out of water. | https://www.arizonawaterfacts.com/water-your-facts | usui wrote: | Is it plentiful enough that extracting highly-pure water is | an economically-solved problem in Arizona? | gjsman-1000 wrote: | If I was conspiratorial, I'd say this serves as a excuse for | building more pipelines for getting more water from other | states. | peteradio wrote: | What is the longest and (large enough) volume water piping | system in the world? From my recollection its not long enough | to significantly make inroads to another state. | | edit: I think I might be wrong, looks like China has done | significant waterworks across their country. | Vt71fcAqt7 wrote: | Why isn't it the same as say an oil pipeline? Those can get | really long. | nickvanw wrote: | Oil is significantly more valuable than water - the added | cost per gallon of water would be astronomical. | | 1 oil barrel is 42 gallons and costs around $75 today. I | pay about $6 per CCF of water which is 748 gallons. It | might be worth doing this with oil, but even if you | scaled it up, it would be hard not to have the transport | cost more than the actual water. | bcrosby95 wrote: | It would be cheaper to just desalinate it. | | Of course Arizona doesn't really have that option. But | California does, and Arizona already sources water from | the Colorado River, which California does too. | | Anyways. I think moving California off the Colorado River | would do a lot to ease the water problems in the | southwest. | CameronNemo wrote: | California has had trouble kick starting desalination. It | is an energy intensive process, and the California | electricity grid (especially in water poor SoCal) is | still heavily dependent on fossil fuels (even some coal | plants in other states feed into the LA metro). | Furthermore, desalination intakes can negatively impact | marine life, unless subsurface wells are used. Those are | more expensive and companies pursuing desalination are | not eager to foot the bill for them. Perhaps most | importantly, desalination (even without subsurface wells) | is more expensive than current sources of water in | Southern California. I've not even mentioned the | challenges in achieving safe exhaust of brine. | [deleted] | nonethewiser wrote: | Well that seems significant. | | Article says the chips in the 2nd fabs will be better than the | first. And will meet all domestic US demand. Not sure what all | that includes. | | I wonder how domestic the full supply chain is. If the US is | relying on China for rare earth metals or something. | akira2501 wrote: | > Not sure what all that includes. | | Possibly a lot of currently obsolete military equipment that | can no longer be produced due to lack of domestic parts | suppliers. | ianai wrote: | The US has rare earth mines and even more deposits. They just | got priced out through decades of lower prices for those | minerals. (Which just shows that resource allocation even for | scarce resources, follows financial incentives similar to other | financial considerations. Stuff being left in the ground | actually makes them available for another day when they're | higher valued.) | kibwen wrote: | Indeed, but rare earth mining also has negative environmental | impact even above and beyond normal mining operations. The US | is partly paying China to outsource the environmental | devastation. | akiselev wrote: | Mitigating that environmental impact is what makes rare | earth mining so costly. China is quickly learning that | environmental remediation [1] is much more expensive and | their appetite for destroying their environment for profit | is quickly disappearing, especially as the middle class | grows and moves up Maslow's hierarchy. | | From the article: | | _> "The rare earth industry is a pillar industry here in | Ganzhou and we must keep it running, but there's still more | to do to figure out a truly environmentally friendly method | to pursue sustainable growth," Zhang Guanjun, deputy | director of the public relations department of the Ganzhou | Party Committee, said in an interview. "Ironically, because | the prices of rare earths have been so low for a long | period of time, the profits from selling these resources | are nothing compared to the amount needed to repair the | damage."