r/wallstreetbets • u/MikeMikeGaming AI bubble survivor • Jan 28 '25

News Trump To Tariff Chips Made In Taiwan, Targeting TSMC

https://au.pcmag.com/computers-electronics/109466/trump-to-tariff-chips-made-in-taiwan-targeting-tsmc

Why don't we kick Nvidia while it's down am I rite?

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u/pithau Jan 28 '25

What plans? Tariffs are the plan.

Semiconductor manufacturing figured out globalization before Milton Friedman. Asia had millions of peasants farmers looking for factory jobs, keeping the cost low and it has remained that way. Good luck doing that in Arizona.

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u/homelessness_is_evil Jan 28 '25

Ironically, this isnt true for semiconductor manufacturing, its high skill enough that you actually need highly trained people to do it, which makes it even harder to do in Arizona lol Taiwan is the only place that has truly been training people to work in the clean rooms

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u/NorthernerWuwu Jan 28 '25

Eh, it isn't that highly skilled really. A bit more so than an open-air assembly line but for all the technology, it's not much more special than a chemical plant or any other precision manufacturing.

The design stage is complex but the factory workers aren't doing anything extraordinarily tasking.

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u/Visionioso Jan 28 '25

Nope. You’re mistaking semiconductors for electronics. Semiconductor floor staff are typically Masters and PhDs.

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u/_Answer_42 Jan 28 '25

OP thinking semiconductor is made of sand and just needs farmers shoveling it to a machine

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u/CallMeKingTurd Jan 28 '25

If that were true there wouldn't be such global reliance on Taiwan. They started sending people to the U.S. for education and training in the 70's. Then we starting dropping out of the game in the 80's, content to let them manufacture for cheaper. Meanwhile, ever since then they have continued to invest in educational institutions and training for decades. This isn't a situation where companies can say "oh well if Trump is gonna tariff the chips we'll just open our own factories." The wheels are in motion, but it could be a good decade before we have the highly skilled and educated work force to match Taiwan's cutting edge production.

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u/NorthernerWuwu Jan 29 '25

Access to ASML's equipment and expertise is the other major limiting factor, although people tend to focus on TSMC because the actual production occurs in Taiwan.

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u/richard-b-inya Jan 28 '25

Ironically, the US doesn't have the skilled workers they need for fab work. They had to import those workers from Taiwan. There was a big article about it a couple years ago. It caused a 1 year delay in the project.

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u/serhifuy Jan 28 '25

can you find that article? I tried googling to no avail

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u/SirGlass Jan 28 '25

Naw according to the founder he founded tsm because he was working in the USA and sort of hit a ceiling because he wasn't American.

So he started tsm and got a lot of Chinese people to leave there USA based job to work for him