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Comment by CitizenKane

Currently TSMC has the only leading edge chip fabrications plants (fabs) on the planet and they're all located in Taiwan. They account for all new chips for all new Apple products, all new AMD products, most new Nvidia products, etc. Most companies design the the chips, but then outsource the manufacturing of them to TSMC as building a fab has astronomical upfront costs.

TSMC has acquired a lead in this area through a number of different methods. One of the main things is that they focus deeply on manufacturing. Another is that they work 24 hours a day in R&D, running 3 shifts so they basically have the lights on all the time. And as mentioned above, the upfront costs are incredibly high with a fab costing on the order of 20+ billion dollars to construct.

Intel is attempting to catch up, but it will likely be another 3 to 5 years before they are able to do so. Honestly just having R&D up and going all the time is probably a huge advantage for TSMC and probably a big reason behind their success. Regardless, suffice to say basically all cutting edge product shipments would cease in a matter of months if TSMC fabs were destroyed.

parent CitizenKane 2 years ago

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