_ | | [1] https://e360.yale.edu/features/china-wrestles-with-the- | toxic... | Clent wrote: | No, China is absorbing the economic impact of destroying | their own environment. | | There is no blame to be placed else where. | | No one is tricking China into destroying their environment. | robertlagrant wrote: | I don't think previous poster said they were. | googlryas wrote: | China demanded it even, by basically cornering the rare | earth market via dumping | Varloom wrote: | The article is wrote for tech illiterate audience. | | They will use EUV for the first factory (2024). And High-NA EUV | (next gen from ASML) for the second factory in 2026. | | 4nm,3nm are just marketing terms, and means nothing, since they | stopped naming nodes according to their actual size since 16nm. | nicoburns wrote: | I don't think a tech illiterate audience has a clue with 4nm | or 3nm mean | susrev wrote: | i dunno, they can google it pretty easily | jason-phillips wrote: | > I wonder how domestic the full supply chain is. | | The supply chain necessarily includes some Japanese and Dutch | companies for their specialized tooling that cannot be sourced | from American companies. Many of the spare parts and raw | materials can be sourced domestically. | | However, it is ultimately unavoidable that many of the | constituents within these spare parts, repair kits and raw | materials would be manufactured/synthesized in China. | | (I worked on the supply chain systems and processes at Samsung | Austin Semiconductor for almost a decade.) | icey wrote: | For at least part of this, ASML has had a large facility in | the Phoenix metro (Tempe) for quite a few years. Assuming | that's one of the Dutch companies you're referring to. | | TSMC is going to benefit from the microchip industry that's | already in Phoenix thanks to Intel's enormous presence here. | fooker wrote: | What are some of the companies in the microchip industry | in/around Phoenix? | icey wrote: | There are a lot: https://www.chipsetc.com/semiconductor- | companies-in-arizona.... | conradev wrote: | Chips primarily require silicon, which is not a rare-earth | metal (it is rather abundant), but it takes a lot of expensive | equipment and energy to purify it and slice it into wafers. | | TSMC currently sources their wafers from Taiwan, Japan, | Singapore, Germany and others: | | https://investor.tsmc.com/static/annualReports/2005/pic/E-3-... | | (edit: that PDF is out of date, but the wafer supplier list | largely isn't) | j_walter wrote: | No...chips are made on Silicon. What is required to make them | into semiconductors requires a lot of special metals, gases | and other chemicals. They source those things from around the | globe...including Ukraine for things like noble gases. | pfdietz wrote: | How much rare earths do you imagine a semi fab uses? | Tempest1981 wrote: | Are the 2 plants side-by-side? Or some distance apart? | | Edit: I found another article that says they are at the same | site. | badrabbit wrote: | Don't these fabs need like an insane amount of water? Why would | they build it of all places in arizona which as far as I know | barely meets drinking water requirements (at least at some | cities) and is basically mostly a desert? | jasonwatkinspdx wrote: | They need a lot of water initially but recycle it as they | operate. | | Intel and ASML already have facilities in Arizona. I'd assume | TSMC chose partly based on that allowing them to hire out of | the local talent pool, along with incentives from the state. | duped wrote: | Arizona paid them more in subsidies than the other states would | adam_arthur wrote: | Water can be piped around cheaply. Worst case they pump it in | from nearby states | tony_cannistra wrote: | Arizona actually already does this, in profound quantities. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Arizona_Project | | The problem isn't the pipes, obviously. | | It's the fact that the 1922 agreement that divided up the | water in the Colorado River (upon which Arizona depends) | incorrectly calculated the amount of water available in the | river every year. | | The Colorado River Compact divides up 20 million acre-feet of | water. Modern analyses show that the Colorado river's average | flow is about 15.5 million acre feet, and has been less than | 13 million acre-feet during the last decade or so. These | reductions curtail who gets what water. | | https://www.5280.com/how-the-100-year-old-colorado-river- | com... | adam_arthur wrote: | And the Colorado River is the only water source in North | America right? | | People have a fetishization with hyping up disappearing | water sources as leading to mass forced desertions of | population centers, which is not rooted in any kind of | reality. | | We can already pipe oil from texas to Canada with ease, we | can do the same from Canada to Arizona with water. Or | wherever else. The economics and viability of it is obvious | and clear. | | Residents of water scarce areas would pay marginally higher | taxes to support this | tony_cannistra wrote: | > People have a fetishization with hyping up disappearing | water sources as leading to mass forced desertions of | population centers, which is not rooted in any kind of | reality. | | I have never heard this. Where are you