TSMC Delays US Chip Plant Start To 2025 Due To Labor Shortages (appleinsider.com) 66
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Apple Insider: Apple's processor manufacturer TSMC says that it can't find enough skilled workers to open its Arizona facility on time, and mass chip production will have to wait until 2025. The Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) began work on a first factory in Arizona in 2021. Since then, the plant has seen safety concerns, complaints from TSMC about US taxation, and a claim that US staff don't work hard enough. Most recently, the company announced that it was sending more Taiwanese workers to the US to manage the final stages of making the plant operational. Now according to Nikkei Asia, that move has proven insufficient.
"We are encountering certain challenges, as there is an insufficient amount of skilled workers with the specialized expertise required for equipment installation in a semiconductor-grade facility," said TSMC chair Mark Liu. "Consequently we expect the production schedule of N4 [4-nanometer] process technology to be pushed out to 2025," continued Liu. The news comes alongside TSMC's latest earnings report, which shows that the firm's profits have fallen, though they are expected to recover when the iPhone 15 range launches. TSMC blames the results on a slow economic recover in China, and a downturn in the consumer electronics market.
"We are encountering certain challenges, as there is an insufficient amount of skilled workers with the specialized expertise required for equipment installation in a semiconductor-grade facility," said TSMC chair Mark Liu. "Consequently we expect the production schedule of N4 [4-nanometer] process technology to be pushed out to 2025," continued Liu. The news comes alongside TSMC's latest earnings report, which shows that the firm's profits have fallen, though they are expected to recover when the iPhone 15 range launches. TSMC blames the results on a slow economic recover in China, and a downturn in the consumer electronics market.
Re:This was on ZeroHedge (Score:4, Informative)
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"outrage bait for idiots?"
And so we indict half the Internet...
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So half the Internet by any other measure...
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Not surprised (Score:5, Interesting)
The US and other western countries have outsourced high-tech manufacturing for decades. If you had a meeting of all the plastic injection molding experts in the US you could probably fit them in a room. Try that in Shenzhen and you'd need a city block or two standing room only. In the UK, back in the 80s when employers still believed that people would work for them for life, there were degree courses sponsored by companies, like British Telecom, that were designed to form a pipeline of engineers for them. If the US were serious about having chip manufacturing (or any manufacturing) it would be wise to develop the pipeline. In this case, TSMC themselves may want to have a 3-year training program where US staff relocate to Taiwan to learn the ropes and then return to the US.
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Taiwan, despite being absolutely number 1 in high-end chip manufacturing, it pretty small in terms of overall manufacturing ba
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All those fat, lazy, gun-toting Amurican workers produce 16% of the worlds output.
You're out of date. The United States is the fifth largest semiconductor manufacturer, and produces 12% of total global output. (as of 2021 [shiphub.co], maybe it's lower now.)
This is beside the point though, TSMC needs very specialized factory workers. Where are those supposed to come from if TSMC doesn't train them? That kind of factory work isn't a career path that people in the US aspire too, Americans only fall into those kinds of jobs through apprenticeships. Either official apprenticeships, or unofficial ones
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Huh. The son of dear friends of mine is in the semiconductor tooling installation industry, a graduate of ASU. His apprenticeship, such as it was, was self-taught welding, 3d printing, CNC fabrication, and the bonus of robotics from high school through college. No industry apprenticeship, but he is remarkably intelligent, and has excelled at his work through that and his ability to leverage skills to the new work.
ps - If I were just 20 years younger I would be all over such an apprenticeship, that industry
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US COMPANIES are the fifth largest.... that's not to say those skills exist IN the US.. it just means the company HQ is in the US.. Example Intel.. they have (about 15-20 fab/manufacturing sites around the world).. 3 are in the US.. the rest are outside the US.
Or like Micron.. 2 in the US, the rest are outside the US (All within APAC).
Or like NVIDIA (1 in the US, the rest are outside the US (mostly within APAC with a sprinkle in Germany, Ireland, and Israel).
In short, it doesn't matter about the
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How can China be at its peak and the US has headroom when China has over 4x the population but less than 1/5 the GDP per capita? Demographically that makes no logical sense, you're showing your bias.
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Because US has more young workers and children who can become more young workers. It's also better at attracting high quality migrants. I.e. it still has future potential in spite of being very rich.
China on the other hand is the world's fastest ageing society that peaked before it got rich.
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Yes China has an upcoming demographic crisis, they are going to have a huge problem on their hands.
