Taiwan says destroying TSMC in the event of a Chinese invasion is unnecessary:
Once again, rising tensions between China and the US have put the spotlight on Taiwan and what would happen to TSMC, which manufactures more than half the world's semiconductors, in the event of an invasion. One proposal is to destroy the company's facilities, but the island's security chief said such a move is unnecessary.
Chen Ming-tong, director-general of Taiwan's National Security Bureau, told lawmakers (via Bloomberg) that TSMC's reliance on overseas companies and supplies for its operations means the facilities would be useless if China took over Taiwan.
"If you understand the ecosystem of TSMC, the comments out there are unrealistic," Chen said. "TSMC needs to integrate global elements before producing high-end chips. Without components or equipment like ASML's lithography equipment, without any key components, there is no way TSMC can continue its production."
[...] The US is said to be considering the evacuation of TSMC chip engineers in the event of a Chinese invasion, something the US National Security Council estimates would impact the world economy by more than $1 trillion. Former US officials have suggested making it clear to China that the semiconductor giant's facilities would be destroyed by the US if the attack occurred, thereby prevented TSMC from falling into Chinese hands.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by pkrasimirov on Friday October 14 2022, @12:57PM (11 children)
With TSMC destroyed the remaining fabs are all in China mainland, right?
(Score: 1, Troll) by canopic jug on Friday October 14 2022, @02:15PM (4 children)
Having read the summary, the article, and the first comment, I have to ask, what's a TSMC?
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Friday October 14 2022, @02:25PM (1 child)
https://www.tsmc.com/english [tsmc.com]
"It is easier to fool someone than it is to convince them that they have been fooled" Mark Twain
(Score: 3, Informative) by canopic jug on Friday October 14 2022, @02:35PM
Thanks. At the bottom of that link it says, "Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited".
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by legont on Saturday October 15 2022, @01:24AM (1 child)
That's the joint making everything you possess.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 16 2022, @04:07AM
(Score: 2) by tekk on Friday October 14 2022, @03:16PM (1 child)
I think Samsung has some fabs of its own, at least. I know Intel also has fabs but I don't know where they are.
(Score: 5, Informative) by RS3 on Friday October 14 2022, @05:27PM
Intel fab list:
https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000089875/programs/intel-corporation.html [intel.com]
More generally:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_semiconductor_fabrication_plants [wikipedia.org]
Many ways to look at the very long list. One of the most important factors is smallest feature size capability, column labeled "Process Technology Node (nm)". Many don't list that capability, but it's generally accepted that TSMC has some of the most advanced capability: to pack the most number of transistors into a given "chip" size.
IBM used to have some of the best in the world. Not expert, but what little I pay attention to these things it seems that global economics, MBAs, etc., caused them to focus on other markets and business activities. Their fabs are now part of "Global Foundries" [wikipedia.org]. Glancing at that makes me close the tab- it's such a complex interconnected / entangled mess, and changing by the nanosecond (thank you Wall Street...)
(Score: 4, Informative) by takyon on Friday October 14 2022, @03:43PM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_semiconductor_fabrication_plants [wikipedia.org]
TSMC is building a fab in Arizona that will make down to "4nm" chips ("4nm" is a "5nm class" node, should be design compatible). They aren't putting their best in the U.S., but it is not bad at all.
TSMC has a couple of fabs in mainland China, but they are on "28nm" last time I checked. That will not improve because of export restrictions.
Intel has good fabs in the U.S. and other places. Most of the good Samsung fabs are in South Korea, but they are spending $200 billion on fabs in Texas. GlobalFoundries famously dropped out of the race to "7nm", but they have a vastly improved "12LP+" process, made in New York:
https://www.anandtech.com/show/14905/globalfoundries-unveils-12lp-technology-massive-performance-power-improvements [anandtech.com]
https://www.eejournal.com/article/globalfoundries-chases-down-a-different-semiconductor-rabbit-hole/ [eejournal.com]
https://www.forbes.com/sites/tiriasresearch/2022/05/24/globalfoundries-finally-hits-its-stride-on-the-road-not-taken/ [forbes.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 5, Interesting) by jon3k on Saturday October 15 2022, @01:09AM (1 child)
Yes, the biggest is SMIC. They do not have any EUV just DUV but they can produce a relatively modern node themselves, at least 7nm [scmp.com]. The general consensus is they are not at a point where they could build a general purpose CPU on that node but it was a surprise for a lot of people that they could produce them at all.
With all that said it's important to understand that Biden's new sanctions last Friday are going to absolutely cripple China's domestic semiconductor industry [twitter.com]. This twitter thread (I apologize up front for linking twitter) might be a little overly dramatic but there is no question that these are going to have a massive impact on China's ability to produce microprocessors.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday October 16 2022, @06:49PM
The scope of that was astonishing. And of course, a decision that important would be buried in a bureaucratic announcement on Friday. My take though is that it'll hurt the US in the long run. If American engineers and executives can't do the job, then non-American ones will. And China will end up trading more with the countries that aren't interested in this hubbub.
I don't know the actual purpose of these sanctions - don't buy the official story given for that, but my take is that this is willful sabotage of the global system and the US's place in that.
(Score: 2) by crafoo on Saturday October 15 2022, @01:36PM
Nothing that can produce the tech that TSMC can. Russia and China both have tried multiple times to start native semiconductor sectors in their economy that could rival what the free market produces. Both have always failed. It's a very complex problem. The supply chain for absolutely critical equipment and technology is spread across the world. The lithography machines in particular. Let's not even talk about the corruption. It's a factor, but not the defining factor in their failures.