reading that? | | Disappearing water sources are a reality. Time and time | again, long pipelines like what you suggest just aren't | viable. | | I'd suggest you enjoy some fact-based reporting on the | topic: https://grist.org/agriculture/drought-water- | pipeline-cost-we... | | The near- and medium-term solutions we need are solely in | use reduction. Period. | adam_arthur wrote: | Oil pipelines have already proven the economic viability. | | The choice of abandoning trillions of real estate vs a | 10s of billions infrastructure project is obvious. | | Article cites the cost as $14B which is effectively | nothing vs the alternative. Even $100B is nothing. These | two TSMC fabs are $40B alone | | So much fearmongering from economically illiterate | people. Use your brain | NikolaNovak wrote: | >>Oil pipelines have already proven the economic | viability. | | For _oil_. Water has far lower value density. | adam_arthur wrote: | For water. Its proven we can build many thousand miles of | pipeline for 10s of billions. | | Which is vastly cheap enough and sufficient to solve this | problem. Much cheaper than alternatives | mikeyouse wrote: | I love how arm chair engineers have solved the water | crises in the south by suggesting people "just build | pipelines!". | | Just the lack of understanding of like 15 different | aspects of the problem with that idea and the confidence | to defend regardless is kind of amazing. | adam_arthur wrote: | You're right, piping water from point A to B is perhaps | one of humanity's most challenging problems. | | What's really sad is that so many people are brainless | enough to believe that this is not possible to solve, and | easily so, once incentives drive it forward. | | Your comment does remind me of many of the 0.1-0.5x | engineers I've worked with though. We need hundreds of | people to maintain a mobile client, it's not possible to | do it with a handful! | mikeyouse wrote: | I'm sure those "0.1x" engineers found you a treat to work | with. One of the more impressive combinations of abject | ignorance and misplaced confidence I've seen in a long | time. Believe it or not, but there are indeed people | who've designed large volume water piping systems on | Hackernews.. | selectodude wrote: | Where is the water coming from? It's not coming from the | Great Lakes or the Mississippi River. Where are these | enormous volumes of untapped water that we can pump over | the Rocky Mountains? | tony_cannistra wrote: | I hate to break it to you, but your "economically | illiterate people" might actually understand some | fundamental social and political realities that you've | not yet had the chance to reckon with. Not to mention the | physical realities of water resources. | | Your comparison to oil pipelines is nonsense. Where to | start: privatization, a global commodity market, relative | scarcity, massive extractive capex.... Sure, we built oil | pipelines easily in the past. How difficult has it | become? Surely the capital exists. Why don't we build | more? | | Nobody is talking about abandoning real estate. | | The tragedy of people like you is that you provide a | half-compelling distraction. People | (cities/farmers/industry) need to use less water. | | The longer it takes to get people to realize this, the | harder it is to fix. | achenatx wrote: | water problems are actually energy problems. With cheap | energy, you can clean all water from residential areas | and you can pipe water in from where it is plentiful. | | Water is not usually created/destroyed it is moved around | and contaminated. | adam_arthur wrote: | Why would we practice conservation when we can spend | $30-50B in capex amortized over 50 years via marginally | higher taxes on the populace with minimal opex to solve | the problem permanently? | | Thats why they are economically illiterate. The obvious | and more cost effective choice will win in the end, and | it doesn't involve austerity and suffering and repentance | for high water use | tony_cannistra wrote: | Because it wouldn't solve the problem permanently. | | The folks who wrote the Colorado River Compact thought | they were solving the problem of dividing the river's | water permanently, too. They made it worse. | | I don't disagree that economics are a critical part of | this conversation. But I don't understand how you're | making the argument that enabling more water use, not | less, is cost effective. | | Even amortized across 50 years, $30B is more than the $0B | required if we just use less water. | | None of this even comes anywhere near discussing the | potential deleterious ecological (and economic!) impacts | of draining water-rich ecosystems by piping their water | elsewhere. Look to the phase-out of leaded gasoline as a | great example of