TSMC management reveals the hardest thing in semiconductor manufacturing

TSMC, the world’s largest semiconductor company, has confirmed its plan to open an advanced semiconductor wafer factory in the state of Arizona in 2020 and has tripled its funding. investment for this project to 40 billion USD by 2022.

However, some of the company’s employees are expressing displeasure about the plan, according to a report from The New York Times. One of the main reasons is that Taiwanese (Chinese) engineers are used to working long hours and working overtime on weekends, but this is something that American workers can hardly find attractive.

Three TSMC employees said standardizing processes was a challenge for American engineers. Wayne Chiu, an engineer who left TSMC in 2022, said he considered joining the Arizona facility but realized he would likely be responsible for “troubleshooting” American workers.

“The most difficult thing in wafer production is not the technology,” he said. “The hardest thing is managing human resources. Americans are the worst at this, because Americans are the hardest to manage.”

On the contrary, this is not too difficult a problem for Asian engineers, who seriously work on orders without question. Another TSMC engineer also said that when assigned some projects, some Americans have difficulty and sometimes turn down new tasks instead of accepting to work harder or longer to get the job done. .

TSMC’s move to build a factory in the US is supported by the CHIPS Act, which President Biden signed into law in August 2022. The act provides more than $52 billion to help U.S. businesses develop new semiconductor facilities, fund research, and increase existing production.

However, TSMC founder Morris Chang himself commented last October that the US authorities’ efforts to rebuild its chip manufacturing industry “will inevitably fail”. But two months later, he said that TSMC was “a lot more prepared”.

As of now, TSMC expects the plant in Arizona to begin manufacturing microchips in 2024, and the company plans to add a second facility at the site. Despite the project’s many challenges, TSMC is still committed to helping Apple move some of its production outside of China.

Refer to Apple Insider, NYTimes