Recently, TSMC set up a factory in Qualcomm, which has caused a lot of dissatisfaction among Kaohsiung citizens, according to Taiwan's "China Times Electronic News", TSMC's investment has been criticized by many local people, and even caused some people to take to the streets**, asking TSMC to respond to public concerns as soon as possible.
It stands to reason that such a large chip factory invests in the local area, and the local residents have to make noise and firecrackers, after all, with such a large volume of TSMC, settling in Kaohsiung is bound to bring various benefits to the local area in terms of taxation and employment, but now, why do Kaohsiung citizens hate TSMC's investment so much?
It turned out that in the past two years, there was a rare "core shortage tide" in the world, and TSMC, as a major wafer foundry, suddenly became a "fragrant bun". As a result, TSMC began to invest in expanding production all over the world, and Kaohsiung on the island is a newly delineated "feng shui treasure land".
However, due to the impact of the recession in the market environment, TSMC had to reduce production capacity investment, and the 7nm wafer factory originally scheduled to be established in Kaohsiung was postponed, and recently, TSMC once again announced that the original 28nm wafer factory plan has also been canceled, and the planned purchase of ASML's lithography machine order has also been blown up.
For this kind of backsliding investors, the people of Kaohsiung are naturally dissatisfied, not to mention, because TSMC is coming, the local housing prices have been "rubbing" to the top, but now that TSMC is not coming, the housing prices have long been "unable to go back". Before taking advantage of it, many ordinary citizens who believed in TSMC and Chen Qimai, the mayor of ***, became the biggest victims of this farce in the end.
Kaohsiung citizens bear the blame, and TSMC's U.S.-Japan plant plan remains unchanged
According to the general investment logic, for TSMC, if Kaohsiung, which has a lower cost of building a factory, is unsustainable, then the pace of its overseas factory expansion should be stopped as soon as possible. After all, compared with Kaohsiung, the Arizona factory in the United States and the Kumamoto plant in Japan invested by TSMC are more expensive to build and operate.
However, TSMC said to the outside world in the context of the recession of the industry: "Only the progress of the new factory in the United States and the Kumamoto factory in Japan remains unchanged", and in the face of the flattery of local enterprises and the practice of harming the local people, Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Qimai of ** did nothing, and only used a sentence of "respect for TSMC's layout and market considerations", and perfunctory the dissatisfied people and various news**.
In May 2020, TSMC officially launched its factory construction plan in the United States under various pressures from the United States and the promotion of the United States. However, as a foreign investor, TSMC's situation in the United States can be described as very aggrieved. The first is the amount of investment, originally TSMC decided to invest $12 billion, but the United States stopped doing it and forcibly asked TSMC to increase it to $40 billion.
When the prototype of the factory was completed, TSMC asked the United States for subsidies to build factories, and the Americans "changed their faces" again, asking TSMC to hand over confidential customer information and related process technology to the United States.
Just after TSMC dragged Taiwanese engineers to the United States with their families and planes one after another, although Biden personally attended the relocation ceremony, but then, the contradictions between TSMC and local ** and social organizations were highlighted. As TSMC continued to send Taiwanese experience experts to participate in employee training, the United States was dissatisfied, believing that this was TSMC's disguised introduction of base-wage workers to deprive the local American people of employment opportunities, and even BCTC used this as an excuse to ask federal lawmakers to block Taiwanese visas to the United States.
The progress of TSMC's construction in Kumamoto Prefecture, Japan, is also full of twists and turns. You must know that such a population town in Kikuyo Town, Kumamoto Prefecture, Japan, suddenly squeezed into such a chip giant, which suddenly triggered local traffic congestion, soaring real estate and talent competition, and the main problem that TSMC has to face is "lack of labor", local enterprises originally had the problem of lack of workers, and now as soon as TSMC comes, the local "population shortage" will be further aggravated.
However, even if overseas has hit a wall one after another, TSMC is not willing to return to the island and the mainland to expand production, but is hugging the thighs of the United States and Japan and other countries farther and farther.
Samsung also "chose sides", but China did not buy it
Like TSMC, South Korea's Samsung also wanted to "dance on eggs" when the Sino-US ** friction first appeared, and Samsung had factories in both China and the United States, selling mobile phones and electrical appliances in the United States on the one hand, and providing semiconductor chips for Chinese companies on the other side.
However, although Samsung's abacus played well, but the reality is very skinny, just after Samsung's washing machine was levied by the United States 50% of the import tariff, Samsung completely sat on the side of the United States, after all, as the United States' "little follower", the future and destiny of South Korea are in the hands of the United States, how can Samsung get rid of the shackles of the United States?
As soon as the U.S. "chip" ban was promulgated, TSMC and Samsung began to control chips in China, TSMC directly cut off the chip foundry business of Huawei and other companies, and Samsung also banned the sale of high-end chips to China. In addition, the two major chip manufacturers, also took advantage of the United States to build factories in the United States, and like TSMC, Samsung could not get rid of the doom of "turning over the gutter" in the United States.
Going to the United States to build a factory, cut off the supply of chips to China, TSMC and Samsung not only did not make any good, but put tens of billions of dollars into it, but also had to bear the joint losses of losing the Chinese mainland market, taking Samsung as an example, chips could not be sold, inventory continued to be unsold, and Samsung's financial revenue was reduced, the proportion was as high as 96%. And TSMC is also facing a big decline in market demand because of the fall of the mainland market, otherwise it would not have cut the Kaohsiung factory project on the island, which caused public resentment boiling, and it is not a person inside and outside.
Now, these two major chip manufacturers only remember the "good days" when they were smooth sailing in the mainland market, but when they stood together with the United States and helped to restrict and suppress China's semiconductor industry, they should have thought that they would have this step today. What's more, with the rise of China's domestic chips and semiconductor industry chain, the self-sufficiency rate of China's chips is getting higher and higher