Is America Stealing TSMC?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzZC6aFsk3M

by hunglee2 • 4 years ago

37 64 4 years ago

Not stealing. More like convincing.

TSMC was given it's monopoly through patents given by GE, it's hard to understand the levels of strange nationalism and subtle racism in many of these videos but from my understanding it's the fear of the US leaving Taiwan to China which is very unlikely to happen for the foreseeable future. Taiwan holding the semiconductor industry hostage is not very good for global trade. The Taiwanese as well do not experience an increase in quality of life due to it besides in small groups and causes people who wish to undergo this industry to not be able to find jobs suitable towards them.

yucky2• 4 years ago

"We gave them an offer they couldn't refuse".

Oxidation4• 4 years ago

While indeed it might not be a "technology transfer" in the usual sense, it seems to me that there's not much need for the US to actually use technology transfers. Technology transfer is only partly about being able to make things yourself to save money: it's also about securing the supply chain against "non-violent" foreign interferences: trade wars, sanctions, etc. If the US was worried about that, they might consider it, but no one has the power to do that to them.

Instead, this is more about physical security of the supply chain. They don't need to "officially own" the IP, they just need enough of it safe. They have other ways of making sure that they can have access to the results of that IP on favourable terms.

And, like oil, at that scales, it's not critical to be the sole producer of something, as long as all the other producers denominate their output in your currency. And TSMC already denominates in dollars.

lvl1022• 4 years ago

The tech is mostly from US funded research. Taiwan itself wouldn’t even exist without US military. Give me a break.

lma21• 4 years ago

lol, what kind of reason is that? Existing thanks to the US' military means what exactly?

Oxidation4• 4 years ago

"I put the food on the table in this house and you will respect me, or so help me God I'll give you something to cry about."

CyanBird• 4 years ago

To be an enemy of America can be dangerous, but to be a friend is fatal.” — Henry Kissinger

That's what the parent comment meant

refurb3• 4 years ago

Taiwan as a sovereign state wouldn’t exist without US backing.

And at least reading between the lines with China, Taiwans days are numbered.

They’re choice is move their factories offshore or give them up to China.

mrtksn2• 4 years ago

Lots of US funded research is also globally funded because US attracts lots of talent and that talent costs quite a lot to educate. If there weren't the immigrants, the US wouldn't be the tech and science superpower that it is today.

Kudos for providing the opportunities for these brilliant people, great success through the year of executing programs for bringing Nazi scientists, Soviet scientists etc. but if we are going to keep tabs you might find out that that the American science and technology is not that much American after all.

lvl1022• 4 years ago

You sound like someone who lives in the 50s. US higher ed is not funded globally at all. In fact US indirectly funds institutions abroad because many of the top academics were trained in the US especially in sciences.

And just why do you think all these brilliant people leave for the US? Let’s think about that for a moment.

porkbrain• 4 years ago

Seems like a well sourced video. Here are some notes of what's discussed:

- The factories are not joint ventures, they are fully owned by Taiwan.

- Build-outs in US are not going to be the most cutting edge technology.

- TSMC has ~$36bn in capital expenditures in 2022. The Arizona fab is ~$9bn a year. Majority of TSMC investment remains in Taiwan.

- TSMC produces ~15m waifers a year, ~80% produced in Taiwan. Arizona fab will produce ~250k waifers a year from 2024, ~500k from 2026.

- TSMC has at least 5 other build outs in Taiwan.

- The notion that US is going to be self sufficient in terms of chips thanks to the Arizona fab is flawed: 1. By volume, most chips are not what this fab is going to ship. 2. There are other chip foundries with specialty processes in Taiwan. 3. Taiwan leads the rest of the pipeline: assembly, packaging and testing.

KptMarchewa• 4 years ago

40 billion, not 9.

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-63883047

Oxidation4• 4 years ago

Per year, it's about $9 billion; 40 is the total.

vitium_casiri• 4 years ago

I'm pretty sure the first fab they announced was not going to be leading node but the one announced more recently is.

brookst• 4 years ago

Are the fans owned by Taiwan, or TSMC? Those are not the same thing.

