2y ago

TSMC feels 'good' about possible Germany plant, in subsidy talks

www.reuters.com

11 comments

Curious how they will understand and adapt to German work ethics and laws.
- They will just outsource the actual manufacturing to Easter European countries with atrocious labor laws.
  I hope I'm not right.
- Yeah, the May issue of Wired magazine had a lengthy portrayal of TSMC as a company and their work ethic apparently made it very difficult to bring in American employees of TSMC to the HQ in Taiwan. Considering EU labor laws and German work-life balance priorities, not sure how well this can go 😅
  
  thanks for pointing that out, interesting insights in that article, but wow that was the worst piece of writing I had to endure in a long time. It's amazing how you can say so little with so much text.
- Is chip production labor intensive? My guess would be that the labor is negligible, compared to the cost for machines, knowhow etc.
  
  Yes, it is. Of course a lot of things are automated, but the amount of effort needed to run a fan efficiently is just insane.
  Here's a video about the exactly same discussion, just with regards to the US
  https://youtu.be/jlAWx_X5opA
I guess it makes sense for them to diversify their plant locations given the uncertainties around Taiwan/China relations. Germany also has quite a lot of know-how in microfabrication and there's already a non-insignificant cluster of companies in the sector. I guess that's why Intel decided to go there and it makes sense for TSMC to do so at some point. In any case, we're talking over a 10+ years horizon.
- I just don't want us to forget about Taiwan in the process. That chip dependency does seem to bring them a fair bit of safety guarantees.
That would be great

11 comments