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.
Just imagine what they would face in Europe, where workers even have rights!
Teaching the Asian colleagues the fine art of blocking factories and burning tires.
Idk I seen the South Korean picket lines, that looks like solidarity to me.
And that’s why they won’t set up a fab in Europe, the cost of manufacturing would simply be too high.
This makes me laugh because I work for a UK company that was bought out by an American company, who’s trying to treat the UK staff how they would treat US staff - and it’s not going well.
Our American colleagues cannot fathom how much time we take off for holidays, especially around Christmas. They also got a shock when doing some recent “restructuring” they couldn’t just fire a bunch of UK folks.
Our American colleagues cannot fathom how much time we take off for holidays
So many days if it’s like colombia. They have 37 holidays off each year. It’s great but im constantly forgetting which days are festivals so i always end up walking to the store and then returning home dejected because i couldn’t buy my cheese.
In china I had a UK roommate. He was on the phone with his mom mid week when she should have been at work. I asked if she was sick and he was like “No. She took some vacation days to tidy the house.” My jaw hit the floor. My vacation days in the US were so precious and so few that I’d never fathom using any to do chores. Unreal that you can have so much vacation you’d elect to spend it doing chores.
Damn. I wish I could take time off just to clean my house. It needs it.
Sounds like the time Walmart tried to get a foothold in germany. Their american way of treating workers, but especially their way of treating customers (greeters at the door) crashed and burned hard here.
I’m reminded of the time Walmart tried to enter Germany with their work culture. But in their case it wasn’t just that the Germans didn’t like it. It was illegal. And the German customers were weirded out by Walmart employees smiling and being so cheerful all the time.
Apple still tries to have the cherry up-beat customer services department in the UK and it doesn’t work. It’s a Saturday, no one wants to be doing this call, don’t pretend otherwise it’s weird.
But in their case it wasn’t just that the Germans didn’t like it. It was illegal.
I want to learn more?..
By law: 8 hours as the rule, never more than 10 hours for exceptions.
By contract, they can go a little above the 8 hours.
If they go above the 10, it can cost the company a lot even for a single case.
So they didn’t plan even for such simple things. Wow.
Don’t know if it’s in the video, but as far as I remember it was about how working hours were calculated and about worker surveillance. And Walmart trying to control worker’s private lifes by forbidding sexual relationships between workers.
And Walmart trying to control worker’s private lifes by forbidding sexual relationships between workers.
Just why would they do that? And were that their concern, wouldn’t such people work better, not worse?
Justification I’ve heard is that if one part of the couple is managing the other, or is promoted after the relationship started, then:
- there is a power imbalance in the couple, possibly one is coercing the other (« I can’t leave him/her, they’ll make my worklife hell / get me fired »);
- there is a risk the manager will promote their partner even if their job performance doesn’t warrant it
Companies will want to both avoid this sort of things, and avoid being seen to enable this sort of things. They might want to move one of the parties to a different department so that the higher up one doesn’t make promotion decisions for the other.
I’ve once worked at a company that wanted to know about relationships between their employees and suppliers/customers’ employees, again because that might enable situations where a supplier / customer is treater favourably because of personal relationships
I guess the rational is that a breakup would lead to worse job performance.
Well, that’s quite strange math, the amount of breakups between Walmart employees is expected to be less that the amount of relationships. Facts from the former are mostly a subset of facts from the latter actually.
Unless we consider the possibility that couples come to work at Walmart and break up there, but couples rarely form while already there.
Also things like selling their loss leaders below purchase price. The kicker is that they still lost the price war they started even though the German discounters kept things legal.
Then there was something about not wanting to publish their balance sheets as they’re required to, shutting out the works council from stuff that the works council has a right to be involved in, the list is endless. Not only did they not have a German CEO to manage all that stuff they apparently didn’t even have German lawyers.
No German lawyers ? The amount of stupidity and arrogance is mind blowing
“What do you mean the rest of the world doesn’t follow US laws?”
3 new chip fabs open recently around phx, which is in low-altitude desert, has had water supply issues for so long there’s a canal running from the Colo river through it all the way to Tucson.
Which is fed by a reservoir so low they find old mobster kills in barrels and might have to stop making power.