And how many of TSMC’s 15m wafers/year are recent nodes? If the majority are 60nm that’s not a super meaningful number.

I agree that this TSMC investment is not going to make the US self sufficient by totally replacing all Taiwan-made chips with US-owned production. But I don’t think anyone ever made that claim?

dirtyid4• 4 years ago

Except video skips the primary purpose/argument of reshoring onto US soil is de-risking in case of potential PRC-TW scenario. In which case US will likely nationalize these fabs, aka stealing, for even the small but critical strategical capacity they fill. The more accurate assessment is America is setting up contingency to steal some of TSMC in event of PRC trying to steal most of TSMC. Or that Chang wasn't exactly enthused to build Arizona fabs, and even now question the viability with subsidies. Like how would one attribute intentions of powerful party A persuading/coercing weak party B to build likely loss making venture against B's desires, out of the way in A's backyard, on the premise that one day, A will confiscate venture from B.

Oxidation4• 4 years ago

You can even get ChatGPT to write an entirely plausible speech from the President declaring that event:

Write a impassioned speech for an American wartime president making a speech declaring the immediate nationalization of the Arizona TSMC chip fab for national security reasons.

Posting ChatGPT spew is very tedious, but it completely nails it.

rob74• 4 years ago

Why should the US nationalize these fabs? I mean, regardless of whether China invades Taiwan or not, the fabs located in the US are owned by TSMC, and TSMC is owned by TSMC's shareholders, which will likely remain the same regardless of whether the state of Taiwan still exists...

Frost1x• 4 years ago

Derisking and geographically diversifying these assets (crucial unique capabilities, technologies, skills, processes, etc.) are IMO the most obvious wins here. If there's a PRC-TW invasion, at least some assets will exist outside Taiwan that can be leveraged to scale out beyond going from scratch, this really gives a head start.

I'm not entirely sure the goal in the US is to nationalize the resources to mask a 'steal' although I'm sure nationalization is a thought out contingency. I think TSMC ownership and people of Taiwan wouldn't need much incentive to scale up and would happily welcome an onpour of resources from the US and other governments should China invade or pressure them. The US isn't typically in the game of flat out stealing although it's undoubtedly a last resort desperation option that's embedded in this decision making.

Also, if I were Taiwan, this helps remove at least one strategic attraction from a PRC invasion scenario. It takes the option of basically controlling world chip supplies off the table as an incentive for PRC. There are undoubtedly plenty of other incentives, but it's one less thing in their cost/benefit analysis of an invasion that could help sway the decision away from an invasion.

csomar• 4 years ago

They don't really need to "steal it" as in take it from their owners. The owners will own it in the US and will probably have an incentive to keep running their operation if Taiwan takes a hit.

It is getting stolen from "Taiwan", however. Since Taiwan guarantee for independence is the world's dependence on its chips.

blueflow• 4 years ago

I think "Waifer" is a spelling mistake, its Wafer.

grumple3• 4 years ago

TSMC is a public company. Last news I see shows a drop to 73% of the company being foreign-owned. The biggest shareholders are American. It might be more accurate to say it's an American company that operates in Taiwan.

oreally2• 4 years ago

Is the US chinese-owned because it's amongst the top holders of the US's debt then? Of course not.

If you think american shareholders have a huge say in the running of the company, or can claim their works and assets anytime like you've been saying, get real. American shareholders only care if the profits TSMC line up their pockets.

big8ang• 4 years ago

Force but not stealing

marmarama• 4 years ago

No more than Toyota having a factory in the US is "stealing" Toyota.

Manufacturers in almost all sectors, including silicon foundries, have had manufacturing operations worldwide for decades. Centuries even. For all sorts of economic, customer, and government reasons, as well as simple diversification.

Taiwan is still going to be TSMC's home base.