how externalities matter. | throwntoday wrote: | I don't think you appreciate just how much water the | northern part of the continent has. | tony_cannistra wrote: | Actually, I do. I've lived there. | | Generally speaking, substantial alterations to | hydrological regimes can cause deleterious cascading | ecological effects. Just look toward the literature on | the hydrological (and consequential ecological) effects | of dams (necessary to divert water) for examples. | | One of particular interest is dams' tendency to reduce | the frequency and severity of flooding events, which are | characteristically necessary for much of the functioning | of floodplain ecosystems such as those you're describing. | | Such reductions can wreak havoc on biodiversity in these | regions. | kortex wrote: | > We can already pipe oil from texas to Canada with ease, | we can do the same from Canada to Arizona with water. Or | wherever else. The economics and viability of it is | obvious and clear. | | Oil and gas are far more value dense than water. Pipeline | transport adds somewhere around $5-20 per barrel of oil, | or $0.03/L. Some quick googling suggests Phoenix | residents pay around $0.00022/L. That's a factor of 142x. | adam_arthur wrote: | If they pay $0.00022/L then its really not that scarce | after all huh? | | True scarcity would drive prices up and increase cost | viability of transport, obviously. The reason its not | done right now is because its not an imminent problem | idontknowifican wrote: | it's an essential for life and the consumer price | reflects heavy subsidies | [deleted] | phpisthebest wrote: | >Why would they build it of all places in arizona | | for the Cynical person: Ensuring a future crisis is a sure fire | way to get a nice Big Government Bailout in a few years to pay | off the rest of the Capital costs that were not already covered | by CHIPS.... | king_magic wrote: | Access to plentiful, cheap water was a major reason why Micron | chose Upstate NY for their new fabs. | tony_cannistra wrote: | I came here for this comment. Thank you for bringing this up. | | Although Phoenix is one of America's most progressive cities | with regard to minimizing per-capita water usage, the whole | prospect of the city of Phoenix was ill-conceived from the | beginning. | | Of course that doesn't matter now -- the city is there. But I | hope that TSMC knows what they're getting themselves in to. | shagie wrote: | An article from August 2021: Water shortages loom over future | semiconductor fabs in Arizona | https://www.theverge.com/22628925/water-semiconductor- | shorta... | | > Chipmakers are setting up shop in Arizona as drought | worsens | | > Major semiconductor manufacturers looking to expand in | Arizona will likely be spared from water cuts induced by an | unprecedented water shortage in the Southwest, at least for | now. As part of the scramble to end a shortage of another | kind -- the global dearth in semiconductor chips -- both | Intel and TSMC plan to open new facilities in Arizona. But | they're setting up shop just as one of the worst droughts in | decades grows worse across the Western US. | | > ... | | > While Intel recycles much of its water, more fabs will mean | it will need to send even more water through its systems. The | company says that Arizona has been "vital" to Intel's | operations for more than four decades. The state is already | home to its first "mega-factory network" and its newest | semiconductor fab. Intel used more than 5.2 billion gallons | of water in Arizona in 2020 -- roughly 20 percent of which | was reclaimed water, according to its most recent corporate | responsibility report. | | > ... | | > TSMC said in an email to The Verge that for now it doesn't | expect the water shortage to have "any impact" on its plan to | build a new fab in Arizona, although it says it will | "continue to monitor the water supply situation closely." | gdilla wrote: | I was also wondering about the added energy needed to keep | the fab cool enough to work in during the punishing summer | months in phoenix. Seems like an odd choice. | coredog64 wrote: | If only there was a way to turn energetic photons into | electricity? | tony_cannistra wrote: | Thanks for sharing that. At the very least, Arizona has | "water budget" in the form of severely curtailing water- | intensive agriculture. | | I am hopeful that the politicians there are smart enough to | realize that semiconductor fabs are an industry whose water | needs are worth prioritizing more than farming alfalfa in | the desert. | | The problem is that these agricultural water rights are | old, and the folks who hold them are often disenfranchised. | Using a ton of water in the desert to farm is their whole | livlihood; we don't just pull