duxup 4 days ago

Seems like this is actually happening.

I saw so many predictions of how this couldn't happen and "yeah but" ... but it seems to be happening for the most part.

  • CPLX 4 days ago

    Indeed. It's just bullshit, propaganda.

    There's simply no real reason we can't have a deep and robust manufacturing base in America. Well except for the fact that some specific people made a whole lot of money while letting it fall apart, and have paid for decades of media relations trying to convince everyone otherwise.

    If you're reading this statement I just made and want to instinctively disagree with me, start by interrogating your own opinion. Why do you think America can't compete with China, for example, over the long term? What "well everyone knows" facts are you using to create that opinion that you don't have any first hand relationship to.

    • tombert 4 days ago

      > Why do you think America can't compete with China, for example, over the long term?

      Not saying I necessarily disagree with you, but just to give an example, the US has considerably better labor practices and labor laws than China. It's not perfect but there are protections about making sure people are paid what they're owed, how much you are allowed to work someone, safety protocols, etc. All of those things could, in theory, cost more money and make labor more expensive.

      Compare this to nations that don't have the same work protections, where they can pay people peanuts and have them work much longer shifts with effectively no protection (e.g. Foxconn in China [1]).

      This might translate to decreased cost, and Americans have made it excruciatingly clear that we're apparently fine with slave labor as long as it doesn't happen within the US.

      [1] https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/chinese-workers-foxc...

      • bun_at_work 4 days ago

        Just calling out that worker protections and increased labor costs seem to be the result of workers making more money. As the work force becomes wealthier, they _need_ less money, and their standards rise. This means their labor becomes more expensive and they demand safer workplaces. They demand more time off. This happened in the USA and is currently happening in China and other low-labor-cost nations.

        I think the person you responded to is right. The USA can and should restore its manufacturing base, for many reasons. The whole country would greatly benefit from the return of blue-collar jobs.

        I don't have sources for this, but the info is out there.

        Also, there are a lot of nuances around this topic that I'm not getting into here. Just want to acknowledge that...

      • tehjoker 4 days ago

        Foxconn is a Taiwanese company. China's revolution is about delivering for workers. I don't get where ppl are coming up with "slave labor" when it is American allies possibly operating in China's SEZ that are doing the bad stuff.

        It's also simultaneously sanctimonious sounding when development is very difficult and America sacrificed three generations to industrial capitalism, stole half a continent of land, and used slaves to do our own development depending on how you count inputs to the process.

    • creddit 4 days ago

      > Well except for the fact that some specific people made a whole lot of money while letting it fall apart, and have paid for decades of media relations trying to convince everyone otherwise.

      Who are some of these people?

blackeyeblitzar 4 days ago

I like the idea of made in America and bringing manufacturing self sufficiency to the US. But I don’t like the idea of reducing dependency on Taiwan, which makes it so that the world may ignore their plight in face of increasing aggression from China. The CCP is an authoritarian dictatorial government that seeks illegitimate control over Hong Kong, Taiwan, Tibet, Xinjiang, and other areas. They need to be stopped and the solution isn’t to remove incentives to defend those areas.

  • genidoi 4 days ago

    There's a need to be pragmatic here; In the event of any kinetic Chinese aggression, TSMC (and other co's) fabs are going to be rendered inoperable, regardless of how well executed a US response is.

  • kombine 4 days ago

    The world will will not be able to help with their plight, just as it was not with Ukraine and more recently Palestine. Might as well secure the supply chain.

    • adamc 4 days ago

      We can do lots of things to help. But we need to get our military operational in that case.

  • alecco 4 days ago

    Protecting Taiwan would mean WWIII. I hope the West and the Taiwanese figure this out ASAP and start moving as many people as possible out of there, and destroy all the fabs.

    China is building more warships than the rest of the world combined. And NATO can't even recruit enough people to man their existing fleet.

    But it seems the West is a victim of its own propaganda so there's no political will.

datadrivenangel 4 days ago

These chips are still sent to Taiwan for packing, so it's a good step but not a complete step.

  • dgfitz 4 days ago

    Until 2027, yes.

    https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/gpus/tsmc-is-repo...

    "TSMC does not have an advanced packaging facility in the U.S., and its partner Amkor will only start packaging chips in Arizona in 2027. As a result, Blackwell AI silicon produced in Arizona will need to be shipped back to Taiwan for final assembly, as all of TSMC's CoWoS packaging capacity remains in Taiwan."

    • ttul 4 days ago

      Given that there may be a 25% chance that China invades Taiwan by 2030, having the ability to package SOTA chips in the US by 2027 seems "soon enough".

      • ponty_rick 4 days ago

        Would be interesting if China uses drones with technology from Taiwan to invade Taiwan.

