Taiwan chipmakers keep workers ‘imprisoned’ in factories to keep up with global pandemic demand

[Besachf Jhakut]

Either we have high demand or low supply. Most people will say we have high demand because of the pandemic. For what though? Aside from new tech like PS5 or 3080ti, what are people buying that's crippling the market?

While I don't doubt 3119967d0c about COVID-19 costing some supply in Taiwan, there's a problem with the island running out of electricity production to meet general demand which has possibly ruined some wafers, I've read although I'm not sure reliably that ASML in the Netherlands which he refers to also lost some capacity to build EUV machines for TSMC's most advanced nodes, the nodes they're spending a lot of money on, and TSMC themselves have announced major price increases due to other supply chain problems which could have crimped some production. Samsung and Intel are also buying those machines, but are much less successful in getting these nodes to work. But demand is also believed to be a factor:

One obvious cause is the shift to work from home for so many white and pink collar workers. Whatever they had there at the beginning of the pandemic might not have been optimal or sufficient, especially for two worker households. The US showered a lot of cash on people and engaged in various sorts of lockdowns plus plenty of people voluntarily did that as they traditionally have done during plagues, and if you're stuck at home various electronic goodies could be attractive to help pass the time, communicate with others, etc. Not sure if the exodus from big Blue cities in the US which went into high gear with BLM would have had a serious impact, although I'm sure some computers that were moved didn't make it.

A lot of automakers are suffering because they cancelled orders and lost their fab line slots, then found contrary to their forecasts that the pandemic increased demand, public transit became less attractive and "livable cities" as noted above became very much less so. In their domain of chips made on older nodes, some output was lost later in 2020 when one fab line in Japan caught on fire and one or more in Texas were damaged by the extreme cold wave, and I'm not sure all that capacity is coming back.

 

[Billy Beer]

It's a supply issue- COVID shutdowns at factories in the incompetently run Taiwan province.

Did those factories fall to 0% output or reduced output? How long were they down for (if you know?) I'm just trying to get my head around some figures.

Trmp threatened sanctions against European countries which make chip etching machines if they sold current models to China, so they're working on building that technology locally.

Taiwan isn't China though, so how would that have effected the production in a significant way?

While I don't doubt 3119967d0c about COVID-19 costing some supply in Taiwan, there's a problem with the island running out of electricity production to meet general demand which has possibly ruined some wafers, I've read although I'm not sure reliably that ASML in the Netherlands which he refers to also lost some capacity to build EUV machines for TSMC's most advanced nodes, the nodes they're spending a lot of money on, and TSMC themselves have announced major price increases due to other supply chain problems which could have crimped some production. Samsung and Intel are also buying those machines, but are much less successful in getting these nodes to work. But demand is also believed to be a factor:

One obvious cause is the shift to work from home for so many white and pink collar workers. Whatever they had there at the beginning of the pandemic might not have been optimal or sufficient, especially for two worker households. The US showered a lot of cash on people and engaged in various sorts of lockdowns plus plenty of people voluntarily did that as they traditionally have done during plagues, and if you're stuck at home various electronic goodies could be attractive to help pass the time, communicate with others, etc. Not sure if the exodus from big Blue cities in the US which went into high gear with BLM would have had a serious impact, although I'm sure some computers that were moved didn't make it.

I don't doubt that the work from home pushed people in to buying more tech, but what new bits of kit go in to a shitty HP or Lenovo laptop from 5 years ago and a bog standard webcam? - most companies i've worked for have this level of tech.

I can see old tech disappearing like nobodies business and maybe some new high-end tech items like the PS5, XSX or 3080ti's being snatched up, but the rest? Old phones? Mid-ranged phones and tablets less than 12 months old? Maybe I underestimate how tight the oder-book was for TSMC

A lot of automakers are suffering because they cancelled orders and lost their fab line slots, then found contrary to their forecasts that the pandemic increased demand, public transit became less attractive and "livable cities" as noted above became very much less so. In their domain of chips made on older nodes, some output was lost later in 2020 when one fab line in Japan caught on fire and one or more in Texas were damaged by the extreme cold wave, and I'm not sure all that capacity is coming back.

