The TSMC Thread

Life Technology
41

Sorry, I thought this was a current thread. Didn’t realize we were talking about 20 years ago.

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42

Well I did a little Googlin, turns out TSMC pays about half of Intel (including everything except pension). So he is pretty much spot on.

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43

hahaha you’re a prophet.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-28/tsmc-among-world-s-top-10-biggest-stocks-after-72-billion-surge

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44

Excellent I bought some TSM stock last week!

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45

When? Before or after the Intel announcement?

46

Before and After, I think its going to keep climbing

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47

I’m getting off the train at NT$500.

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48

American companies always pay astronomical salaries so it doesn’t compare. TSMC salary is good by international standards because European net salary is usually shit.

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49

I’m assuming this meteoric rise in stock price means that insiders know Intel will be sourcing its chips from TSMC and not Samsung?

50

TSMCs rise in stock price pushed the TAIEX past the all time high from 1990. It took 30 years to re-create the highs of the completely unregulated crazy stock market of the 80s.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/tsmc-surges-another-10-lifting-015117141.html

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51

Does this make sense to anybody?

52

TSMC does not expect Intel to be a long term customer so they won’t be building new capacity to meet the demand. Capex plans are made a long time in advance and their capex is already huge at USD 17bn / year. It would be too risky to build it out even more when Intel might go back to their own manufacturing at any time (the article says 2023 but who really knows?)

53

Thanks. So why wouldn’t they boost capex spending if they know Intel will be short on chips until 2023? Because they can’t do it in time?

54

Key word is “could” so it’s a big gamble for TSMC to build extra capacity for them. Maybe Intel can solve their 7nm issues quickly.

55

Intel says 2023. TSMC doesn’t know, it’s all guesses.

56

So if you’re not comparing it to US salaries or European salaries for semiconductor companies, what would you compare it to? That’s where its competitors and other successful companies to benchmark are, particularly the us. Just Samsung? Certainly even China would pay more but even then I don’t see them as having companies on par with tsmc.

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57

I agree with tsmc on this one. Intel wants to get back into chip manufacturing, why would tsmc help them out for now only for them to be a competitor later and eat their lunch?

Anyway, to answer your question, tsmc is already at full capacity and to make room for intel it would need a couple years to build a fab, which is billions of dollars of depreciating asset. That fab needs to run 24/7 at some high capacity through its lifetime to turn a profit. If, hypothetically, tsmc builds 2 12 inch fabs at the leading node, and then intel leaves, tsmc is left eating several billion dollars unless they can fill that capacity. It’s just too risky imo.

58

Did you not read the part where I wrote European net salaries are shit?

59

So at the very least, TSMC will use the room vacated by Huawei to produce for Intel.

60

Meh, even accounting for taxes there’s still a stark difference given the difference in pay. I would say if you also account for cost of living/rent, then maybe the amount you end up with/save would be about the same. But then the difference becomes 12 weeks vacation in Europe to 0 vacation days and working mandatory 15 hour days while lying to regulators that you only worked 9 to avoid employment violations.