[gjkood]

I have been listening to Kai Ryssdal's Marketplace on NPR/KQED the last few days on my commute home from work.

The topic for the last several days was on the CHIPS And Science Act and the new Semiconductor Fabs being built by TSMC and Intel in Phoenx, AZ.

It will be several years before the plants already being constructed will go into production but there is a whole ecosystem of current construction, education of the future workforce that will need to be hired in the future. Not to mention all the ancilliary companies that are needed to support these gigantic plants in the area.

The dollars from CHIPS Act are not only bringing in the manufacturing plants but will be essential to bring this lost capability back to the US in the scale needed both from an economic and national security perspective.

It was great listening to the show and the impact the CHIPS Act on people's lives already happening now and in the future.

For anyone interested the links to the specific shows are available as podcasts here.

https://www.npr.org/podcasts/381444600/marketplace

[wuj]

TSMC has moved many engineers from Taiwan to Phoenix. Entire towns were built with accomodation, schools, ethnic grocery stores from scratch. It would be interesting to see this initiative's cultural and economic impact on Phoenix in the years to come.

[jonhohle]

I’m not sure where “towns” (plural) are being built. The first plant is across the highway from a master planned community that was built 20 years ago, long before any fabs were being discussed in that area.

There certainly is a lot of development there, but it’s not like a factory town or anything.

There’s an outdoor recreational shooting facility across the street. I can only assume that is a huge culture shock for anyone coming over from Taiwan.

[navigate8310]

Here's another fascinating article about the cultural struggles faced by TSMC in order to expand in Phoenix: https://restofworld.org/2024/tsmc-arizona-expansion/

[onthecanposting]

Honestly, this sounds like normal life being a junior employee at a big company. An ossified clique of old guard managers pick winners and losers with little regard for merit? Unbelievable bureaucratic overhead? Your boss expects you to flatter and fawn all over him because he allows you to work 50-60hrs a week at 80% the median salary without overtime pay? Sorry to say, this is just what they're all like. Do good work, make friends, and try to get a job at a small company where people treat each other decently and incompetents can't hide in the crowd.

[jacobsimon]

I’m hugely supportive of the new factories and investments, but I’m curious why they decided on Phoenix which seems to be affected dramatically by climate change and incidentally has a very different climate and culture from Taiwan.

[11thEarlOfMar]

There are already a number of fabs there. Intel has a big presence. Government support, infranstructure and an experienced (although insufficient at this point) workforce are already there.

The reason there is a chip fab activity in Phoenix goes back to 1949 [0] when Motorola built a lab there. In 1952, they started making semiconductors and eventually chips.

[0] https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA79561583&sid=googleSc...

[icey]

A few possible reasons: Cheap & reliable electricity (https://www.axios.com/local/phoenix/2024/04/26/arizona-power...), low seismic activity (https://www.spglobal.com/mobility/en/research-analysis/brief...), existing semiconductor supporting industries (as mentioned elsewhere in this thread), and a politically favorable business environment.

[psaux]

I did not know this, I have family in Tempe close by. Do you have any references I can pass along to them?

[gjkood]

I believe the new term for Phoenix, AZ and other major cities in AZ is "Silicon Desert". You can see a map of the many companies in the high tech space in AZ at the following site.

https://siliconmaps.com/silicon-desert/

[davidgay]

Major semiconductor manufacturing in Arizona is not exactly new: Motorola had fabs there in the 70s (or earlier?), Intel's presence dates to 1980, etc. The article [1] below from 2001 says that Arizona was "3rd in chipmaking"...

[1] https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA79561583&sid=googleSc...

[zdw]

Being an AZ resident, this map is hilarious as it skips out the ~100 mile distance between Chandler and Tucson.

Tucson is more well known for optics, but more focused on space science than on use in silicon fabs.

[wuj]

Here is an article from Phoenix Business Journal:

https://archive.ph/dYCAF

> With Taiwanese transplants moving to north Phoenix in droves, Arizona officials — and a local baker — are working behind the scenes to make them feel welcome

[wslh]

Could we say this is the "Manhattan or Apollo 11 Project for Chips"? For its articulation.

