TSMC Is Considering a 3nm Foundry In Arizona (arstechnica.com) 32
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Reuters reports that TSMC -- Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, the chip foundry making advanced processors for Apple, AMD, and Qualcomm -- is beefing up its plans to build factories in Arizona while turning away from an advanced plant in Europe. Last year, TSMC announced that it would invest $10-$12 billion to build a new 5 nm capable foundry near Phoenix, Arizona. According to Reuters' sources, TSMC officials are considering trebling the company's investment by building a $25 billion second factory capable of building 3 nm chips. More tentative plans are in the works for 2 nm foundries as the Phoenix campus grows over the next 10-15 years as well. TSMC's focus on the US rather than Europe may have a lot to do with the company's market -- in Q1 2021, 67 percent of its sales were in North America, 17 percent were in Asia Pacific, and only 6 percent came from Europe and the Middle East. The majority of TSMC's European clients are auto manufacturers who buy cheaper and less-advanced chips.
They are liars (Score:5, Funny)
They claimed they will build a big factory, but come to find out it is only 3 nanometers.. what the hell?
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I haven't been this let down since the "Center for Kids Who Can't Read Good"!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
So appropriate. (Score:1)
Factory not quite that small (Score:2)
It is not really 3 nanometers.
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Just be glad Trojan doesn't decide to build a plant that small.
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Why Arizona Is Becoming A Hotbed For Tech [youtu.be]
Arizona T(smc)? I like it! (Score:2)
Can't get us now! (Score:1)
TSMC Is Considering a 3nm Foundry In Arizona
Nice thing is it's been awhile since China invaded the US.
Silly location? (Score:2, Insightful)
The average semiconductor facility uses 7-15 megalitres of pure water per day; Intel used around 34 gigalitres of water in 2015.
Managing water use as semiconductor manufacturing expands will be interesting.
Re:Silly location? (Score:4, Informative)
The average semiconductor facility uses 7-15 megalitres of pure water per day
You are using scary words like "megalitre" to make people think that is a lot of water.
A megalitre is about an acre-foot. An acre-foot of water from the Colorado River costs a California farmer about $70.
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As far i know, people using metric system express water volumes typically in 'cubic meters', where a cubic meter equals 1,000 liter of water.
Maybe some industries use SI units like 'gigaliters', but i for one never heard of it.
Anyways,, my -pretty small- town uses about as much water yearly as Intel, which is incidentally about as much as the large paper factory next door. And i can assure Intel's fabs are a few magnitude larger than that paper factory.
Attn TSMC Arizona doesn't have WATER wrong biome (Score:5, Insightful)
A typical chip fab needs 2-4 million gallons of water per day.
Why would TSMC build this is a desert state?
Why not pick a state that borders the great lakes with ample fresh water?
Re: Attn TSMC Arizona doesn't have WATER wrong bio (Score:1)
How do the rest of the chip companies do it?
Re: Attn TSMC Arizona doesn't have WATER wrong bio (Score:5, Interesting)
How do the rest of the chip companies do it?
They hire people who can do math.
The water used by a fab is negligible compared to the water used by agriculture. It is even negligible compared to the water Phoenix uses for lawns and golf courses.
Sure it does (Score:2)
I mean, we could build desalinization plants and the infrastructure to transport that water (and to solve the brine problem), but who's gonna pay for it? We can't even fix the lead in our pipes in this country.
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as long as you're willing to let the locals die of thirst.
That won't be a problem; in Arizona we manage our water way better than any other state by far.
https://www.azcentral.com/stor... [azcentral.com]
I mean, we could build desalinization plants and the infrastructure to transport that water (and to solve the brine problem), but who's gonna pay for it?
You're used to thinking in terms of problems that don't even apply to our state.
We can't even fix the lead in our pipes in this country.
Lead pipes are a local problem, and aren't even relevant to Phoenix. The states that have this problem the most tend to be more inline with your socialist ideology, implications of lead contamination and political ideologies aside, surely you have more revenue to deal with this problem than relatively
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Why not pick a state that borders the great lakes with ample fresh water?
Most probably the answer is: cost of labour and taxes exceed the cost of water. The same reason why the northern states lost their car industry.
It was (is?) a race to the bottom in worker rights. The federal government should have established a level playing field, or, at the very least, a minimum standard, but chose not to.
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Probably more pragmatically, there's a LOT of semiconductor manufacturing in the greater Phoenix area already, so there's already a mature, skilled workforce available to poach-from. TSMC can benefit from being able to recruit experienced staff from other manufacturers to serve as their senior manufacturing and factory support staff, allowing their manufacturing to get up and running quicker and less expensively than if they had to start with an inexperienced workforce.
As for why all of the other manufactu
Let's play "Big Number or Small Number!" (Score:4, Interesting)
"A typical chip fab needs 2-4 million gallons of water per day."
Is 2-4 million gallons of water per day a big number or a small number?
Phoenix consumes around 300,000 acre-feet of water per year: https://www.phoenix.gov/waters... [phoenix.gov]
That's 270 million gallons per day.
Arizona consumes around 7 million acre-feet of water per year: https://wateruseitwisely.com/h... [wateruseitwisely.com]
That's 6 billion gallons per day.
The incremental usage per fab is not significant.
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Why would TSMC build this is a desert state?
Ready access to lots of sand?
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Innovation (Score:4, Insightful)
China (Score:4, Interesting)
Because otherwise, all future semiconductor manufacturing in Taiwan would be seized by China. So yes, hedge your bets for your customers in the USA.
Meanwhile from 10km away (Score:3)
I can tell you that construction has already started on the 5nm fab! Unlike a certain mainland Chinese company (brand Foxconn), TSMC actually seems to keep their promises!
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Good luck with that...