2y ago

TSMC delays US chip fab opening, says US talent is insufficient

arstechnica.com

39 comments

As usual, it's not a shortage of talent, it's a shortage of talent willing to be exploited.
The article explicitly explains that they "needed" to hire 25 foreign workers to deal with the shortage... after they made 50 local workers quit by cutting pay.
- "nuh-uh-uh, you didn't raise my pay"
  
  Electricians?
- I came on here to say exactly this and you beat me to it.
- So just the usual importing cheap labor. Fuck corporations and fuck the people who make excuses for their shitty practices
US talent is insufficiently motivated to work in Arizona for peanuts. Particularly not when there are plenty of other, better paying tech companies in the state.
- Or anywhere else in said country, especially when there still isn't free and universal health care (unlike even TSMC's home country of Taiwan!)
- Also, TSMC is extremely demanding and expects very long work days too.
Make sure to read the article. It's about building the plant, not staffing it after. Apparently skilled construction workers for these types of plants are only where these plants are located currently (Taiwan for example). Not too surprising there are a limited number of skilled workers like this and they live where the work is.
I would do that.
FOR MONEY.
Fuck you.
Pay me.
- what do you know about chip manufacturing?
The article is about delays in building the fab itself, not actual employees working there
- It's not particularly clear.
  They mention multiple times the construction aspect of it, but you have to understand that these are not your typical factories. The amount of planning and design and engineering involved is incredible and it needs to get done before the physical building is erected. It's still part of the "construction" process but it's not pouring concrete or welding steel I beams. This is work that would be done by engineers and technicians, not construction workers.
  Still, I can definitely see there being a hard time finding qualified workers because that is such a niche industry, but at the same time the company is doing itself absolutely no favors what with how it's CEO has acted and said. In the end, I think at least some of this is just posturing because they probably want to ship in their Taiwanese workforce at much lower rates than Americans.
  But I know for a fact it is getting tough finding technical people with any experience these days. We are in a similarish situation and we are having a heck of a time finding workers. And I know people won't believe it, but it's always the pay level.
  
  I’m curious about the last part, do the workers expect higher pay?
"Why are people not willing to work(at these lame wages and 'benefits')?"
Why would you open a chip fab in Arizona? Doesn't it use a lot of water?
They've been trying to poach people from Intel and it isn't working. Their reputation precedes themselves.
Edit: also I think they did not anticipate how much US safety standards in construction would slow them down
Kinda like that amoeba only managing to kill the one kid in Nevada.
Does anyone else look at "TSMC" and subconsciously think of "Transmeta Crusoe"? I need to keep reminding my brain that's not what TSMC stands for lol.
It makes no sense to open a fab in the US.
- You'd be surprised at how many fabs there are in the US.
  TI has something like a half dozen to a dozen, predominantly in Texas
  Intel has more fabs than you can shake a stick at, mostly in Oregon but also Arizona
  Samsung has a fab in Texas
  GlobalFoundries exists in New York and Vermont
  Micron is in Idaho
  Wolfspeed has power electronics fabs in North Carolina and New York
  And so on. The US has a lot of fabs. For best countries in the world to build a new fab, the US would rank somewhere between first and third place — and I think there's a strong argument for the answer being "first place." Unlike Taiwan and South Korea, US fab jobs and experience are not almost entirely dominated by one or two companies. The US isn't located in one of the most geopolitically risky parts of the developed world. The US has a huge population and plenty of money to put into fab expansion.
  The only issues here are (a) the US has gotten worse and worse at large scale construction projects, and (b) TSMC wants to pay workers like shit and treat them even worse, which doesn't fly for technically skilled US workers. You can treat US technical workers workers poorly, but not as poorly as in much of Asia, and you definitely cannot do it without paying them very well.
  
  yet every device you use comes from TSMC 🤣
- Um, hard disagree. It makes a lot of sense if we don’t want to entirely be dependent on China for silicon production. Gets a little fuzzy because this is a foreign company, but the plant is still on US soil. We need to make semi-conductors in the US or we can never maintain independence from China. Our dependency on China still may be too far gone, but this is at least an attempt to remain independent from arguably our largest world adversary. Remember how the world’s hardware supply chain slowed to a molasses pace because of COVID? That’s why it’s smart to build in the US.

39 comments

FOR MONEY.