The chip factory being built by TSMC in Arizona (United States) has begun the final stretch of its fine-tuning. The purpose of this company is to launch semiconductor production at these facilities in 2024, and it looks set to get there. However, the integrated circuits that will come out of this plant will be up to 30% more expensive than chips with identical characteristics manufactured in the facilities that TSMC has in Taiwan.
Morris Chang, the founder of this company, maintains that the production costs of its plants located outside of Taiwan will double in the future, which will have a direct impact on the price of chips. This increase is caused by the high costs derived from the construction of state-of-the-art chip factories outside of Asia, and also by the wage conditions of US workers.
However, the suspicion with which Chang faces the challenges of expanding his company abroad does not end there. And it is that this veteran engineer has highlighted on several occasions what for him is the fundamental ingredient that has led both TSMC and other Japanese and South Korean chip manufacturers to success: your work culture. This is what makes them so competitive for this executive, and he predicts that the US will not have this in its favor.
TSMC is not going to sacrifice its work culture in the West. At least not at all
Currently, this chipmaker maintains its business on a profit margin of approximately 53%, and according to the Asian media, it is not willing to sacrifice it to offer its customers the integrated circuits it produces inside and outside Taiwan at the same price. Both Morris Chang and Mark Liu, who is the current chairman of TSMC, have stated that their competitiveness is closely tied to their work culture, and they are not willing to give it up at their facilities outside their home country. At least not completely.
TSMC is having a hard time finding the 4,500 workers it needs to get its new Arizona plants up and running
An article published by Fortune magazine a few days ago states that TSMC is having a hard time finding the 4,500 workers you need to start up its new Arizona plants. According to this medium, this company has earned a reputation for defending a “brutal” corporate culture, and, apparently, many American workers are intimidated by this philosophy. Some former employees in the US say that 12-hour workdays and weekend shifts are very common. “At TSMC everything is obedience. It is not prepared for America,” says one of its engineers without revealing his identity.
Mark Liu has not hesitated to jump to the fore and give a forceful response to these criticisms during a very recent trip he has made to the US to, among other reasons, meet with President Joe Biden: “Those who are not willing to take turns They shouldn’t work in the semiconductor manufacturing industry.” However, he has also tried to appease critics of his company a bit by assuring that he is not going to ask his employees in the US to assume the exact same standards derived from the work culture that prevails in his Taiwan plants.
TSMC’s top management is currently negotiating with the German government the conditions required to approve the construction of a semiconductor plant in the state of Saxony. The Japanese government is also interested in having an integrated circuit factory from this Taiwanese company within its borders, but Europe desperately needs to strengthen its position in the chip industry and is hardly going to miss this opportunity.
Of course, in Germany, France, Italy, Spain or any other European country the same thing would happen as in the US. TSMC will have no choice but to partly give up the work culture internalized by its Taiwanese employees.
Cover image: TSMC
More information: Focus Taiwan | fortune
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