[ksec]

>He can be "exceptionally clear" and still biased in favor of TMSC.

Probably. But It wasn't that TSMC doesn't want to move, he made it clear the maths doesn't work out. Giga Fabs operate at scale and efficiency is precisely why you could make a $30 M1 Die.

>Well, we'll have to pay a few cents (or dollars) more per chip then.

That is easier for mature node. But most of the time we are not talking about mature node but leading edge.

If the maths were a few cents or even a few dollar things would have been done already. In US, for TSMC having the same margin would probably put M1 close to $50, while having higher initial R&D cost, meaning more volume to amortise the cost, or higher final retail price depending on sector.

So Morris's question to TSMC's client, are you willing to pay 50% to double for US made silicon. As far as all major US players, that is Qualcomm, Nvidia, AMD and Apple. The answer has been a simple no. They want it cheaper! ( Looking at Nvidia's constantly moaning )

Of course there is another path, forcing TSMC to operate in US while lowering their Net Profit margin. Which is likely what is happening here. The only good thing is that US is finally understanding the risk of its supply chain. For some people like me who has been crying about it for nearly a decade.

[m0zg]

OK, then we'll pay $20 more for a $3K laptop. Hardly a tragedy. Same with labor by the way. If Apple made phones here and charged $20-30 more per unit, their user base wouldn't even blink.

[ksec]

I guess I have to be explicit.

For a $3K Laptop you are looking at M1 Pro or M1 Max, those would cost at least $50 to $100 more BOM cost. Excluding other factor. That translate to roughly $125 to $250 retail price increase at the same margin.

For a labour of $20 to $30 increase per iPhone unit, would equate retail price increase of $50 to $75. Excluding other factors. Not to mention I seriously doubt labour would be an increase of only $20-30 per unit. The different in cost / productivity is likely higher than 3x.

[m0zg]

There's not a whole hour of labor in each iPhone. Not even close. Humans just put together robot-assembled boards, screens, and so on. If this is re-shored, it wouldn't be that difficult for Apple to reduce manual labor even further than that, possibly to near zero. I've tried to repair an iPhone PCB once where an SMD resistor fell off. I couldn't do it, even though I have a hot air workstation and a bench microscope. Humans can't work on SMD components you can't even see without magnification.

And I'd like to understand how it is that an M1 Pro die, which is manufactured _solely_ by robots, and can't even use human labor would cost $100 per unit more here than anywhere else in the world. Heck the chip itself likely costs less than that to manufacture (do remember that we're excluding the design cost, which is the same).

This is quite literally the case of big businesses selling their (for some tenuous definition of "their" - they don't much care where they are situated as long as they have access to US market) country out for a buck.

[Teever]

> an M1 Pro die, which is manufactured _solely_ by robots, and can't even use human labor

I was not aware that there were no employees in modern chip fabs. They must require some sort of maintenance cycle, how often do humans come to modern chip fabs?

[m0zg]

"Maintenance" won't add $100 per die like GP is suggesting. There are hundreds of dies per wafer, and thousands of wafers within maintenance interval. We're talking a very small incremental cost. And it too could be reduced to account for more expensive labor.

I'd like to pose a better question: why do you voluntarily carry water for Apple? If you are in the US (or in one of its allied countries), on-shoring advanced semiconductors, and other types of advanced manufacturing is 100% beneficial to you no matter from which perspective you consider it.