I wonder if TSMC has a self-destruct button. I do not think they want CCP to take over those fabs. Agree, this is a worst case scenario, and we need to get at least one TSMC fab in the US.
> I do not think they want CCP to take over those fabs.
This makes the very incorrect assumption that you could just swap out the TSMC staff and things would continue working. Chip fabrication isn't just about pushing a button to turn on a machine. It requires the massive amounts of esoteric knowledge of all the processes, machines, chip design rules, everything.
I imagine the conversation goes like this "Sorry, Mr Xi Jinping, your bombs caused seismic activity that destroyed the calibration of our machines and of the the 5,000 highly trained engineers we employ, only 2 turned up today and I'm not sure how much work we can expect from Raffles the team mascot.
Why the assumption that Taiwan would choose death rather than give up their fabs to the Chinese?
I have seen this implicit assumption here a lot, but I just don’t get it.
Why would they smash hundreds of billions of dollars of investment for freedom from the Chinese yoke, if they have to choose between the fabs or lots of people dying?
>Why would they smash hundreds of billions of dollars of investment for freedom from the Chinese yoke, if they have to choose between the fabs or lots of people dying?
MAD, or at least MAW (mutually assured wounding). Taiwan wants China to know that a hostile takeover will cost China TSMC[0] thereby disincentivizing China from taking over Taiwan. To say 'we value our people over our fabs, please show mercy' just makes them all the more likely to be taken over.
[0]including associated international outrage over losing their chip supply.
There are a few key points in the process that you could easily disrupt and pretty much cause a scorched earth type of response. There are a few ways to do it as well...like export all of the photo masks to the US or Europe. Those fabs can't produce anything without them...and all of the ones for their Taiwan advanced fabs could probably all be loaded into a dozen or less shipping containers. Destroying them is another way to go about it if you can't get them out of the country safely.
You don't really need it.
The semiconductor industry relies on equipment and materials from the global supply chain, in particular, the suppliers from Europe, Japan and the US. It's a team game.
If the democratic world stopped doing business with TSMC (i.e., a sanction), it would have barely any chance to survive, let alone maintaining the position as an industry leader.
I've wondered this as well -- and I wouldn't limit it to TSMC leadership. It could be a Taiwanese program or even a CIA one.
For the other replies to you saying that they can't just use the machines, China has been and likely still is trying to poach semiconductor expertise from Taiwan. One thing they lack is EUV lithography machines. I'm not sure if they ever got to purchase any, but the US government has blocked ASML from selling any to China.
They rely on a lot of equipment and materials from the west, and there are many production secrets that are kept under lock and key in the states. So they couldn’t operate for very long without fab equipment from the USA and Germany (which is intentional). It’s like Iran’s F14s, hard to keep going without spare parts.
"Edwin Hubble and Grote Reber — could there be more than a cosmic connection between them, both being astronomers, one optical and the other radio? Yes, it turns out, there is.
Around 1900 the Hubble family lived in Wheaton, Illinois, and as his 7th and 8th grade teacher young Edwin Hubble had a Miss Harriet Grote who later married Schuyler Reber and bore him Grote Reber as their first son. She often commented to Grote that young Edwin Hubble stood out from other students in his class and that she felt he would go far. In later years, when Hubble's fame was spreading she took special pride in his accomplishments and that she had been his teacher."
This is how the semiconductor industry used to work - boom bust cycles. The author is probably right that lots of supply will come online at the same time, probably overshooting demand. There’s lots of demand still though, and possibly dealt with by not running balls out 24/7. They’ve been at max capacity for a while and not running at that point might be good for everyone.
It’s not about memorizing. Technical material needs to be used to understand. At least take notes and at best do problems. Keep a google doc or other notebook while you’re reading. Review chapters after you finish them. Review the book when you finish it. You’ll need to put in time above just the time reading.
I think you’re very naive as to how revolutionary the discoveries and inventions of Bell Labs truly were. Apple is not doing any fundamental research the way Bell Labs did. Every piece of electronics today uses transistors originally patented by BL. Bell Labs in 80 is like Microsoft 10 years ago. What real inventions had they come up with then? They’ve been a monopoly for 25+ years and what have they produced?
There’s lots of ground breaking work being done at labs today, I just don’t think they’ll be winning Nobels like Bell Labs was. Bell Labs has 9 Nobel prizes. Make a measurable claim on how many google research will get, and I’ll wager against it.
> Every piece of electronics today uses transistors originally patented by BL
And understanding quantum mechanics really enabled transistors, so the folks making the transistor didn't really do anything fundamental. Oh, and calculus in mathematics enabled understanding of quantum mechanics really, so all the physicist did was put a bunch of math symbols together, mathematics is the real innovation here — you see where I'm going with this?
I agree with this. Apple, a huge part of spy, does tens of billions of business outside the US. Most of the rest of the S&P 500 also. Using US GDP as a denominator is faulty when the stocks in the numerator are worldwide leaders. It’s a simplistic measure that I wouldn’t base my investments on.