      • risho 4 days ago

        where did you get that number from

  • hollow-moe 4 days ago

    what is involved in the packaging process ? I believe they don't ship fully assembled chips to Taiwan only to be put in a pretty box ?

    • mechagodzilla 4 days ago

      "Packaging" in this context means taking the wafer of compute die (made in Arizona), dicing it up into individual die, mounting it onto a silicon interposer (an even bigger die, no idea where that's made, but probably taiwan) along with a bunch of HBM die, then mounting that Si interposer on a somewhat larger, very fine-pitched circuit board ('substrate') that is essentially a breakout for power and high-speed I/O from the compute die. That thing is the packaged 'CoWoS' system, where CoWoS==Chip-on-wafer-on-substrate, that eventually gets attached to a 'normal' PCB.

      • ipdashc 4 days ago

        What I've always wondered was, how is it possible to do this process (or well, the less advanced version of it, for smaller/older chips) cheaply/at massive scale, for those ICs that cost a few cents in bulk?

        Like, scaling wafer (die?) production to insanely low costs makes intuitive sense. The input is sand, the process itself is just easily-parallellizable chemistry and optics, and the output is a tiny little piece of material.

        But packaging sounds as though it requires intricate mechanical work to be done to every single output chip, and I just can't wrap my head around how you scale that to the point where they cost a few cents...

      • eric-hu 4 days ago

        This sounds like a complex procedure. Are there currently alternative packaging facilities that could do this work, if Taiwan were locked into kinetic war?

    • SSilver2k2 4 days ago

      I'm making an educated guess but probably the cutting of chips from the wafers, placing them into the appropriate ceramic socket types (DIP, BFGA, SMD etc), soldering the line wires from chip to pin, encasing the chip, etc.

      • a1o 4 days ago

        > DIP

        I am happily imagining opening a recent Apple device and seeing 74 gates with through holes in green PCBs, with an Apple logo made in soldering lead marking in the corner of the board.

    • jsheard 4 days ago

      I believe packaging in this context means taking the raw silicon dies and assembling them into a package which can be soldered onto a PCB (or put in a socket, but Apple doesn't socket anything).

  • m348e912 4 days ago

    How does this make any financial sense?

    • snakeyjake 4 days ago

      The machines and processes needed to package the individual integrated circuits are fantastically expensive but the margins are so low in that step that it's only profitable at massive scales.

      So you put the fantastically expensive machines near where most of the customers are and most of the customers are in Asia.

      Works the same way with fiber optic cables. Making the long skinny bits is hard and high-margin. Actually turning them into cables is easy and low-margin.

      So Corning makes huge spools of fiber optic cable in Arizona, North Carolina, and New York (I think) and ships it off to Taiwan and China where it is made into the cables that you plug into stuff.

    • arcticbull 4 days ago

      Marine shipping is just about the most fuel efficient way of moving things between any two places, by a lot. A 100,000 dwt ship can get 1050 miles per gallon per ton of cargo. It takes about a teaspoon full of fuel to move an iPhone sized device across the pacific when I ran the numbers last.

      • umanwizard 4 days ago

        To ship things to/from these fabs by sea you have to add the cost of shipping by truck between Phoenix and (presumably) LA. Not sure how big of a difference that makes.

      • Vt71fcAqt7 4 days ago

        Interesting. Could you give a brief description of how you got that number? Eg. what factors were considered.

    • _aavaa_ 4 days ago

      This is how most modern supply chains look like.

      Plus, chips are small in size and cost a lot so you can fit a lot in a container. Per unit shipping costs probably come out to be pretty low. Especially when compared to the political costs and risks associated with not onshoring.

      • CPLX 4 days ago

        > you can fit a lot in a container

        Guys these are microchips on wafers. You can put a million dollars worth in your jacket pocket. They aren't being shipped in containers.

    • CPLX 4 days ago

      These are literally microchips. Tens of thousands of dollars of value in each gram.

      Shipping cost is fundamentally irrelevant, you can put $100MM worth on a direct flight and have room left over for your family and friends.

    • [removed] 4 days ago
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    • fblp 4 days ago

      I'm suprised they can't ship (flat) packaging that could be used in Arizona with a simple assembly line.

      If they had that packaging design then for this to make financial sense the two way shipping (and loading, unloading, custom clearance etc) would have to be less than shipping the packaging, the setup cost per unit cost of putting the chip in a box

  • rich_sasha 4 days ago

    What does "packaging" mean in this context? I'm a total n00b when it comes to chips.

    What comes to my mind is wrapping a piece of electronics in some bubble wrap and cardboard, which doesn't sound that hard...

lysace 4 days ago

Made using which process? The article doesn't mention this.

https://www.tsmc.com/english/dedicatedFoundry/technology/log...

  • entropicdrifter 4 days ago

    The smallest process they've got up and running right now is 4nm, last I checked

    • hinkley 4 days ago

      And for the record the A17 Pro chip is 3nm. Used in the iPhone 15 pro and the iPad mini.