people's generational careers | out from under them any more, like we used to. Not without | a chance at an alternative. | coredog64 wrote: | Farmers are selling their farmland to developers who then | turn it into housing. Everyone wins: Residential water | use is significantly lower than agricultural, the farmers | get rich, and more housing is being built. | Mistletoe wrote: | Should people live in an area with no water? | | It feels like we have so many problems caused by people | just not living in the locations in the USA where there | is lots of rainfall and water. I have tons of water, my | state just uses lakes filled by rainwater. We make | electricity with it too. | | https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Average_precipi | tat... | | I always find it interesting that people keep cramming | into the western and specifically southwestern part of | the USA. Like the original settlers just kept going that | way due to the human natural urge to keep going further | and hope things would be better over the horizon. I often | wonder what America would be like if the western US was | settled first. I imagine people would have noticed how | awful and non-conducive to human life it is and kept on | trucking to the promised land in the East. | khuey wrote: | The problem is less people living in areas with no water | and more people growing water-intensive food in areas | with no water. 80% of water usage in California, which | has 40 million residents, is agricultural. | scythe wrote: | If you live on a 20' by 50' plot that gets six inches of | rain per year, that's 500 cubic feet, or enough water for | ten people to drink all year. And that's low rainfall | even by Arizona standards (Phoenix gets 7 inches while | Tucson and the plateaus are wetter), a small plot of land | (1/43 acre), and ignoring any reuse or importation. The | Southwest has _plenty_ of water for people to live their | lives, as long as it 's utilized efficiently. It's | _agriculture_ that isn 't suitable. | | It's also worth recognizing that the western United | States _was_ settled first, as people came down the | Pacific Coast after crossing the Beringia land bridge | during the previous ice age. California in particular has | always been quite densely populated, and the only (IIRC) | indigenous irrigation systems were built by the Hohokam | near the Colorado Plateau. | | EDIT: https://repository.si.edu/bitstream/handle/10088/23 | 978/SMC_8... | | >The population [of California] cannot be tabulated by | tribes, but there can be no question that it was several | times larger than any other area north of Mexico and that | the destruction has been correspondingly greater. | bcrosby95 wrote: | Should people live in an area that needs to burn fossil | fuels for heating? Energy efficient heat pumps, which AC | is, only work on a relatively narrow band of temperature | differentials. You can't really use them in freezing | conditions. | | There's lots of hand wringing about living in hot, dry | climates. It's just odd to me because where people live, | in general, are not particularly amenable to the number | of humans living there. | shagie wrote: | Heat pumps have come a long way. | https://youtu.be/MFEHFsO-XSI gets into the energy | efficiency of heat pumps and their temperature | tolerances. | Mistletoe wrote: | Cold can be mitigated by enhanced R-value insulation in a | single application. Water use is continuous. | | https://www.energystar.gov/campaign/seal_insulate/identif | y_p... | | I don't really see a hot/cold stratification in this | chart- https://www.statista.com/chart/12098/the-us- | states-with-the-... | | And even then, the difference in costs seems quite small. | Alaska is $332 and Georgia is $310. | tony_cannistra wrote: | I hear you, but I feel like this argument is fraught. We | can't (shouldn't) really be telling people what they | can/can't do. | | We can restructure incentives, though. (e.g.: taxes). | Perhaps this is just kicking the ethical quandary down | the road. | misterprime wrote: | And food still shows up in the grocery stores. Yay! | icey wrote: | There have been people living where Phoenix sits today for at | least 1,500 years. The canals in Phoenix were originally dug | by the Hohokam 1,400+ years ago. Dutch settlers used what | remained to design the canal system that's used today. Here's | a cool article that describes some of what they built | http://www.azheritagewaters.nau.edu/loc_hohokam.html | downrightmike wrote: | These plants will be 100% recycling on water and Phoenix | gives a lot of water to Tucson to store that they could pull | back as needed. Central Arizona Project is a good read. reply | treesknees wrote: | They do need a lot of water, initially, but it was pointed out | that