Why so stupid and short-sighted?
Ah, “faith-based”.
And a Republican governor made the deals. Who also allowed water to be used to grow alfalfa that’s sent to Saudi to feed their horses.
$$$ + no sense
76% of AZ water use is for agriculture, but that’s besides the point. I’ve read that most of the water used in a fab gets recycled, so once up and running, water usage isn’t as much if an issue as you’d think.
Agriculture probably shouldn’t be happening in deserts
largest microchip manufacturer on the planet
front entrance looks like an abandoned 80s era mall
They just built this! I mean not everything has to look like a cybertruck but why does it already look 40 years old
Is this what they mean when they say they’re creating jobs?
Sounds like they need a union
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.
Funny. The same issues that Tesla is experiencing in Germany.
Not a surprise given that worker rights are practically non-existant in the East.
Still wild that TSMC thought they could pull that on western workers. I hope they realize it’s not gonna happen and rethink their processes.
Similar stuff happened with US companies in the EU.
That stuff even happens with UK companies taking over German companies. They think they can just fire the members of the working council, very bad mistake! Remember, if you go to another country, you have to adjust to their law.
if you go to another country, you have to adjust to their law
Big business knows no national boundaries. They’ll build factories wherever labor is cheap, put headquarters wherever the taxes are low, and sell their wares wherever consumer rights are weak.
Happy workers are hard workers, treat them like shit and they’ll walk right out the door.
Aren’t the machines TSMC uses made in the Netherlands? They’re the only ones who can get down to that size, and they do it working 36 hours a week…
My brother worked for such a Dutch company (ASM) and often got sent overseas to supervise the setting up of the production lines with these machines.
He mentioned when he’d get sent to Asia, the workers would make sure to get it done over a weekend, while implementing the same setup would take 2 to 3 weeks in the US. In part that was due to the working conditions mentioned, but also simple lack of planning in case of the latter (things would grind down to a haalt because certain changes would need to be made, and the person responsible for the decision wouldn’t respond for hours or days, etc).
Side note: while 36 hour work weeks are common in the Netherlands, 40 hours is still the norm in my experience.
Well hopefully it fails and sells to a not terrible company.
TSMC is a massive company that makes a huge profit. Almost nobody else in the world can make 5nm chips (intel can but they already are setting up in Ohio).
Samsung basically caught up with whatever they call their node (3nm?)
Yup, that’s why I said almost. And tbf TSMC also has a 3nm process. But crucially Samsungs 3 and 5 nm fabs are not in the US, their best fab in Texas only goes down to 14 nm.
I work in a fab and it’s pretty industry standard to run 12 hr shifts for operators (3 on 4 off then 4 on 3 off) and if your in engineering or IT be ready to be on call cause they don’t want a 20-100 million+ machine down any longer then absolutely necessary.
Hire more to work regular 8h shifts.
Honestly once you get used to 12 hour shifts you come to prefer them. You have half the year off before you factor in vacation and sick leave. There is built in overtime every day. The time doesn’t feel much longer than an 8 hour day.
12 hour night shift was rough. The work hours weren’t bad but it was too hard to get on regular hours on my days off.
My friend, I can’t even manage an eight hour day without extreme burnout. I know I’m not necessarily in the majority there, but hearing you say 12 could ever possibly be comfortable just sounds like nonsense to me
Free time is tight before and after shift so it’s all about preparation. Clothes are out the night before, meals are prepped before work week starts etc. It’s also important to have a short commute. I’m close and go home on lunch break for an hour to eat and walk the dog.
Some days are real busy but fly by fast. I’m super beat after those. Most I’m more “on call” and just fix problems as they come. I get to work on projects I want to in the down time, or even just chill knowing a big problem is around the corner. IDK hard to explain but it’s worth it for the time off. I think my ideal would be for 10s every week.
I’m burnt out and don’t want to do fun stuff anyway after 8, why not do 12 and have entire extra days of not burning myself out. I miss my 12 hour 3x weekly nights schedule, I’d go back to it in a heartbeat.
I would stop going to that job. This would not have be a choice that I made, it is simply a thing that would occur. This would be bad for me.
