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this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2023
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Morris Chang said it decades ago, but the US will need to import a lot of talented engineers and workers if we plan on actually having some amount of self sufficiency in chip design on the leading edge of the industry. IMO, there was zero chance they were ever going to have that fab running by 2024, just given the amount of time other fabs have taken from tool-in to production runs. But this sort of announcement means things are significantly worse than previously imagined.
In this case, it's not a lack of engineers. Taiwan leadership burned through their staff too quickly.
I've run into that a lot (mostly with India, but I'd assume it's Eastern society as a whole). Leadership isn't used to being questioned. There's a very clear hierarchy that must be respected at all costs. I think it comes from the caste systems possibly. When US engineers roll in and propose changes, they're dealt with swiftly and brutally.
(If you want to get philosophical about the culture difference, it's why the US comes up with big ideas, and why Asia is so much better at execution).
There's just an expectation that workers march in lockstep to the death, and US workers simply, culturally, are not like that. Especially not when they have valuable skills they can get paid for somewhere else.
Go look at Glassdoor for TSMC, it's not a pretty picture.
The US has enough engineers...no one wants to pay for them or put up with their whining.
It's more than that. TSMC expects American workers to operate under Asian expectations which is long hours for lower pay. They can't keep American workers b/c they just say no and work for the competition.
Whenever a company says "lack of skilled workers" or "labor shortage", just assume that it's corporate newspeak for "we are entirely unwilling to pay what the market demands for those skills".
If they really wanted more skilled labour, then they'd hire entry level people.
Shockingly, that doesn't happen. Huh!
Chang has been a throat slitter from the beginning. But the problem is lack of available engineers. TSMC even commented on that risk before breaking ground. They warned apple about it in 2018, even. This has been a know risk, and now there's a fab that will be waiting for staff rather than the other way around like it normally is in Taiwan.
If the US was smart, they'd offer targeted VISA programs for industries that have historically exported engineers rather than importing them. But that's a whole other incentive system with its own political issues.
I'm no industry expert, but I'd assume there's also a shortage of other things necessary for a chip fab as well. Machining, component parts, etc. It's not just the chip fab but also the local supply lines and economic infrastructure. That all has to be established from the ground up in AZ whereas it already exists in Asian locales like Taiwan, Korea, and China. Economist Noah Smith has been hammering about this for a while - he calls these network effects "agglomeration"
I think ASML has already supplied the tooling for the factory, and GlobalFoundries has open headroom for substrates. It's almost guaranteed that there's some delays in other tooling, but supply for the factory is ready to go. The longest delayed parts are already installed.
The wafer equipment market has more US roots than the fab market, as many tools are designed here (even if built in Asia). Their supply chains are different than TSMC/Samsung and less localized to "home country only". Also, TSMC was bringing their supply chain with them for AZ.
Can't say I'd be stoked to live in Arizona considering the recent heat wave either.
maybe I misinderstand your meaning but at its heart the real problem is that chip engineers salary has been stuck at ten years ago for about twenty years. Like 50k usd.
This in and of itself is not a huge problem but with no downstream opportunities there isn't enough talent considering a career toward the top of the value chain.
The 1980s and 1990s saw alot of people come back to Taiwan, but the 2010s and 2020s sees it happen in another direction (mainland, the salary is awesome).
Of course many will say factory workers don't need to smart enough to do design. but IC production is complicated and needs skilled labor with some understanding of what they're doing.
I've always heard Intel was bad to work for. I have to imagine that's if it's worse under tsmc, then of course people won't work there.
I can assure you, engineers are out there who want to work in the US - both local and foreign. They just don't want to work in Arizona.
The climate in California is already bad enough, but at least Cali has some upsides.
You do know that AZ is one of the largest engineering states in the country right? Motorola, Stryker, Infosys,Cisco,Honeywell, Raytheon, general dynamics, on semiconductor. And more that I don't want to type all have r&d and fab in or near PHX. This is all about TSMC coming in thinking they are hot shot and that their name is worth more that the paycheck.
You forgot the highest volume Intel fab in the world XD. But you're right Arizona at least has nice weather almost half of the year and tons of hot jobs in tech. The issue is with the work culture at TSMC and not the location
Cali is for pumping consumers as much as possible az is making the most advanced systems the military can think of. It's not a shortage of qualified engineers
It is a shortage of qualified engineers. It's literally that.
Giving green cards for Arizona isn't the issue, people will work where they're paid. The point I'm making is that TSMC is going to have to offer green cards for this work in the first place.
No, they just need to pay a competitive wage there's enough engineers to go around.