      But they could make iPhone 14’s and the smaller 15’s.

    • drexlspivey 4 days ago

      So which device will these be for then? I thought Apple stuff are always on the cutting edge node.

      • hinkley 4 days ago

        Their new stuff is. The iPad mini just moved from the A15 to the A17, The first MacBook with Intel processors had access to a bin that was not generally available yet. The yield was too low for it to work for an IBM, a Sony, or a Fujitsu. But Apple was low volume and high margin.

        If I was nervous about a new fab, there’s the iPhone SE, the Apple TV, lots of choices for a less aggressive manufacturing node and less aggressive sales figures. If yield is shit you can still offer a product that isn’t killed by its own success.

      • kcb 4 days ago

        Apple still produces older generation devices long after the latest ones are released. That's their whole strategy to address the lower end market.

    • dietr1ch 4 days ago

      As an outsider that means somewhere in 2nm-10nm as everyone measures different things or have awfully off-standard rulers.

  • choilive 4 days ago

    4nm

    • lysace 4 days ago

      I thought Taiwan prohibited export of this kind of know-how? What did I miss?

notepad0x90 4 days ago

I keep hearing about a skills gap in the US for fabs, what skills or jobs are actually suffering from this? people with masters in nanotech, compeng, EE?

Perhaps there is a skill gap because nobody actually knows there is a demand? I have no idea what to recommend to people who are trying to choose a college degree.

With my industry in infosec, at least there are certifications one can take, even proper masters degrees these days. In my experience, there is no skills gap in cybersec, despite what CEO's and linkedin-types' sentiment. They just don't want to pay market price for skilled talent. "skills gap" has meant "we need more talent so we can pay less", there is no actual shortage of people who can do the jobs adequately.

Is it different for chip fabrication? and if so, how can regular people work/study to obtain these skills? If I, having read HN for years and reading about the fab process have no clue, how can regular people who don't visit HN?

If you all can help me answer this, I'll try to recruit a few people into pursuing the right career to help meet this demand.

seethishat 4 days ago

Off topic... Taiwan also machines and heat treats some of the best cutlery steels in the world. Taichung City is famous for this. This is not as delicate a process as producing CPU chips, but it is hard to get right consistently.

Most all major cutlery companies have product lines that are produced solely in Taiwan (Spyderco, Cold Steel, Demko, etc.)

It would be nice to see Taiwanese steel industy move some production to the US as well.

  • WillAdams 4 days ago

    Buck Knives at least, mostly manufacture in the U.S., and their 110 model at least still arrives shaving sharp and keeps a decent edge.

  • gonational 4 days ago

    High-quality knives come from proper metallurgy, especially as it relates to proper hardening steps. If you don't get these things exactly right, the best machining on earth is not going to produce even mediocre knives.

  • jenny91 4 days ago

    Sorry, don't think that's a national security priority.

bitsage 4 days ago

Funny enough, Fab 21 was announced in May 2020 and completed construction in July 2022, a month before the Chips Act was signed.

  • mywittyname 4 days ago

    The announcement of this plant coincided with the announcement of the Endless Frontier Act and CHIPS for America act, which is what eventually became the bill we call CHIPS and Science Act.

    This plant was the foundation that the CHIPS act was built upon. The Secretary of State had to secure an agreement with TSMC to build this fab before the bills could be drafted, as a lot of the recipients of the funding are suppliers for this plant.

    It is completely truthful to assert that this is the result of the CHIPS act. Congress agreed to introduce the bills as a result of TSMC's agreement to build the fab in Arizona. If you have to avoid giving Biden credit, then you can point out that it was Trump's SoS who negotiated this original agreement.

    • bitsage 4 days ago

      I agree that the CHIPS Act was likely contingent on someone showing semiconductor manufacturing could actually be onshored. I’m not sure I buy that TSMC’s investment was contingent on an Act that was contingent on them investing in the first place. It’s not like TSMC was ever going to get a check to just reimburse themselves. Even now, their subsidies are only for new plans.

      Intel, on the other hand, is a great example of a how a company dependent on the government funding for semiconductor manufacturing behaves. Heck, look at the Foxconn debacle; companies prefer incentives up front.

      If you remember, TSMC had the immediate fear of losing ~15% of their revenue with the Huawei export ban. I wouldn’t be surprised if that influenced their decision to cozy up to America.

  • j_walter 4 days ago

    What makes you think construction was completed in July 2022? The shell of Phase 1 may have been completed, but even now the construction continues in Phase 1B and Phase 2.

