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I think we’re kinda saying the same thing...your company hires more entry-level people because they can get away with paying them peanuts, while the engineers require 6-figure salaries.
you'd be surprised what they start the engineers at, and it's not 6 figures. Some of them make crap pay even after years. Especially equipment engineers when you look at the hours they have to put in they end up making less than entry level when you figure per hour.
Entry level starts somewhere in the $15/hour range and gets full benefits from day 1.
 
Oh, I don’t expect that at all. There’s not a chance in hell that we’ll ever see iPhones manufactured in the US, for exactly the reasons you mentioned. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t get certain components manufactured here, or that we can’t keep the extant manufacturing here.

Well, OK, how would you force, using "sticks," US companies to develop their own state of the art silicon foundries and processes, similar to what TSMC can provide, starting with fresh IP.

That would be a huge outlay of $$$, many tens/hundreds of billions. And then it would need to operate 24/7 to stay financially viable, and have new processes developed over time to stay competitive.

And do all that with no government "carrots," just "sticks."
 
Oh, I don’t expect that at all. There’s not a chance in hell that we’ll ever see iPhones manufactured in the US, for exactly the reasons you mentioned. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t get certain components manufactured here, or that we can’t keep the extant manufacturing here.
We do. My company makes chips for the iphone and other apple products. We make chips for Samsung as well. A lot of what goes in to these products is indeed made in the US by companies you've never heard of. We tend to only hear about the big ones, Intel, AMD, TSMC, but there are way more fabs in the US than most people realize.
We just ship the wafers overseas for dicing, packaging and assembly.

TSMC makes most of the CPU's these products use as they are one of the few that can produce at these dimensions. But there are a ton of chips in products that are made from other fabs on old technology.
 
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So, TSMC is raising debt to expand into Arizona, but all these “capitalism is great!” US firms can’t scrounge together the cash to open a new foundry to keep their inventory secure? Maybe they deserve to go out of business.
TSMC is also asking for subsidies. Not to mention that they have received billions from the government of Taiwan over the years.


“Subsidies will be a key factor in TSMC’s decision to set up a fab in the U.S.,” TSMC Chairman Mark Liu told Bloomberg. “We are still talking to the U.S. government. Our request is that the state and federal governments together make up for the cost gap between the U.S. and Taiwan.”
 
There's a surprising amount of people here that doesn't realize that short of Intel, all of these companies use TSMC to produce their chips, and that creating US based companies is a huge plus for the US government future wise, and doesn't really do much for the companies in question.
 
What is the image? I'm under the impression it's a bunch of manufacturered chips, but I'm confused why it seems to be on a copper circle... the chips themselves are all rectangular, are they not? So why are they made as a circle - aren't all the rounded edges a waste of space? Something I think is probably quite wrong...
You've never seen a silicon wafer before? Surely this is satire...
 
This sounds good but most companies have an issue with "high-salaried" employees. If they are paying $15 for someone to empty trash what's it going to cost for an engineer?
No, that's not the case. American companies are extremely generous to Engineers, Scientists, lawyers and other knowledge workers. They are seen as the "corporate core".

Just like universities don't want to pay much for sessional lectures, but they treat tenure track professors really well.
 
Well, OK, how would you force, using "sticks," US companies to develop their own state of the art silicon foundries and processes, similar to what TSMC can provide, starting with fresh IP.

That would be a huge outlay of $$$, many tens/hundreds of billions. And then it would need to operate 24/7 to stay financially viable, and have new processes developed over time to stay competitive.

And do all that with no government "carrots," just "sticks."
Honest question: how much profits do Intel, AMD, TSMC, etc. make a year? How much do their CEOs and other C-level executives make in salary & benefits? Sure, foundries may be expensive, but these companies aren't exactly mom & pop stores, either. For companies like TSMC that make chips for other companies, maybe those other companies can kick in some money as well.
 
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For companies like TSMC that make chips for other companies, maybe those other companies can kick in some money as well.
They do. Companies will invest into their main suppliers beyond just purchasing chips. They'll invest to reserve production capacity and assist in these companies buying the tools needed to manufacturer their chips.
 
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The number of low-skilled manufacturing jobs are minimal in semiconductor plants, but the process technology IP development is a real economic driver. Most of the employment would go towards high-salaried engineers, which in itself is an economic force that we should grow as a country.
We have a ton of Intel fabs (product and research) out here in Oregon. There's certainly some economic impact to the folks sitting in the bunny suits, but you're spot on here. The real impact is the engineers and researchers. There's a whole lot of folks doing real well in Oregon on their Intel paychecks.
 
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Honest question: how much profits do Intel, AMD, TSMC, etc. make a year? How much do their CEOs and other C-level executives make in salary & benefits? Sure, foundries may be expensive, but these companies aren't exactly mom & pop stores, either. For companies like TSMC that make chips for other companies, maybe those other companies can kick in some money as well.

But what if Apple doesn't want to take a hit on competitiveness by being forced to use (and especially subsidize) cpus fabbed from a US foundry offering less performance, instead of TSMC?

Should the government force Apple to take that hit, anyway?
 
Is everyone just going to let this author get away with “Microsoft expected to follow suit in the near future”? There is zero chance of that being true.
 
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Bravo, I am 100% in favor of my Govt helping to fund Si Manufacturing here in the States !

Make NO mistake, with the status quo, at some point (in the future), China will make a move on Taiwan, & the United States will need to respond, & will need to do so with Force !
 
Corporate welfare for the oligarchs that, to a company, helped install the current administration. I wonder how that will be twisted into making sense for the current administration, especially after they just canceled all of the jobs working on the XL pipeline? Intel is not “too big to fail”. No company is. Let them. It’s called creative destruction in economic thought.
 
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