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TSMC Arizona struggles to overcome vast differences between Taiwanese and US work culture (www.tomshardware.com)

submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), one of the world’s largest advanced computer chip manufacturers, continues finding its efforts to get its Arizona facility up and running to be more difficult than it anticipated. The chip maker’s 5nm wafer fab was supposed to go online in 2024 but has faced numerous setbacks and now isn’t expected to begin production until 2025. The trouble the semiconductor has been facing boils down to a key difference between Taiwan and the U.S.: workplace culture. A New York Times report highlights the continuing struggle.

One big problem is that TSMC has been trying to do things the Taiwanese way, even in the U.S. In Taiwan, TSMC is known for extremely rigorous working conditions, including 12-hour work days that extend into the weekends and calling employees into work in the middle of the night for emergencies. TSMC managers in Taiwan are also known to use harsh treatment and threaten workers with being fired for relatively minor failures.

TSMC quickly learned that such practices won’t work in the U.S. Recent reports indicated that the company’s labor force in Arizona is leaving the new plant over these perceived abuses, and TSMC is struggling to fill those vacancies. TSMC is already heavily dependent on employees brought over from Taiwan, with almost half of its current 2,200 employees in Phoenix coming over as Taiwanese transplants.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Look at crowdstrike. A tiny error disabled millions of computers for hours. Think about what would have happened, if this wouldn't have been an error, but an actual attack.

Look at the supply chains of medical supplies. One major outbreak of some bacterial disease in India or China will lead to them stopping exports and since so many pills are produced there, a huge drop in global supply.

Look at the undersea cables. There are not that many and capable malicious actor could easily destroy a lot of them.

Look at the power grid. I don't know about other parts of the world, but the European grid, spanning pretty much all countries in Europe plus turkey, has no plan for a cold start. If it breaks down, there's gonna be blackouts for weeks.

Of course, none of that will end society, but that's not how collapses work anyway. One event triggers another, and the combination leads to the collapse itself.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

It is inherent risk and it is present everywhere. Just because there are bugs every now and then doesn't mean there is a crash and you should also know that Linux was almost screwed by a backdoor that XZ Utils had, it doesn't save open source.

The only thing you can do is to reduce it and if you don't take precautions you will increase that risk.