But to say they've peaked while the US has not? Yes the US percentage wise may have more younger workers, but absolute numbers wise do they? With over 4x the population, I don't think so. At the very least, there's still a lot of room to go because their GDP per capita is still so low.
Yes China can fuck it up. The US can fuck it up too, anyone can. The demographic numbers just does not substantiate the claim h
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This isn't 2000. China doesn't have an upcoming demographic crisis. China is in the middle of one. And yes, they have peaked. Even their leadership is now officially switching the narrative from "a lot of growth" to "high quality growth". Which in practice with their debt load means "managing the decline".
Not to mention that they're desperately pushing for teenage pregnancies, and are even allowing the unthinkable. They're allowing bastard children to be registered for hukou.
I.e. it's not that they "can fuc
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How dare you for misnationalizing me, you far right wingnut.
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Miscontinenting me still. How dare you.
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You have to define crisis then. Yes their demographics is aging, but the bulk of their population is still working age, it's when that bulk passes into retirement age that you could argue their economy has peaked. Their one child policy started in 1979, and their birth rate only plunged below replacement rate around 1990, so it'll be around 2050 when that bulk passes into retirement age. That's still over 20 years away. A lot can happen in 20 years.
Low birth rate is basically the case in every developed cou
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What China wants (per my contacts in government in China).. is they would LOVE that older "farmer" generation to die off.. because their "cost" is high relative to their "benefit".. So that expiration is good, because they are essentially replacing "farmer" with workers (and considering in higher skills jobs, you simply don't need as many people) the aim is for the population numbers to fall and settle down to that number where then they can maintai
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The ideal most officials want is to DECREASE the population to slightly lower to be more manageable and once it kids the desired amount the replacement rate should normalize..
We keep confusing growth/expansion with stability and thinking if the growth rate doesn't go up we are doomed.. the growth rate (and population) can contract and we are fine... its not like ZERO children
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It certainly is not surprising that TSMC can't find people in Arizona "with the specialized expertise required for equipment installation in a semiconductor-grade facility". But it does seem like the manufacturers of that equipment would have people who know how to install it, and be the ones who have the capability to train more.
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'It certainly is not surprising that TSMC can't find people in Arizona "with the specialized expertise required for equipment installation in a semiconductor-grade facility".'
It is surprising when you consider that Intel has had no such problem finding people in Arizona.
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How do you know Intel isn't having similar problems?
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Also if CCP invades Taiwan, no 4nm US production is online...so we (US) better make sure Taiwan stays secure if we want TSMC 3 nm and 4 nm products....
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The thing is, there never is a "labor shortage", It's fiction.
It's really "Employers don't want to train, they want to poach", which means that entry into workforce for people who go to school to learn this stuff is usually a pretty high barrier when it's niche. There's a risk that you sink 5 years of pay into getting credentials in something that there are only 2 companies in the country will need.
The reality is that employers need to train employees that they can pretty much hire off the street. That's wh
Company underestimates its own abilities. (Score:2)
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Wellll... (Score:5, Interesting)
I know as recent graduates entered the work force before I "retired", it was extremely difficult to find people who could do the jobs.
To the point where retirees were often called back into work. I was, and a couple years after supposedly making my retirement final, I was contacted again to work for another department - to replace a young guy that did not work out. The pay made it something I really could not refuse.
This is not because they want to favor those old grumps over the young blades. The amount of money that would be saved is rather large, and there is a problem with age - not that they care how old I am, but they'd really like a young person so the young person can put in 30 plus years, and gain the experience that makes them all the more valuable. My tenure will not likely be more than 10 years. You know, at some point I might like to actually retire.
Re:Wellll... (Score:4, Interesting)
I'll be modded down to hell, but there is some legitimacy in the idea that they are having trouble finding skilled workers.
I know as recent graduates entered the work force before I "retired", it was extremely difficult to find people who could do the jobs.
To the point where retirees were often called back into work. I was, and a couple years after supposedly making my retirement final, I was contacted again to work for another department - to replace a young guy that did not work out. The pay made it something I really could not refuse.
This is not because they want to favor those old grumps over the young blades. The amount of money that would be saved is rather large, and there is a problem with age - not that they care how old I am, but they'd really like a young person so the young person can put in 30 plus years, and gain the experience that makes them all the more valuable. My tenure will not likely be more than 10 years. You know, at some point I might like to actually retire.
I know the fresh graduate new hires that you speak of. Lots of ambition, like being CEO within 5 years, but totally clueless about running a real operation.
