Thanks for the comment! The TSMC bit at the beginning is more illustrative of how important Taiwan is than anything. Aside from the capacity and expertise that TSMC brings to the table, it’s equally if not more the case that all the dependencies up and down the global semiconductor supply chain which run through Taiwan. Samsung and Intel fabs, for instance, would not be able to produce chips without Taiwanese inputs, and replacing those inputs in another geography would take years.
There is intense geographic concentration of fabs and factories that make inputs to fabrication around Hsinchu. If someone starting planting bombs or doing missile strikes in this neighborhood, it would be incredibly disruptive to the global economy.
How easy is it for chip fabs to reconfigure their factories and start producing new kinds of chip? Not that easy, again you need specific machines to make different types of chips.
Thanks for the comment! The TSMC bit at the beginning is more illustrative of how important Taiwan is than anything. Aside from the capacity and expertise that TSMC brings to the table, it’s equally if not more the case that all the dependencies up and down the global semiconductor supply chain which run through Taiwan. Samsung and Intel fabs, for instance, would not be able to produce chips without Taiwanese inputs, and replacing those inputs in another geography would take years.
There is intense geographic concentration of fabs and factories that make inputs to fabrication around Hsinchu. If someone starting planting bombs or doing missile strikes in this neighborhood, it would be incredibly disruptive to the global economy.
How easy is it for chip fabs to reconfigure their factories and start producing new kinds of chip? Not that easy, again you need specific machines to make different types of chips.