The tech industry (specifically hardware companies like Apple) requires massive numbers of skilled laborers with specific skills. Those people do not live in the western hemisphere.
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Some Apple Silicon Chips Will Soon Be Produced and Packaged in U.S.
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I think this also may be a step towards protection of IP and trade secrets (both current and future). When the groundbreaking stuff can be prototyped and made entirely within the US, industrial espionage becomes much more difficult.
As someone from Taiwan, I can tell you this: as long as the KMT doesn't get back in power, you guys have nothing to worry about. I mean, we haven't even started to smell the politics yet, right?
True but remember it's really more about wage costs rather than productivity. As soon as robots are introduced into any assembly line alongside human laborers, their wages are driven down. If human wages go down low enough, there's no need to expand robotic workers because manufacturers are saving more money by paying more humans less per hour compared to purchasing, setup and maintenance of less robotic workers.
Again, read the article. The supplier is also looking into manufacturing of wafers.
Yes there is ! There are not enough people to build them in the US. One of the reasons that China has such a big manufacturing base is their population. Do you think that the tens/hundreds of thousands of people required to do this work are available for work? FoxConn employs nearly 800K people, if we assume that only 20% of them work on Apple lines, that would be a need for 160K people with skills and training in electronics assembly. And this just speaks to assembly and not the manufacturing of all other components.
If that was the case, FoxConn would not have 800K employees. There are limits to what we can do today, at scale with Robots. Robots are used extensively in the manufacturing process but final assembly still largely requires a human touch.
Quote from article: The chips will be produced at a nearby TSMC factory, and then Amkor will handle packaging
Amkor is NOT a foundry, TSMC is
It depends what the goal is: to make the US self-sufficient, or to replace the entire global supply of advanced semiconductors?
Probably the former, I would think.
The US only makes up 35% of Apple’s revenue. The majority of the products Foxconn makes for Apple go elsewhere - 25% of their revenue comes from Europe, 17% from China itself, etc.
No big deal. Just another third-world country making chips.
That’s what I’d thought I found awhile back. For anyone not wanting to look at the data, it’s not even like neck and neck #1 and #2, the US doesn’t produce half as many vehicles as China.
It's not gonna be even a blip on the "jobs created" radar. However bringing chip fabs back into the US certainly makes sense from a national security point of view.
But isn’t this all based on TSMC‘s Arizona plant to be up and running?
Months ago wasn’t TSMC complaining that they couldn’t find enough skilled labor in the US to have that plant in Arizona operating at full capacity. Has that changed? Has there been an update to that?
Months ago wasn’t TSMC complaining that they couldn’t find enough skilled labor in the US to have that plant in Arizona operating at full capacity. Has that changed? Has there been an update to that?
Good news for the US economy, but why Arizona, where there is a serious lack of water 🤔
As part of its efforts to expand its U.S. manufacturing, Apple today announced that Amkor will package some Apple silicon chips at its new facility being built in Peoria, Arizona. The chips will be produced at a nearby TSMC factory, and then Amkor will handle packaging, a final step that protects the chip from physical damage.
Amkor will invest approximately $2 billion in the facility, which will employ more than 2,000 people once it is completed, according to the announcement.
"Apple is deeply committed to the future of American manufacturing, and we'll continue to expand our investment here in the United States," said Apple's operating chief Jeff Williams, in a press release today. "Apple silicon has unlocked new levels of performance for our users, enabling them to do things they could never do before, and we are thrilled that Apple silicon will soon be produced and packaged in Arizona."
In its own press release today, Amkor announced that it plans to begin limited production at the facility within the next two to three years. The company said it applied for CHIPS funding from the U.S. federal government to help fund the project.
Apple says Amkor has packaged chips used in all of its products for more than a decade. Apple silicon chips are found in iPhones, iPads, Macs, and other devices, but it's unclear exactly which chips will be packaged at the new facility in Arizona.
Article Link: Some Apple Silicon Chips Will Soon Be Produced and Packaged in U.S.
"then Amkor will handle packaging, a final step that protects the chip from physical damage."
The main purpose of the package is to bring the tiny tiny "pads" on the surface of the die out to visible and more widely spaced "balls" coming out of the package that can be soldered to a PCB.
The other main purpose is to connect multiple die within the package using a silicon interposer with very high-bandwidth wiring.
The main purpose of the package is to bring the tiny tiny "pads" on the surface of the die out to visible and more widely spaced "balls" coming out of the package that can be soldered to a PCB.
The other main purpose is to connect multiple die within the package using a silicon interposer with very high-bandwidth wiring.
yes, the idea is that Amkor will package those TSMC chips (and more), TSMC delayed plans, I think they are targeting 2024, so they should be ready when Amkor goes online.
Regardless, wafers today are shipped around the world form fabs to assembly to test etc ...
Why Arizona?
It is close to the Pacific coast, it is close to TSMC new US plant and it is also a “right to work” state.
Right-to-work law - Wikipedia
Why? It’s not like we *can’t* do it, the US is the second largest manufacturer in the world, we still make a *lot* of stuff
Because it's expensive paying western wages, dealing with western laws, and it will eat into profit margins.
China has entire industrial cities devoted to technological manufacturing. There is no real comparison.
The US is the second largest manufacturer of cars, sandwiched between China at 1 and Japan at 3. Same stat for general manufacturing too. A lot of folks on this thread seem to seriously underestimate manufacturing industries in the US
And yet we are still the second largest manufacturer. Also see: the post we’re commenting on
You realize we do too, right?
You can say America is #2 all you want but China more than doubles US manufacturing output
Houston *alone* has a quarter million folks working in skilled manufacturing