Taiwan’s top chip tester, King Yuan, shuts down production and quarantines workers

The world’s leading provider of chip testing services, Taiwan’s King Yuan Electronics (KYEC), has suspended production for two days due to a COVID-19 outbreak among the company’s foreign workers. Taiwan’s Ministry of Health and Welfare announced all related foreign workers are to be placed on quarantine with pay as COVID tests …

[vtcodger]

Why?

A serious question if I may. My understanding is that semiconductor fabrication focuses heavily on controlling/preventing contamination of the product. Therefore the facilities are climate controlled with a high degree of atmospheric filtering and a clean-room or near clean-room environment. That would seem to me to be about the last place where transmission of an airborne disease should be a problem. I must be missing something here. Why are they shutting down production?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Why?

They sleep in dormitories (probably with with bunk bends) and eat in communal dining rooms - that's when they get infected. The semiconductor workplaces themselves generally have excellent circulation, as you said.

[imanidiot]

Re: Why?

As stated above. Inside the cleanrooms is probably not the problem (someone feeling ill/sick shouldn't even go inside in the first place as masks only stop so much and someone leaking nasal fluids and coughing/sneezing has a bigger chance of contaminating surfaces with particles and or chemical compounds that shouldn't be there). But the breakrooms, corridors, offices, dormitories, etc outside the cleanrooms where personnel are in close proximity can be problematic. And don't forget that while the majority of the production work happens inside a cleanroom there's also a large workforce outside of it doing maintenance, logistics, IT, H&R, planning, etc to keep the place running. All people working in an office that can easily spread infectious diseases.

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe this is why the US just pledged 0.75 million vaccines (kind unspecified) to Taiwan. Hopefully the doses will be prioritized for those living in overcrowded conditions - wouldn't be surprised if that didn't happen though.

[DS999]

Given that the population of Taiwan is about 30x that, and how important Taiwan is to the US economy, it seems it would have made sense to give them a lot more.

If TSMC was forced to shut down their megafabs, the chip shortage will become much worse, and pretty much the entire US tech sector would take a major major hit. The hit to Taiwan's economy would be even larger.

While you'd hope they'd be prioritized for those most in need/danger, it is more likely they'll be prioritized for people working at TSMC and other companies that supply the US tech industry, because neither country wants the economic hit a nationwide shutdown would cause.

[Anonymous Coward]

Complacent

Just shows that you cannot be complacent with this virus. Taiwan had arguably the best response in the world and have been virtually COVID free for a year. Unfortunately that led people to believe the virus could never breach their borders so they didn't bother getting vaccinated. Now they are rushing for vaccines, supply is short. Similar story in other countries with good initial responses such as Vietnam, Singapore and Victoria in Oz.

Get vaccinated people!

[Chris G]

Re: Complacent

Complacency has been much of the problem everywhere.

After the easing of the first lockdowns, people in most places went back immediately to their old social habits, even though there was no announcement or possibilty of the virus having been eliminated.

The same after the second round of lockdowns.

Humanity's greatest enemy is itself.

[Chris G]

Re: Complacent

Curious at the thumb down without a counter argument, what don't you agree with and why?

My comment is based on observation here where I live and conversation with friends who live in other countries.

Anything to say?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Complacent

Not from me, I agree.

If we cannot find a cure for the sort of stupidity we've had on display with this pandemic at both social and political level I fear the next pandemic will be an extinction level event.

[GrumpenKraut]

Re: Complacent

Sometimes many posts in a row get down-voted with no explanation. In some occasions all comments for an article. Best to ignore.

[imanidiot]

Re: Complacent

Some people seem to be against vaccinations, no matter the argument or the reason. And some people are just plain stupid to begin with. (There's probably a large overlap in these groups)

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Complacent

They don't have access to vaccine. UK & US snarfed most of the capacity.

This is a miss on tracking. Apparently tracking in the foreign-worker population has not been as good as in the general population and a pool of infection is now rising to the surface. Or so the story is going. Not sure if that is just a convenient scapegoat though ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Complacent

They relaxed the rules on aircrew, which let the virus in. Then it spread in the red light district (guess that says a lot about pilots), then into the general population.

They did have some vaccine doses, but the population just didn't want them so they were not rushing to place orders. Now they do, they are struggling to get hold of more.

Same thing here in Oz. Since the main vaccine is the AstraZeneca, people didn't want to get it due to the scare stories about blood clots and the fact we were virus free. They thought the borders were bulletproof. Now Melbourne has gone into lockdown again, people are panicking and queueing up for a jab.

[adam 40]

Re: Complacent

My understanding is that sex workers focus heavily on controlling/preventing contamination of the product.

You would have thought that lessons would have been learned by now!

[Cuddles]

Re: Complacent

"They don't have access to vaccine. UK & US snarfed most of the capacity."

Like many people. you're massively overestimating how relevant the UK is to the rest of the world. Of over 2 billion vaccines doses so far administered, the UK has used under 70 million. Even the USA is only third in number of doses used, or fourth if you count the EU as a whole. There's certainly a good argument that rich countries should be doing more to help countries that can't afford vaccines, and not, for example, doing the exact opposite by taking this chance to cut foreign aid. But lets not pretend that a tiny country like the UK is somehow responsible for soaking up the entire world supply of vaccines. Also, Taiwan has a higher GDP per capita than us, so maybe they're not the ones that actually need our help anyway.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Complacent

The UK ordered >400 million doses. 6 shots per person.

[DS999]

Re: Complacent

The countries that did really well almost entirely locked down travel across their borders. They should have waited to open up those borders until they got their population at least partially vaccinated.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Complacent

Taiwan still has heavily controlled borders, they just relaxed the rules on aircrew.

Australia still has controlled borders. The situation currently in Victoria is another example of the virus escaping from quarantine. Not even in that state this time. The zero case caught the virus in a quarantine hotel in South Australia and had no symptoms before travelling home to VIC after completing their 14 days.

Hotels have done an adequate job, since they were the only thing we had, but this shows why we need more dedicated quarantine facilities like the one at Howard Springs in the NT. They will be building a new one in Victoria soon. Probably be ready in time for the next pandemic.

[EnviableOne]

Taiwan is still doing very well

As far as I remember, they never actually had to lock down, just quarantined at the border and used effective track and trace.

Until the Delta variants emerged they had 440 cases and 7 deaths, in total, throughout the entire first and second waves experienced in Europe.

Even today they have only 13,409 cases and 478 deaths, some nations had more than that on each of multiple consecutive days.

Looking at their government response, Dido's Test and trace is only doing twice the tests of this one site over the entire country, and I bet their results are back in 8 hours, not the 24 if you're lucky from T&T

If there is any loss of production, with that level of organisation, it will be measured in hours and days, not weeks and months, and TSMC are well-diversified, they have fabs in several regions of the island, and those in other jurisdictions which all tolled will lead to limited effects on the shortages.