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They haven't realized that it's all a scam yet. They believed their elders when they told them to study hard, take on massive debt, and then you will be rewarded with a good career and salary. They get into work and find that the salary is crap, so assume they just need to build up experience and get promoted.
Checking the local house prices they realize they need a CEO salary to buy one, and their parents bought in their 20s so that must be a realistic goal.
After a while they realize how they have been scre
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that coincidentally happens to help the elders out with cheap
who are the "elders" again?
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Parents, grandparents. I think many millennials are at least aware that the Bank of Mum & Dad helped them out and is no longer in a position to help their gen Z kids.
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did the elders come up with the scam or are they just beneficiaries?
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Hard to say if they came up with the idea. I mean some of them clearly did, e.g. Thatcher had a very clear policy of increasing house prices and moving to a credit based economy, while destroying as much of the manufacturing base as she could. Sold off all the public utilities cheap too.
Elders voted for her, perhaps without fully understanding what they were doing. They burned all the oil, and it's not so easy to claim they didn't know what that was doing.
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Hard to say if they came up with the idea. I mean some of them clearly did, e.g. Thatcher had a very clear policy of increasing house prices and moving to a credit based economy, while destroying as much of the manufacturing base as she could. Sold off all the public utilities cheap too.
Elders voted for her, perhaps without fully understanding what they were doing. They burned all the oil, and it's not so easy to claim they didn't know what that was doing.
Thatcher was not a boomer - As a person born in 1925 she was smack in the middle of "the greatest generation" She was of the generation we horrid old boomers rebelled against. But that brings up a good point.
I do find that a whole lot of the hatred against Boomers and assigning any and all blame for any problem. is for things we didn't even do. Those things were often done by people of a different and older generation. Well, so be it. But I guess that as long as some folks can claim victimhood, they can b
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Parents, grandparents. I think many millennials are at least aware that the Bank of Mum & Dad helped them out and is no longer in a position to help their gen Z kids.
That's not a sustainable paradigm.
I've had interesting and not very positive experiences with a lot of young people.
But I also work with a fair number who are not victims. They work hard, they earn their money, and the grousing level is no higher than us oppressors.
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They haven't realized that it's all a scam yet. They believed their elders when they told them to study hard, take on massive debt, and then you will be rewarded with a good career and salary.
To a large extent, I agree. But there is so much more.
The self esteem movement. Largely by teachers who meant well. The idea that self esteem is some sort of internal process that requires nothing but one's existence. The problem is not with having self esteem, that's a good thing. But real self esteem is built on real actions, and is a lifelong practice.
What we did was turn out a group of solipsists, who thought quite highly of themselves with no actual accomplishments. That was a terrible thing to do
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Why didn't they take you on to train the younger worker?
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Why didn't they take you on to train the younger worker?
He was lacking the knowledge but even more important, the temperament. His approach to problems was to become intimidated but with a belligerent reaction. I've seen that in more than one case. They did not fire the guy, just gave him simpler things to do with less pressure. I'm happy about that. He's an okay enough guy when he's not confused or under pressure.
Knowledge, I can train that. Temperament? That's pretty ingrained, especially the belligerent reaction type, because that type tends to burn bridge
NOBODY WANTS TO WORK ANYMORE!!!11 (Score:4, Funny)
We pay $10 an hour with no benefits and can't find any qualified applicants! SAD! #trump2024
Not suprising (Score:2)
The shear scope of the project is staggering. You see it off in the distance from I-17 and you're like "What the hell is going on over there?"
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Likewise, clean rooms and the tech for the chips is nothing new in the US. This is the Taiwanese company playing to their base and basically using the stereotypical "lazy fat stupid American worker" meme to push back their plans.
The companies that build the equipment send installation engineers to help with that sort of thing, and trust me the United States has many, many, many
if you build it they will come (Score:2)
can't find enough = won't train enough (Score:2)
Just one more aspect of race to the bottom.
And... (Score:2)
And, exactly as was predicted, even right in these very pages.
Entirely Possible, But Maybe... (Score:2)
Just a ploy to justify hiring overseas workers (Score:1)
They've received their US taxpayer subsidy, so now it's just a ploy to bring over their overseas workers and leave out as many American workers as possible.
Come on⦠(Score:2)
A claim that the US staff doesnâ(TM)t work hard enough?
Was this article by the High Expectations Asian Father Meme?
There is no way that bit was actually conveyed by the facts of the story. This story sounds like it was written in part by some journalist who thought a little bit of that old Asian Parent meme would cause some controversy.