BTW, about this topic, I always recall "A View To Kill" James Bond's (1985) movie [1]. The top hit in the soundtrack from Duran Duran [2] is also recommended and playing in radios even today. Seems like Intel passed the torch long time ago but don't forget to read the mantra book: "Only the Paranoid Survive" [3].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_View_to_a_Kill

[2] https://open.spotify.com/track/6I4snLrVOrJsLdd43isc27?si=7ba...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Grove#Books

[brailsafe]

Snowbirds from Winnipeg will quickly get outcompeted for foreign vacation rentals/properties lmao

[trwm]

Yes this is called a positive externality.

It is why outsourcing produced much more devastation than was promised and why onshoring will create much more work than expected.

The end result currently will likely be stagflation since like always politiciand do the wrong thing even when doing the right thing.

[VHRanger]

That's not why outsourcing created devastation.

The issue without outsourcing is that the benefits are widespread (lower prices!) but the drawbacks are concentrated (factory town is now a hellhole). And our political system is incapable of redistributing correctly even though the net effect is highly positive.

The seminal study on the topic is the "China shock" paper from Autor et Al.:

https://www.nber.org/papers/w21906

[TeMPOraL]

Strange, because put this way, it should be entirely positive - widespread benefits and concentrated drawbacks are what we want to happen, as it benefits more people and concentrated problems are much easier to manage. What's very bad is when benefits are concentrated (often in the hands of a small group), and drawbacks are widespread, and therefore near-impossible to manage. See e.g. pollution, emissions...

... and outsourcing. The benefits are concentrated: profits captured by the companies doing the outsourcing. Sure, they may sometimes trickle down to the consumer, but the costs - the distributed drawbacks - are inferior quality of goods, elimination of local jobs, high ecological footprint, abusive business practices, lack of effective customer support. And the extra magic here is, it spreads direct responsibility over national borders, so it's near-impossible to hold anyone to account.

[specialist]

2016

More recently, the drawbacks have been far more global in nature.

[trwm]

The multiplier effect is well known and understood. Nit sure why you're arguing against it.

[philosopher1234]

I don’t know or understand this multiplier effect you’re referring to. If you’d like to persuade me (and I assume other readers) explaining your argument might be more effective. Instead I get a sense of “don’t argue against me” as opposed to “this is why I’m right”

[drevil-v2]

Why would lower prices be beneficial? Americans already had the highest living standards in the world.

[bradleyjg]

In 600 BCE some population had the highest living standards in the world. Was that the peak of human flourishing that we ever should have aspired to?

[drevil-v2]

Still have not answered my question. Why is lower prices better? Why would vastly higher consumption coupled with vastly decreased production be beneficial?

[bradleyjg]

More things, less work sounds like utopia to me. Bring on the replicators!

[ijidak]

So, is Intel buying ASML EUV machines for their build out in Arizona?

It seems like Intel is skipping ASML EUV entirely.

If that's the case, I'm trying to understand how Intel ever gets decent yields at 7nm to 5nm.

It's definitely not coming from High-NA, which seems like a short-term distraction.

[ac29]

Intel is using EUV for Intel 4, which has been shipping in volume since the beginning of the year.

[ijidak]

Aha. Thank you so much for that.

[moneywoes]

> ancilliary companies

any pertinent examples? r.g. schools for workers families ?

[gjkood]

The show was talking about chip packaging companies to create the end usable chips from the silicon produced.

Just for the construction work alone, they mentioned that the pipefitters local union membership has doubled since 2020. Refinery level complexity on the specialized piping needs for the plants.

Special training programs geared towards the semiconductor industry being offered in the local Community and Trade schools training people to be the skilled and semi-skilled workforce for these companies.

People who were teachers now making four times the income working on the construction project.

[everybodyknows]

> People who were teachers now making four times the income working on the construction project.

Targeted investment! Toward future generations of chips, rather than of people.

[tacocataco]

I guess the people should hire better lobbyists.