Really? Nobody at TSMC thought to google “biggest mistake companies make when opening US plants”? Because this has all happened before
It doesn’t mean that the US factory is any less capable. What needs reworking is meeting the expectation and planning for contingencies. There should be ongoing shifts, specialized teams, rotation, mitigation, etc. I think our output is comparable but it’s done more safely and sustainable over a longer time VS grinding workers to dust and replacing them.
It’s not about capabilities, it’s about cost.
If you can exploit your workers, pay shit wages for long hours, you’ll get a cheaper product. You can get the same output by applying higher standards, but that would mean hiring more people.
The more time i spend in manufacturing environments ( I spend all my time there) the less i see actual product being the finished good. Business are setting themselves up for this autopilot pipe dream of “AI gonna fix everything” marketing/engineering utopia and in reality all it’s doing is dividing your operations crew and management. They are neglecting equipment, default mode of compliance is non compliance because of awful processes and quality cutbacks (staffing staffing staffing) and at the end you get a product that’s probably not gmp but who cares it’s shipping.
That’s the nature of capitalism.
Look at healthcare, software, construction. Unless there’s a very clear incentive to produce high quality (laws or enforceable contracts) things will go lower and lower in quality.
And unfortunately, a lot of consumers don’t care all that much about quality. They want crap that looks fancy.
This last job (I’m a contract employee) will be my last in MFG. I was hired long term (2 years) to get a gsk/haleon site to add almost 40% more deliverables. 280 million units a year to 400 million. Reduce waste by 25%, CoA/CoE turn around down to 2 weeks from 6.
The labs, which operate almost entirely as a community (eg no real rigid structure, lots of senior empires) killed it. 7 day turn around which honestly now my mind. Packaging was a struggle once i pointed out that OEE can be improved by scheduling downtime rather than just oopsing it (strictly beancounter bullshit).
Manufacturing… Took my ideas, literally threw them in the trash in front of me and said they have experts from multiple countries, they don’t need my help. Cool, i still get paid so whatever. You wanna see the biggest dumpster fire ever… Laid off about 40% of the mfg work force, rolled out some bullshit trainings about operators and maintenance working to bring equipment “back to new” whatever the duck that means (means maintenance budget is gone) all while investing 0 dollars into repair and maintenance. Gear boxes leaking oil into overflowing catch cans for months. Vacuum traps actually pulling ingredients out of the batches, building more systems upon systems that they can’t validate. Cleans that won’t pass swabs, cleans that aren’t validated, processes that rely 100% on operators to transcribe SCADA data into an electronic batch record system.
Never seen anything like it but i know when a horse is dead and this one was dead before i got there.
As a software engineer, this is exactly how software works.
Everything is just a huge mess bolted and duct taped together, sometimes over decades. And it’s all way too complex to understand and crap like crowdstrike happens.
You can’t rely on anything anymore and I’m pretty sure, our highly interdependent world will come very close to collapse if anything major happens. Covid was a warning shot, but nobody heard it.
I don’t think there will be a collapse just because there is no meticulous maintenance or development. Most likely, in the future there will just be an accident or tragedy that will improve standards and safety.
If you want a collapse you have to pray that all the factors attack at the same time, because if only one does the attack they only strengthen humanity see Late Bronze Age collapse.
Remove meticulous. I’m watching 15 year old equipment fail on a daily and the solution is to keep running it. Failing to plan is planning to fail no matter what mental gymnastics you pay a consulting firm to do for you after your layoff 10% of your open office mouth breathers and 50% of your neck down workers.
Businesses seem to have really gotten caught buying their own bullshit. If the numbers are so good and your OEE is so good, you don’t need that labor overhead. So they reduce the headcount. Problem is the numbers are all made up and someone whose ass was in the fire is now maybe safe for another few months. Multiply that by a few other “engineers” or whatever intern they pawned serious work off onto and you get a lemon.
I’ve been doing this a very long time and I’ve seen business struggle for all sorts of reasons. No one’s trying to steer the cart away from the cliff anymore. Why admit fault and get laid off when you can bullshit and get laid off? That’s worst case. Bullshit and keep your job? Gravy.