While this is off topic; fuck the carmakers. I hope they lose a shit load of money for cramming crappy tablet tech in to their cars. A car is a weapon and a means of transport, not a fucking toy for soy-bean latte drinking faggots.

I didn't know about the fires, that wouldn't have helped any. Though i agree that i don't think the capacity is coming back. I can see tech being in short supply and increasingly expensive to buy.

The reason i bring it up is because I can't shake the feeling that the internet - especially social media, will go the way of the radio. Everyone has one, it's on in every shop and work place, but nobody really cares about it. If radio disappeared tomorrow, people would kick-off, but it's just a background device now. And as normies become more apathetic towards the internet, the tech bubble threatens to pop and a restriction in supply is the only way to keep up the demand.

 

[Besachf Jhakut]

I don't doubt that the work from home pushed people in to buying more tech, but what new bits of kit go in to a shitty HP or Lenovo laptop from 5 years ago and a bog standard webcam? - most companies i've worked for have this level of tech.

I can see old tech disappearing like nobodies business....

But if the worker is supplying his own machine, he might want a higher level. And I wonder how well the second hand market worked during the pandemic, but probably pretty well.

Maybe I underestimate how tight the order-book was for TSMC

Very possibly. They are now far ahead of everyone. Global Foundries dropped out of the game a while ago, and AMD moved their remaining cutting edge stuff to TSMC. Intel is infamously now failing hard on their second node in a row, although I did hear a bit of what sounded like legitimately good news for their "7 nm" node, that the delay has allowed them to move from making it sing while EUV was bleeding edge to now I supposed "very advanced." Allowing them to replace some complicated and probably defect prone 193 nm UV lithography steps with EUV. I don't follow Samsung very closely, but I hear they're not trusted like TSMC and its ecosystem, and they're having serious yield problems with one or more of their very latest nodes. (If you want to read a lot more on all this, I recommend SemiWiki.com, registration is free.)

At the other end, look at TSMC's fairly recent announcements of massive increases in fab lines, and doing a lot of this in the US. It's said that's because of the Taiwan island power problem, and it's a matter of record they gave up on the EU. They may find out they can't make these nodes work in the US, but they're going to try. So they see a great deal of demand now and in the future, as for example other cell phone manufacturers want to take advantage of the nodes Apple help pay for creating.

While this is off topic; fuck the carmakers. I hope they lose a shit load of money for cramming crappy tablet tech....

About now it's become mandatory from a Federal government requirement to have backup cameras.

The reason i bring it up is because I can't shake the feeling that the internet - especially social media, will go the way of the radio. Everyone has one, it's on in every shop and work place, but nobody really cares about it. If radio disappeared tomorrow, people would kick-off, but it's just a background device now. And as normies become more apathetic towards the internet, the tech bubble threatens to pop and a restriction in supply is the only way to keep up the demand.

Interesting theory, although I don't see any signs of it happening now. Three things I think you're missing: the Internet is a general purpose technology in a way consumer radio isn't due to its two way nature, Internet connected devices have replaced broadcast radio in almost every niche, and if we use broadcast radio as a guide, it's might still be too young for people to become "apathetic" towards it. I'm thinking about how it became red hot in a very familiar way in the 1920s, and was still very important in the 1970s and a lot of the 1980s.

And even if people pull back on social media, the convenience and utility of cell phones remain; there are now way too many things that are just more convenient if you've got one, especially a smartphone. Might better focus on a disgust reaction to how pervasively the web and smartphones spy on it, which could well become a big thing as the West's cold civil war continues to heat up.