it's similar to filling a swimming pool [1]. Yes you need | a lot of water at first, however it's not as though all that | water is just being dumped outside to evaporate. It's cleaned | and recycled, and recaptured from the air within the plant. | | While Arizona doesn't have an abundance of excess water, they | do have pretty strict usage guidelines and rules in place from | the Department of Water Resources [2]. Assuming we can trust | the government's call on this (are they being objective and | fair, or tilting the reports to bring in Billions of dollars of | corporate revenue and jobs) then these fabs should have no | problem being supplied with water or impacting others in the | area. | | [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/04/why-intel-tsmc-are- | building-... | | [2] https://www.arizonawaterfacts.com/water-your-facts | Analemma_ wrote: | This seems wrong. Didn't TSMC have to throttle down | production recently because Taiwan had a drought? Why would | they have had to do that if the plants don't need new water | after the "initial fill"? | labrador wrote: | Apparently they've figured it out: TSMC tackles Taiwan | drought with plant to reuse water for chips | https://archive.ph/XIff9 | treesknees wrote: | Yes, exactly. In places like Taiwan TSMC just didn't need | to account for recycling/treating the water - I'm sure | it's cheaper not to do so. In Arizona it's a requirement | so it's built into the cost of investment. | yellow_lead wrote: | It depends on how many typhoons fill the reservoirs | though. This year we only had a few. | dsr3 wrote: | Some people said because Arizona is in relatively stable | seismic region in the US. But I don't buy it. TSMC fab in | Taiwan is also located in seismic prone region. Compared to the | cost of the fab itself, seismic isolation system is relatively | affordable. | dharbin wrote: | I heard a story about an Intel fab in Arizona that would | always produce bad silicon at a certain time a day. After | some investigations it was determined that a train passed by | at that time every day causing enough seismic activity to | disrupt the manufacturing process. | akiselev wrote: | They need seismic isolation regardless of where they build. | Cutting edge fabs require such precision that a poorly | shielded USB port can cause enough noise to create problems, | let alone the vibrations from distant earthquakes. (Source: | previous work with electron microscopes) | | Fabs are expensive because every part of building it from the | electrical wiring to the seismic isolation to the HVAC system | needs to be perfectly tuned to remove all sources of noise. | Most of these costs are superlinear if not exponential with | the magnitude of noise. | foobiekr wrote: | Logistics risks around the plant are not nearly as easily | done. There is an inherent benefit to not being exposed to | seismic and weather issues. AZ isn't a bad choice. | totalZero wrote: | Yes, but the cost of ultrapure water is essentially represented | by the cost of electricity used for purification. | downrightmike wrote: | These plants will be 100% recycling on water and Phoenix gives | a lot of water to Tucson to store that they could pull back as | needed. Central Arizona Project is a good read. | jimbob45 wrote: | I was curious about this a while back. My cursory research | showed that these facilities are actually phenomenal at | recycling water to the point that they're not actually guzzling | water at the rate you might expect. | | _...deputy spokesperson Nina Kao said via email that | "approximately 65% of the water used in the Arizona fab will | come from TSMC's in-house water reclamation system..._ | | https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/joannaallhands... | scythe wrote: | While water does seem like a serious issue, it also feels very | Monday-morning quarterback: _of course_ the largest | semiconductor manufacturer in the world knows that Arizona has | low rainfall. What I 'm curious about is what makes Arizona | _preferable_ over, say, Idaho or Tennessee. Proximity to | California? No freeze-thaw cycle? Solar energy? | robotnikman wrote: | Energy might be a big one. Solar is plentiful here in a state | where cloudy days are rare, and there is also the Palo Verde | nuclear power plant | [deleted] | klelatti wrote: | I'm interested in the financial aspect of this. Assuming US Fabs | are more expensive than in Taiwan that then must mean lower | margins or higher prices. | | I wonder if Apple for example has said that they are prepared to | pay a premium to ensure diversity of supply? | jason-phillips wrote: | The iPhone SoC was made by Samsung in Austin for many years, so | this has already happened. At the time everyone assumed that | Apple wanted to diversify