Taiwan is worried about losing itssilicon shield

Taiwan, the Hope Diamond of Semiconductors, and the Future of Taiwan’s Silicon Powerhouse (Measures with the TSMC)

TSMC is not well known outside Taiwan because it makes almost all of the world’s high-tech computer chips.

Concerned about losing access to crucial chips, particularly as tension has escalated between China and the United States, as well as between Beijing and Taipei, governments and major consumer-facing companies like Apple have asked semiconductor companies to localize their operations, according to experts.

They are similar to the Hope Diamond of Semiconductor. Everybody wants them,” said G. Dan Hutcheson, vice chair of TechInsights, a research organization specializing in chips. The Hope Diamond is the largest blue diamond in the world and it is located at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington.

There are fears that a diminished presence for the company could expose Taiwan to greater pressure from Beijing which has vowed to take control of the self.

“The idea is that if Taiwan became a powerhouse in semiconductors, then America would have to support and defend it,” said Hutcheson. “The strategy has been super successful.”

The opposition Taiwan People’s Party had a lawmaker ask the minister of foreign affairs about a “secret deal” with the United States.

The Case for a Geopolitical and Political Impact in TSMC’s Decision to Expand Its Taiwan Embedded Devices

“It is similar to what happened in the US in the 70s and 80s when manufacturing jobs were being shifted away from the States into other countries. Many local jobs were lost and cities bankrupted,” he said.

“It also suggests that TSMC’s customers are asking for more geographic diversification, which is something that wasn’t previously a key concern of major customers.”

Semiconductors are an indispensable part of just about every electronic device. They are difficult to make because of the high cost of development and the level of knowledge required, meaning much of the production is concentrated among a handful of suppliers.

Chris Miller is the author of “Chip War: the Fight for the World’s Most Critical Technology” and said that TSMC’s decision to expand its Arizona investment is evidence that politics and geopolitics will play a bigger role in supply chain decisions.

The company needs approval from Taiwan’sMinistry of Economic Affairs to move its most advanced technologies abroad, which it is unlikely to give, he said.

Many experts believe that by the time 3-nanometer chips are being made in Arizona, TSMC’s Taiwan operations would be producing even smaller, more advanced chips.

A team of people who are working on development work are very close together. You don’t want to disrupt that. It’s not an easy thing to do,” he said.

The Sacred Mountain of Protection: a historical, modern-day, commodity-based microchip factory in Taiwan, a coastal city southwest of Taipei

I arrive in Taiwan with a morbid fear of democracy collapsing. My luggage is lost. The Sacred Mountain of Protection is where I am going to go. The Sacred Mountain is reckoned to protect the whole island of Taiwan—and even, by the supremely pious, to protect democracy itself, the sprawling experiment in governance that has held moral and actual sway over the would-be free world for the better part of a century. The mountain is in fact an industrial park in Hsinchu, a coastal city southwest of Taipei. The shrine is named after the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company.

Fabrication plants, also known as Fabs, are among the greatest marvels in the world. Thesilicon microchips fashioned inside them are essential to human life and are often treated as basic goods. They’re certainly commodities in the medieval sense: amenities, conveniences, comforts. The late ’80s were when investors started trading them on futures markets.