Meanwhile Europe only got 40k WSPMs of 12+ nm capacity: https://overclock3d.net/news/software/bringing_advanced_semi...
The problem is that unlike Airbus, which (highly inefficiently) can be made in multiple countries, you can't really spread out parts of a fab that way. The most you can do is fab machines + chips + chip packaging. Netherlands already has fab machines and in packaging there isn't a high margin.
That leaves chips, and you can be sure that whoever gets the fabs, the other EU countries will throw a shit fit and demand counter investments to compensate. And on top of that there is also regional animosity. So even if it makes logical sense to pop the fab down in the middle of the blue banana, it won't make political sense because France and all of South and East EU will be angry about "the rich getting richer".
[0] https://www.visualcapitalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/...
That's not at all how it works. You're talking as if you're buying a plug-and-play Xerox copy machine that you can just unbox and start printing copies of your work and make money.
Buying the latest EUV machines doesn't get you the latest nodes and economically viable yields.
Intel, Samsung also have the latest ASML machines that TSMC has and yet they haven't caught up to TSMC because there's a lot more to semi manufacturing that just the machine itself.
If Germany just buys an ASML machine it would be an expensive paperweight without the process know-how that engineers at TSMC have amassed over the decades in order to get the most economically competitive yields.
We get what we deserve.
Europe is already a great place to build your life and despite the narrative about "EU killing businesses with over regulations", Europe is an exporter, that is EU makes physical things in large quantities(that's why USA is able to blackmail EU with tariffs). EU produces and exports so much, more than it consumes. Its closer to China than USA in this regard, you can check out the recent stats here: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-euro-indicators/w...
The infrastructure is in place and there are both many nuclear reactors that were decommissioned early or not yet commissioned but canceled/put on hold as well as regions with plenty of sunshine or hydro power opportunities and also has all the expertise to re-work those quickly.
It's really a political decision to push for something like that or not. Geopolitics may eventually make it happen, who knows? At this time it makes more economical sense to make the tools and send them close to the larger supply chain of electronic products production.
Agreed. Its countries' long-standing equivalents of America First policies mean that they spend far more on their own citizens, import far fewer people, and leave most of the charitable, defence, and research spending to the US taxpayer. Good for them.
EU leaders and VCs gave up on the electronics industry 20+ years ago and just kept offshoring it to the cheapest suppliers to lower costs and increase shareholder value.
You can validate this by looking at which sectors pay the highest EU wages and you'll see that hardware and electronics are not in the top.
And working in the electronics industry requires highly skilled knowhow and academic specialization, and you're not gonna attract people there if you don't pay them top wages if they can get more money and an easier job somewhere else like writing CRUD SW or pushing pencils in a bank.
Good enough can be good enough and then aim for fun/interesting/challenging/fulfilling work instead of a fatter check.
This keeps ppl locked in to the TSMC universe. The Japan and US fabs produce just a fraction of what these countries need.
There is an established playbook that the Chinese have used for decades when taking over an industrial sector from other countries. They funnel vast amounts of state funding into it, sell at or below cost for decades, win the low end market, and then slowly and gradually move up the technology chain. It's worked for almost everything, but it's this last part that just isn't working for them with semiconductors and aviation. They aren't capable of catching up fast enough in these two fields. These are sectors that are both too large for any one country to do well on their own. Even for someone as large as China. It requires a global supply chain.
The past is of no value in predicting the future right now.
That was before the current administration wiped out the very idea of "soft power" and put everything including NATO up for disposal.
There is, frankly, no way for anyone to trust the US again until the US undergoes steps similar to post-1945 Germany.
So the time of military US protection is behind us.
> What are you going to do when none of the Taiwanese workers turn up for work, or worse they do turn up and sabotage the fab.
You’re going to offer them a lot of money, citizenship, and exfiltration of their family to turn up at work, and threaten them with lifetime in supermax if they sabotage anything.
What US judge isn’t going to allow you to do what the hell you want under national security provisions if it comes to that?
The U.S and Japan indeed will have less incentive to defend the sovereignty of Taiwan, but other reasons remain to ensure the statu quo remains. Purely geopolitical, not just industrial.