away from Samsung for other reasons | which were not necessarily financial. | GeekyBear wrote: | > At the time everyone assumed that Apple wanted to diversify | away from Samsung for other reasons which were not | necessarily financial. | | When Apple was dual sourcing chips from both Samsung and | TSMC, the Samsung version of the A9 had a ~10% reduction in | battery life compared to the TSMC version, although the | performance was nearly identical otherwise. | | https://www.tomshardware.com/news/iphone-6s-a9-samsung-vs- | ts... | metadat wrote: | The article you linked actually reports the Samsung version | lasted longer than the TSMC chip (the opposite of what | you've stated). | | Samsung was on a 14nm fab process. | | TSMC was on a 16nm fab process. | GeekyBear wrote: | My bad. I should just say that there were the same | silicon lottery issues we see when we buy a chip from a | single vendor, eg Intel today, compounded by the fact | that the process nodes were different too. | | The popular narrative at the time was that TSMC chips had | the better battery life, but it depended on those silicon | lottery results. | | >What we know is that there isn't enough information | currently out there to accurately determine whether the | TSMC or Samsung A9 SoC has better power consumption, and | more importantly just how large any difference might be. | 1-on-1 comparisons under controlled conditions can | provide us with some insight in to how the TSMC and | Samsung A9s compare, but due to the natural variation in | chip quality, it's possible to end up testing two | atypical phones and never know it. | | https://www.anandtech.com/show/9708/analyzing-apple- | statemen... | | However, when the chips fell as they may, Apple single | sourced the A10 at TSMC, and they would have had the | largest number of performance data points. | tooltalk wrote: | dual sourcing? I thought TSMC's 16nm was just transitional | to wean off Samsung's US operation completely in favor of | TSMC in Taiwan. Did Apple "dual-source" at Samsung/TSMC | 10nm? or 7nm? | klelatti wrote: | I bet the Samsung SoC's were a lot cheaper though as less | sophisticated. Samsung -> TSMC got them away from a | competitor, possibly cheaper (US -> Taiwan) and onto better | roadmap. | | This is quite different and possibly a further sign of Apple | spending to diversify supply chains. | [deleted] | tooltalk wrote: | It was probably a bit cheaper, but Apple was Samsung's | anchor customer since mid 2000's. I don't think Apple used | Samsung's 10nm or 7nm -- ie, there was no "dual sourcing" | or "diversifying" supply chains to speak of. I think | Apple's move to TSMC was largley driven by Apple's | China/Taiwan first outsourcing practices. | jupp0r wrote: | Apple doesn't care that much about cost of chips. Their margins | are wide enough that even a substantial increase in chip | pricing won't significantly impact their profits. | [deleted] | nicoburns wrote: | I don't really think this is true. Apple's margins are so | wide _because_ they care about the cost of all their | components. | mistrial9 wrote: | this is profoundly wrong; Apple and other hardware brands | have not only practiced material source cost discipline to | the extreme, but their internal culture promoting and | strengthening that resulted in a nerdy work-a-holic with no | life to become CEO of one of the largest companies in the | world, specifically because he would, and did, put whole | companies out of business with suffocating negotiating | tactics over portions of a penny. This is exactly in the | pattern of Dell Inc, where the saying about commercial supply | partners was "those who do business with Dell, go out of | business" | | source- electronics recycling business in Silicon Valley for | a few years | tooltalk wrote: | Apple is known for squeezing their suppliers to last penny. | HDThoreaun wrote: | My understanding is the that the two biggest financial | advantages for building domestic fans are the CHIPS act | subsidies and lucrative defense department contracts that are | required to be sourced domestically. | | Not unlikely that there's a significant political aspect | involved here too though. | KoftaBob wrote: | I've been trying to build a habit lately of finding the primary | source of news like this, especially since news agencies seem to | be very hit or miss with whether they link to their primary | source. | | So for whoever is interested, this is the original announcement | by TSMC themselves: https://pr.tsmc.com/english/news/2977 | sdsd wrote: | Thanks, that's a really cool habit! Has this lead to any | changes re how you perceive news? How far does news tend to | deviate from the sources you find? ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-12-06 23:00 UTC)