Isn't IC fabrication mostly automated? So wouldn't most jobs be in research?

It is automated in the sense that silicon goes in one end, and ideally no human being touches it until it comes out of the other end in a finished package. It is not at all automated in the sense that there is a ton of maintenance work on the production line.

I love reading through random tech journals, the type with highly industry-specific ads in them, as an insight into the worlds other people live in. Jobs and every day problems I will never experience first-hand.

One of the single most eye-popping experiences like that was an ad in a chip industry quarterly I found somewhere that was breathlessly advertising that their latest tool (a machine the size of a garage) now had an MTBF of "just" 27 hours instead of the previous 2-3 hours, a massive tenfold improvement! Cutting edge stuff, apparently, compared to the competition. The really impressive part apparently was that by cutting down on maintenance time, it could be "online" for up to 90% of the time instead of just 30-50% of the time or somesuch. Apparently that's impressively good in this space.

The rest of the ad (and much of the journal) kept going on and on (and on!) about how their tool has easy-swap parts, can keep the vacuum during repair, has tool-less panels, quick access, no need for heavy lifting, etc...

I don't think I'm exaggerating too much by saying that nearly 50% of all technical development in the fab industry is about reducing the maintenance effort, and hence staffing costs.

I can only wonder why one would use ads in an industry which is so specialized and has so few players. Wouldn't it be more efficient to just talk to these people?

I think they want to do both.

Put ads and positive press in trade journals you know your customers read. It increases the percentage of their minds you occupy.

In-person contact does that too. They aren't mutually exclusive strategies.

A lot of this equipment is so expensive, that the cost of a few trade journal ads is negligible compared to the amount of revenue involved.

Why would they do that?

The moving part? Probably because of better salaries. I don't know much about Taiwan and how nationalistic they are, but for most of the world working in the US is seen as the career endgame (or means to get there).

If the question was why would Intel invest into making the chips in US - from recent news it seems like US understands how dependent it is on other nations for silicon manufacturing, which poses many questions. The biggest one seems to be national security, which looking from the side is the only factor that gets thing done in US.

> I don't know much about Taiwan and how nationalistic they are

You will want to read up on The Republic of Formosa, WWII and the history of Taiwan at some point. There are enough Chinese nationals on this website to downvote us all but suffice to say, it is widely regarded at the federal level that Taiwan could come under siege by the Chinese Communist Party at anytime and be used as a bargaining chip with the West along with Hong Kong, the DPRK armistice and Western financial interests in Macau. We need to begin evacuating Hong Kong and Taiwan immediately back to the USA --in fact, China just seized a boat of people fleeing Hong Kong last night, the first time they have done that (and on what charges, nobody knows, not even the Chief of Police of Hong Kong). As the President said today, we are going to break it off cold with China and as you expand your knowledge of the situation, you will realize that China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and the people of Taiwan do not.

Hong Kong was legally handed over to China, but they had a 50(?) year handover period which they're breaking. Taiwan was never China's. A bunch of Chinese nationals went to China during the cultural revolution, and China would love to have Taiwan, but Taiwanese people are basically Chinese refugees and do not want that. China has been posturing to conquer them for years. My wife's parents (Taiwanese) immigrated to Canada during one of the periods of high tension between the countries. China was flying fighter jets over Taipei as an intimidation tactic.