Besides, if TSMC didn't open a US foundry then the US government would just throw money at Intel's foundry operation until they caught up. They're not that far behind. To be honest that's probably going to happen anyway.

kimmik• 4 years ago

In 20 years when tsmc has effectively transferred to america, taiwan will stop being contested and go the way of other chinese islands like hk. This is the logical solution to the us-china cold war.

pjc502• 4 years ago

I don't see why the Taiwanese would go quietly.

justaman• 4 years ago

It will be a carbon copy of HongKongers

joshbaptiste• 4 years ago

indeed.. the US "strategic ambiguity" policy towards Taiwan is eroding as a recent major test against it was Nancy Pelosi's visit

eternalban2• 4 years ago

I commented on this a couple of months ago, after looking at a Global Times (purported cpc mouthpiece) cartoon when Pelosi was visiting. "Theft of national heritage" was an odd one to see, and it immediately became clear CPC meant the Taiwanese chip industry. The TSMC CEO also very openly said that post-invasion Taiwan won't have a chip industry.

I also agree with your prediction. If Taiwan's "Chinese cultural heritage" does end up in US, the only other matter that are Taiwan sensitive are controlling the first island chain, and Japan's thoughts on the matter.

thomasz• 4 years ago

Taiwan is the key part of the first island chain[1] that prevents china from projecting hard power beyond their immediate neighborhood. It is way more important for the American hegemony than Ukraine for example. I really do not think that TSMC is the deciding factor here.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_island_chain

CyanLite2• 4 years ago

Is HN doing so bad these days that we now have to link to clickbait YouTube videos?

wyuenho2• 4 years ago

Is HN doing so bad these days that people don't even bother to check the channel or listen to the first 1 min of the video before commenting? Take my downvotes.

gibspaulding• 4 years ago

I'm looking forward to a nicely packaged AI transcription service for videos. More than just generated captions, but completely converting the video to an article with section headers, screenshots, cleaned up text, etc. A lot of folks (such as myself) really don't like video content.

luma• 4 years ago

Asianometry is a pretty well sourced and researched channel focused on this exact field. I don't know that it's fair to call this "clickbait", the title is in response to a growing meme around Taiwan and the video makes the case to refute the point.

farisjarrah• 4 years ago

The video title is based on real sentiment from people in Taiwan. Asianometry is a treasure trove of easily accessible information on semi-conductor manufacturing, and business in Asia. I highly suggest you watch the video before passing judgement. Asianometry videos are no nonesense, no filler, and very eloquently explain current and past events and businesses.

ChuckNorris892• 4 years ago

Asianometry does some of the best, most in depth research for any YouTube channel I've watched.

I'm more convinced you didn't watch the video than the video being click-bait.

chrsw2• 4 years ago

I'm an American in the tech industry (shocker). I've worked in chip design, but not chip manufacturing. I don't know very much about the manufacturing side of things but I know enough to confidently say the industry is huge and very much entagled with the global economy. It's not going to turn around overnight, or overdecade, if that's even a word.

But beyond that, I look where our country is, our values and our culture and I wonder to myself "Do we have what it takes to compete in the 21st century?".

chrsw2• 4 years ago

I wonder which part of this got me downvoted, the 1st or the 2nd.

eternalban2• 4 years ago

(not a downvoter)

The timeline to turn the ship around is misleading, whereas ironically if you reflect on turnaround time involved in this critical industry should highlight what is happening.

Taiwan apparently got where it is because of a smart/lucky bet a couple of decades ago. When it made that bet, it wasn't evident it would lead to it being the king of chip manufacturing. As a strategic, capital and ip intensive, this industry is national security level policy for all concerned, consumers and producers and middle men, and instability in global production chain in this industry upsets policy and planning goals, and creates insecurities.

That a political disagreement (US & China) would result in creating insecurity, in a globalist context, regarding chip manufacturing for the next few decades, is a sort of crossing of Rubicon.

As for your second paragraph, don't worry: in the same exact way that starting in 90s corporate controlled culture (which is pretty much everything) had a coordinated campaign to create the image of the New Globalist American (went by a variety of labels) comfortable with the idea of being a "service economy" and their political views shaped to be adaptable to a internationalist mindset.

Now that the globalist project appears to have failed, the corporate media will in due course adjust content, for the 'Adjusted American Model'. You should watch for this event, I predict it will happen soon. Masculine will be OK again. "It's the economy stupid" are possibly the only true words that came out of that mouth.

Is America Stealing TSMC?

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