Chipmaker TSMC to build 'up to five' more factories in Arizona TSMC is said to be considering building up to five additional chip plants in Arizona as well as the one it announced last year. Under the previous president, the US government wooed the Taiwanese chipmaker into opening another semiconductor fabrication plant on US soil – the biz has a subsidiary in Washington state turning out …
I agree. I would hope that, when (not if) China does invade Taiwan, the Taiwanese have already planted huge explosives around the chip factories ready to detonate when all the workers are well away. Failing that, I hope the US destroys them in such an event. We can't risk that technology falling into the hands of the CCP.
> I would hope that, when (not if) China does invade Taiwan, the Taiwanese have already planted huge explosives around the chip factories ready to detonate when all the workers are well away.
I am trying to picture that happening,
Worker 1: What is with all those barrels that they are placing around, inside and outside, the building ? You know the new barrels, the ones with the big clocks on the front and antennas on the top.
Worker 2: No idea. Did you hear about the new smoking ban, we are not allowed to smoke anywhere now.
Worker 1: That is fubar, screw that I'm going to vape in my bunny suit!
They view them as sort of a "misguided sibling", they don't want to kill their people but Taiwan would not go down without putting up a fight even if no one came to their aid. Nor would invading Taiwan give them TSMC's fabs. Fab equipment is some of the most sensitive and precisely calibrated equipment in the world. TSMC doesn't need to "plant explosives" to destroy the fab, that would be like using a nuke to destroy a library when a single match will do.
That equipment is probably useless without constant vendor engineering support to keep it in working order, support that ASML would not be providing for the same reason they aren't selling EUV equipment to China. China would get themselves a bunch of buildings with super expensive but mostly useless equipment even if TSMC employees didn't sabotage anything on their way out the door.
They also couldn't effect a takeover of the entire country instantly, so if one began no doubt the "brain drain" of fleeing Taiwanese would totally gut its economy and advanced fabs wouldn't be the only thing China would fail to get their hands on.
The amount of water a large fab needs is overstated, it amounts to maybe a few tens of thousands of households. The water exiting the fab isn't totally useless either, the treatment may not leave it drinkable but could be used for stuff like irrigating golf courses.
And TSMC hasn't slowed production AT ALL due to lack of water. They've had to truck water in, but when you are making millions in revenue per hour the cost to truck in water is negligible.
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