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by wbl 2236 days ago
9) a competitive fab is a massive capital investment
2 comments

I don't know if it was mentioned in the article but TSMC also has some US-based development under aegis of WaferTech.
Highly polluting too
What pollutants does a fab emit? I worked at an Intel fab a few decades ago, and didn't note significant emissions. Maybe I missed something.
The way I would put it is, chip fab processes use toxic and carcinogenic chemicals and waste that must be monitored, because historically they just let it leak or dumped it and left Superfund sites in their wake. Probably not as bad as mining but it tends to happen in more populated areas …

https://cleanair.camfil.us/2017/11/21/toxic-danger-silicon-v...

This is something that happened in the 70ies. The industry has come a long way since then.