    • bitsage 4 days ago

      I’m going off the purely structural construction of the first fab. There’s a timeline on TSMC’s site.

souenzzo 4 days ago

Half of the works are from Taiwan All machines were imported to build the factory. USA can't do anythings without immigrants. China was able to develop its own chip factory without immigrants and without buying machines (because USA blocked the 'free market')

USA lost.

rglover 4 days ago

This is really exciting. It'd be awesome if the rebirth of American industrialism was tech hardware driven. It sounds like this being mass production ready is still a few years off, but kudos to Apple and TSMC for working to make this happen.

nottorp 4 days ago

As an european, all I wonder is if this will make Apple devices even more expensive.

  • yello_downunder 4 days ago

    My guess is no, it won't. This is US taxpayer money being used to increase the manufacturing capacity available to the market so that the US has domestic manufacturing when stuff goes sideways. A similar thing regularly occurs with auto manufacturing and manufacturing in country A usually frees up capacity for other countries, resulting in slightly lower prices.

    What could happen is that once the US has manufacturing capacity it decides to tariff imported chips, causing your country to retroactively do the same. This is decades away, and the US has a problem sourcing chips it can trust right now, so it's not currently on the radar. It's not something I'm going to worry about.

    Viewed through a pessimistic eye, the US finally is realizing that its arms production critically relies on chip production and it can't says its chips are US made when selling arms on the market. A change in mindset like this typically takes a generation and so even though this change in weapons really happened around the turn of the century, the people in power have mostly retired and the new generation now understands this reality.

xattt 4 days ago

Is this the first “Made in USA” chip in Apple devices since the Fishkill PPC 970?

misiti3780 4 days ago

How hard will this be to scale to up 50% of Taiwan production into the US?

  • bobmcnamara 4 days ago

    Hard, given how many Taiwanese workers they had to bring in, and how all the dies has to go back to Taiwan for packaging.

hintymad 4 days ago

Do we know why the US government did not promise to buy chips but to give tax breaks (or investment thereof)? Wouldn't promise to buy create a better incentive to the manufacturers?

  • kylehotchkiss 4 days ago

    There's just such a big shift between parties right now that when the current admin is done, you're not gonna know what to expect with the next. Especially with something that's more policy (purchase orders) than law (taxes). Better to just codify the benefits.

__loops__ 4 days ago

3nm? 5nm? What chips are being made? A chip isn’t a chip

  • foxandmouse 4 days ago

    If memory serves me right, it's the Apple S8 chip used in their watches, built on a 7nm process.

Havoc 3 days ago

Surprised they're going to apple rather than say military purposes

throwaway-blaze 4 days ago

They'll be flown from the US to Taiwan for packaging, at least until packaging services exist here. Then they'll be flown to China, Southeast Asia, India, or possibly Brazil for final assembly into an iPhone or computer, at least until lower cost assembly plants are built here or someplace cheaper like Mexico.

  • alecco 4 days ago

    Your comment is correct but this was already stated in earlier comments. This is probably why you are being downvoted.

disapointed 3 days ago

I'm not interested what Apple says. What they do in FB is so many posts they posting what ever they like even posts of almost naked women and girls, looks like prostitution in FB. They are saying is their right to do that and their policy. It is disgusting thing in my point of view. Used to be postings of my friends now is totally disaster.

bfrog 4 days ago

Imagine TSMC not getting US funds to bring over a Taiwanese workforce large enough to result in "Little Taiwan" being constructed in the desert.

zombiwoof 4 days ago

Make America good at slave labor again basically

  • hintymad 4 days ago

    Maybe this is the discussion worth having. Taiwanese engineers competed to get into TSMC. Their management practically lived in the factory to solve production issues when needed. The local workers in the Arizona factory said the pay was pretty good per another comment. Yet somehow we thought that we were slaving the labors? What is the fundamental difference here? Personally, if I were a worker who could find just a service job that pays $30K a year or less, I'd kill to work for TSMC for $50K+/year and learn everything I can about chip manufacturing in my capacity. It would be proud to do it, and I wouldn't mind some overtime.

    • [removed] 4 days ago
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    • hintymad 4 days ago

      And I'm not sure why this got downvoted. Not that it matters, but I'm very curious about why people were not happy with the questions. My fundamental belief is that if someone chose to accept an offer and then work hard, it's not slavery but free will. But well, I guess American culture is interesting in the regard. If I study STEM hard in school, I'll be a "teacher's pet" or a nerd who knows only "how to cram". On the other hand, if I free throw under a hoop 4000 times a day, I'm DA man and it's worth the highest praise on the level of "have you seen the LA of 4:00am". Or if I'm a banker or a startup employee who worked 100hr+, I'm building the future of the US, yet if I worked in a fab 996 on my own will, I'll be a slave?

      • alecco 4 days ago

        The same people downvoting you are likely the same who think doing 996 on the startup lottery is a good idea.

sylware 4 days ago

This is only the first (significant) step for the american continent to be able to build cutting edge chips (again).