TSMC R&D chief: There’s light at the end of the chip shortage

Re:TSMC R&D chief: There’s light at the end of the chip shor... by winstongator on Monday February 28, 2022 @05:47PM (#30506234)

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.

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Re:TSMC R&D chief: There’s light at the end of the chip shor... by nomel on Monday February 28, 2022 @06:31PM (#30506700)

> 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.

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Re:TSMC R&D chief: There’s light at the end of the chip shor... by Sateeshm on Tuesday March 01, 2022 @12:13AM (#30509918)

I wonder if China already put a few Gales under the Walter Whites of TSMC

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Re:TSMC R&D chief: There’s light at the end of the chip shor... by Bayart on Tuesday March 01, 2022 @06:13AM (#30512681)

SMIC has been poaching engineers from TSMC for a long time.

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Re:TSMC R&D chief: There’s light at the end of the chip shor... by Traster on Monday February 28, 2022 @05:51PM (#30506276)

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.

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Re:TSMC R&D chief: There’s light at the end of the chip shor... by indemnity on Monday February 28, 2022 @07:08PM (#30507121)

Honest question.

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?

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Re:TSMC R&D chief: There’s light at the end of the chip shor... by thereisnospork on Monday February 28, 2022 @07:46PM (#30507535)

>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.

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Re:TSMC R&D chief: There’s light at the end of the chip shor... by dillondoyle on Tuesday March 01, 2022 @12:22AM (#30509978)

The same 10s of thousands of Ukrainians are taking up arms: to protect their country and fight for a more free future.

Plus the premise I think is weird. If China is going for TSMC that in itself is already full blown war.

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Re:TSMC R&D chief: There’s light at the end of the chip shor... by michaelt on Tuesday March 01, 2022 @05:06AM (#30512130)

> Why would they smash hundreds of billions of dollars of investment

Because that's what war is?

Do you imagine America would let itself get invaded, because their trillion-dollar jet fighter program is too expensive to let people shoot at them?

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Re:TSMC R&D chief: There’s light at the end of the chip shor... by another_story on Monday February 28, 2022 @10:19PM (#30508974)

Think about the reaction of Hong Kong to China, now add a military on the Hong Kong side. Taiwan would absolutely defend itself.

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Re:TSMC R&D chief: There’s light at the end of the chip shor... by j_walter on Monday February 28, 2022 @05:57PM (#30506341)

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.

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Re:TSMC R&D chief: There’s light at the end of the chip shor... by typ on Monday February 28, 2022 @09:53PM (#30508761)

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.

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Re:TSMC R&D chief: There’s light at the end of the chip shor... by eric-hu on Tuesday March 01, 2022 @03:21AM (#30511170)

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.

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Re:TSMC R&D chief: There’s light at the end of the chip shor... by seanmcdirmid on Tuesday March 01, 2022 @01:11AM (#30510277)

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.

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Re:TSMC R&D chief: There’s light at the end of the chip shor... by YetAnotherNick on Tuesday March 01, 2022 @06:32AM (#30512852)

Taiwan could demolish the buildings using house demolition grade TNT. It's harder to destroy the knowledge though.

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