As soon as we get the right semiconductor supply chain stateside can switch up on that island and reach parity with the rest of the world’s contribution to that issue: none.
Also, not sure why everyone forgets about it. People should have learned from the experience of the pandemic that the cutting-edge foundry nodes are not really the crucial ones, as being the bottleneck of industrial infrastructure. A delay of the next-gen iPhone or RTX gaming card isn't that catastrophic. But a shortage of embedded MCUs, which are actually fabricated by mature nodes, could stall the entire industrial base of a country.
Japan can't even sell arms to Taiwan right now. Even starting selling arms would be a huge change, let alone a mutual defensive pact.
It's extremely hard to change the constitution of Japan. It's the only constitution that has never been revised since WWII. LDP has been pushing this agenda for decades and nothing really happened.
In reality no such thing happened and one YouTube video of a handful of protestors doesn’t make it so.
What she did say is that a Chinese attack on Taiwan _could_ clearly become an existential threat to Japan. Note that key word _could_
Which… of course it could!
Japan hosts multiple US military bases. If it developed into an armed conflict between the US and China then it’s exceedingly likely that Japan would be attacked. Think Chinese missiles aimed At Yokosuka, just south of Tokyo.
Not only that but Japan and China have multiple territorial disputes. It’s not hard to imagine China deciding to go all in and settle those as well.
But it will happen one way or another. Taiwan's Sovereignty is completely depending on one single country, the US. It's not like that Taiwan can just say no if the US demands more diversified chip production.
They’ve become the trolls under the bridge and will squeeze every passerby for every dollar they’ve got.
The days of cheap computing have been in decline and are now dead, replaced with giga profits for this companies who managed to the the indispensable links in a chain with no or minimal competition.
Realistically it's probably just that Japan is politically stable and safer than the other options in the area, while remaining fairly close to the rest of the supply chain.
Reunification with Taiwan has been a major policy goal of the CCP since the civil war and is one of Xi’s explicit policy goals. He just reaffirmed this commitment as part of his New Year’s speech.
Historically China has lacked force projection capability. However it has had a multi-decade modernisation and military build-up which has drastically changed this situation.
Further we’ve seen significant tightening of CCP control over society and in particular the military in Xi’s term.
A straight forward analysis of these events, in line with Xi’s public statements and past Chinese actions, is that the ground work is being laid for encirclement of Taiwan followed by China taking over, by force if necessary.
Literally have ongoing border disputes with practically all of their neighbors, a few of which they’ve been shooting at (India) and ramming at sea (the Philippines) in the last few years.
This was after 13 years of friendship between India and China, where India had supported China in many ways including supporting the Communists getting the UN Security Council seat reserved for China. China and India had signed a friendship pact just a few years before.
> Perhaps there are not many instances in history where one country has gone out of her way to be friendly and cooperative with the government and people of another country and to plead their cause in the councils of the world, and then that country returns evil for good
That’s how India’s PM described this barbarous act of betrayal.
This was a good demonstration of how China views its neighbours. As vassals to be brought to heel from time to time, rather than equals. And China will use violence to achieve these aims. That’s the Mao doctrine, followed by every Chinese leader since.
And before you try any nonsense of “oh that’s old news”, China is annexing Bhutan today to put pressure on India to make territorial concessions. (https://youtu.be/io8iaj0WYNI). China is annexing international waters in the South China Sea. China is attempting to annex islands controlled by Japan. China also has border disputes with Russia.
Educate yourself instead of uncritically spreading Chinese propaganda.
From Wikipedia: "There had been a series of border skirmishes between the two countries after the 1959 Tibetan uprising, when India granted asylum to the Dalai Lama. Chinese military action grew increasingly aggressive after India rejected proposed Chinese diplomatic settlements throughout 1960–1962, with China resuming previously banned "forward patrols" in Ladakh after 30 April 1962."
This is the Chinese way since at least Zheng He and treasure ship voyages.
Like, the centre of the world would be Asia today if Mao hadn’t needlessly (and profitlessly) trashed that goodwill.