It's a problem of knowing in theory what must be done, but then actually implementing solutions to these problems is where the _real_ value is at. Top-down funded endeavors to replicate free market solutions just fail. The businesses are just too complex to be orchestrated from above. The authority to make the business and technology decisions must be pushed down to the lowest level feasible if you want success: i.e. the free market.
So no, the remaining worldwide fabs will not be in China. Not the fabs that can produce anything more complex than 30 year old technology. An LEDs. Billions and billions of LEDs. Which was the only success story of the Chinese direct-economy attempts into semiconductors.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by shrewdsheep on Friday October 14 2022, @02:35PM (4 children)
The reasoning from TFS seems to be flawed. ASML produces machines, which are currently working at TSMC. I understand that ASML has self-shutdown mechanisms in place to protect their IP but I am not aware of remote death-switches. As described in TFS, China would be expressly capable to continue operations after seizing the factories.
The sweet revenge of Taiwan would be to not shut down operations but to introduce production errors making most samples (let's say 99%) unusable. This error mode would be triggered by failing to connect to some remote server by key production machines (like those from ASML) or explicitly entered by actions of executives.
(Score: 3, Informative) by legont on Saturday October 15 2022, @01:03AM (1 child)
Besides, ASML, which is Dutch, has roughly 5000 subsidiaries. I imagine many of them are Chinese. Likely more than half.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 3, Informative) by quietus on Saturday October 15 2022, @09:29AM
They have 22 subsidiaries, of which one is in China (Tianjin), and one is in Hong Kong.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by jon3k on Saturday October 15 2022, @01:12AM (1 child)
This had me scratching my head as well. I do know that they have consumables obviously to produce CPU, I think liquid fluoride, typically provided by Japan was one important consumable. I don't know what other things are required to keep TSMC lithography machines producing CPU. I also don't know how frequently parts where out, like the masks maybe? And what kind of maintenance do they need and how exotic are those parts? I don't think its as simple as buying a machine and being able to run it completely independently from the rest of the world. Or at least not for long.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by legont on Saturday October 15 2022, @01:44AM
Given that Steve Jobs tried and failed, twice, you are right with your questions.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 5, Informative) by oumuamua on Friday October 14 2022, @04:44PM (5 children)
He predicted rising tensions with China 9 years ago and made a video "Can China Rise Peacefully"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DMn4PmiDeQ [youtube.com]
Note lecture is only half the video length rest is questions and answers and last question is best one; 'the preventive war argument, go to war now before China gets too strong'
(Score: 4, Insightful) by khallow on Friday October 14 2022, @09:56PM (4 children)
What could a preventative war prevent? China already has a strong economy, powerful army, and nuclear forces. Unless you go all out with the nuclear war, you're not going to have a serious impact on that and even then, China is going to take a lot of US people with them.
The cat is out of the bag. Sure, a US military defeat would be more humiliating or certain in the future, but the time for that preventative war would have been before the Second World War (and it probably wouldn't have worked then either). There's been no time since where it would have made sense.
And given Mearsheimer's apologism [soylentnews.org] for Russia, he has a peculiar selectivity when it comes to which countries the US should interfere in via war.
I think instead it's time for that soft power that the US is famous for. A Chinese democracy will be far less threatening than what they have now. Time to work on making that happen. Supposedly the US is really good at color revolutions.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 15 2022, @01:18AM
Some countries, supposedly, are good at election of the US presidents too. I mean look - a Russian spy followed by a retard. They fucked up the revolt, but it was just first and not well armed attempt.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 15 2022, @08:06PM
I agree with your conclusion, but it might be a pipe dream. I think the worst thing that people do, in arrogance, is to assume to understand other cultures, and then proceed to try to win them over by arrogantly effectively saying "see, look at us, you'll love to become like us". This has been proven time and again around the world. Trying to deal with Islam, for example. Much of the Western World embraces, to some degree, religious freedom. It's critically important to keep in mind that for some people, their religion is by far top priority. In fact, religious freedom is an affront to Islam ("death to infidels", literally).
I don't fully understand Chinese culture, and for sure much of China is controlled by very strong policing and fear of police and government. People "disappear". I think Douglas MacArthur [wikipedia.org] saw the "handwriting on the wall", so to speak. That said, even if he had been allowed to continue and knock down the Chinese military, I think they'd still be hellbent on world domination; it just would have been delayed, past our lifetimes. Putin is a kitten compared to what is coming from Xi.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 16 2022, @10:14AM (1 child)
I think the US should regime-change itself first. The current and previous bunch of leaders don't appear that good. Do they even have the support of the majority of the US residents? ;)
See also:
https://thefulcrum.us/worst-gerrymandering-districts-example [thefulcrum.us]
https://www.forbes.com/2010/05/13/third-parties-fusion-voting-elections-opinions-columnists-bruce-bartlett.html?sh=4007ef1b5f7a [forbes.com]
https://psmag.com/news/how-states-are-blocking-a-third-party-run [psmag.com]
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Sunday October 16 2022, @05:39PM
With votes that bogus why are we to suppose that Putin has majority support in Russia? Nobody killed him yet?
(Score: 5, Informative) by legont on Saturday October 15 2022, @01:29AM
The other day Biden sanctioned China anything below 16nm.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.