 

[Billy Beer]

But if the worker is supplying his own machine, he might want a higher level. And I wonder how well the second hand market worked during the pandemic, but probably pretty well.Very possibly. They are now far ahead of everyone. Global Foundries dropped out of the game a while ago, and AMD moved their remaining cutting edge stuff to TSMC. Intel is infamously now failing hard on their second node in a row, although I did hear a bit of what sounded like legitimately good news for their "7 nm" node, that the delay has allowed them to move from making it sing while EUV was bleeding edge to now I supposed "very advanced." Allowing them to replace some complicated and probably defect prone 193 nm UV lithography steps with EUV. I don't follow Samsung very closely, but I hear they're not trusted like TSMC and its ecosystem, and they're having serious yield problems with one or more of their very latest nodes. (If you want to read a lot more on all this, I recommend SemiWiki.com, registration is free.)

Next time I'm fertilising the white elephant i'll give it a read.

At the other end, look at TSMC's fairly recent announcements of massive increases in fab lines, and doing a lot of this in the US. It's said that's because of the Taiwan island power problem, and it's a matter of record they gave up on the EU. They may find out they can't make these nodes work in the US, but they're going to try. So they see a great deal of demand now and in the future, as for example other cell phone manufacturers want to take advantage of the nodes Apple help pay for creating.About now it's become mandatory from a Federal government requirement to have backup cameras.Interesting theory, although I don't see any signs of it happening now. Three things I think you're missing: the Internet is a general purpose technology in a way consumer radio isn't due to its two way nature, Internet connected devices have replaced broadcast radio in almost every niche, and if we use broadcast radio as a guide, it's might still be too young for people to become "apathetic" towards it. I'm thinking about how it became red hot in a very familiar way in the 1920s, and was still very important in the 1970s and a lot of the 1980s.

I messed up quite bad in my previous post, as I didn't link 'radio' to TV. As in, TV killed the radio star, but radio still exists. It is inevitable that the internet will be surpassed at some point in time, but with how the acceleration of technological advancement keeps accelerating itself, I wouldn't be surprised if the 'internet' becomes background noise.

And even if people pull back on social media, the convenience and utility of cell phones remain; there are now way too many things that are just more convenient if you've got one, especially a smartphone. Might better focus on a disgust reaction to how pervasively the web and smartphones spy on it, which could well become a big thing as the West's cold civil war continues to heat up.

That's a good way of putting it. The internet becomes a thing that is just there, social media dies off as people stop giving a rats arse as it's not new. I don't mean die off completely, more like a serious cooling of popularity.

As that is inevitable, the rate of purchase, usage and desire to have the internet as the 'thing' to have, will just fall off. Then how are marketers going to push selling products that rely on the internet to do magic? Look at Alexa et al; people buy them because "lulz i can tell it to turn down the volume. it's magic!", but who will buy Alexa 2, if it can still turn the volume up and down with no new gimmicks?

Take smartphones for example. To keep the Iphone at the front of innovation, Apple removed a universal feature (3.5mm jack) and Samsung added thirty two thousand cameras to their phones. 3g, 4g and 5g all do the same shit and while 3g > 4g had very positive changes, 4g > 5g is the same for 99% of the usage.

The main way to sell tech to normies is by keeping it fresh, interesting or exclusive. FOMO is the biggest driver of sales to that group, so if they become bored of the fad of internet phones, the next logical step would be to restrict the supply and push FOMO. The big benefit of that would allow Apple for example, to sell their phones at double the price, without innovating anything.

 

[Kheapathic]

I don't even care about the shortage anymore; it's all the scalpers and their bots that are fucking pissing me off. Been following the alert pages and shit for months and still can't even get a 3060 at MSRP, because by the time the alert comes out and I get there; the furthest I've gotten is the "Use this address/payment option" on the Amazon page before it's gone, and Amazon is such a shit fucking website to where I put "Use these as my default options" so when I click the "Buy now" button, it still asks for my address/payment options. And it's not just GPUs, everything is being bought up and put up on scalper store fronts. A friend can't even get a used PS4 at MSRP because scalpers have gone so fucking hard and bought everything up.

All I can hope for is for companies to have a trick up their sleeve for Black Friday; or when the holiday season comes and the scalpers need money to buy shit, they drop prices to offload their shit. Rare and highly doubtful, but would still like it.