TSMC’s debacle in the American desert Missed deadlines and tension among Taiwanese and American coworkers are plaguing the chip giant’s Phoenix expans

[Daniel Nenni]

We have four kids, all have spouses, and are all working. With one exception, a daughter, they all work more than 40 hrs/week. One son more like 50-60, because he's on call and travels. The daughter who doesn't is an executive recruiter, so she lives in a different world than I could ever imagine.

All of my "young" friends, meaning they're in their 30s or 40s, work about 45 or more hours per week. Some much more. All are in some aspect of hardware or software development. So pretty much everyone I know works on a schedule like that now.

I know what you mean. In the mid-2000s all four kids were in college, and my wife quit her job to get a graduate degree. So five at once. When people I just met asked what my job was, I often said "university fund raiser". They thought I was joking.

I never understood work-life balance either. I was always working or in learning mode. Early in my career, when I was a software developer, I would wake up in the middle of the night to code a solution to a problem that came to me spontaneously. I retired a few years ago, and it was weird. For the first time since I was 16, I could do whatever I want, whenever I want to do it. Now that I've had a taste of that there's no going back.

My wife stayed home until the final kid was off to college. All of my kids and spouses work while grandparents help with grandchild care. I am #4 of 6 boys in my family and we have 20 kids amongst us. My wife's family is even bigger. Out of four children I only have 2 grandchildren, a boy and a girl. My brothers have more grandkids but not as many as expected if each of our children had two children.

My brothers and I started working when we were 13 and we are still working. That is how work/life balance was for Boomers.

According to Social Security we get to retire at 70 for full benefits. Thanks to modern medicine and big pharma we may just make it.

 

[Daniel Nenni]

This is kind of my point Dan. Originally I had assumed the negative talk around TSMC AZ was completely empty fear mongering from a small number of folks with an axe to grind and or instances of people not understanding that manufacturing (and not just for semis) is hard/high pressure work. Unfortunately there have been simply too many reported safety incidents and worker complaints for every single instance to be false, exaggerated, or overblown. To make matters worse it also just seemed like there was a greater volume of complaints than with other manufacturers, which isn't exactly something that inspires confidence. If the worst is over and things are fixed that is good - even if they really should have already known better after already having a US fab for decades - but better late than never I guess.

Agree to disagree. Here is another article bashing TSMC AZ. Of course it is based on the first one and the mysterious disgruntled Bruce:

TSMC's labor practices draw serious concern in Arizona — the company's new chip plant allegedly plagued by worker abuses

Chip manufacturer TSMC's new expansion into Phoenix has been plagued with worker rights abuses, thanks to a culture of furious overworking taken from its Taiwan plants.

www.yahoo.com

Bottom line: Manufacturing is listening and this is not a good look for the US.

 

[Daniel Nenni]

I never understood work-life balance either. I was always working or in learning mode. Early in my career, when I was a software developer, I would wake up in the middle of the night to code a solution to a problem that came to me spontaneously. I retired a few years ago, and it was weird. For the first time since I was 16, I could do whatever I want, whenever I want to do it. Now that I've had a taste of that there's no going back.

The other reason why I will keep working until I can't is the excitement in the semiconductor industry. Things move fast and we are front page news. No way I can walk away from this semiconductor brouhaha. And the media coverage has never been worse, so much to do!

 

[Daniel Nenni]

I rather like that Japanese restaurant in the Royal.

We should ask is there problems recruiting TSMCers who seek the American dream for Phase 2 or the soon to be needed replacement of those that want to return home.

I did and there is not. But as I said it is still early and the grass is greener. TSMC can fix that by adding bonuses and other moving incentives. I forgot to ask if the fabs will be full communities or just fabs. In Taiwan the fabs have everything you need in a day: restaurants, laundry, coffee houses, markets, etc..... You do not see that here in the US.

 

[blueone]

And the media coverage has never been worse, so much to do!

So true.

 

[TBiggs]

Everything that happened in Arizona is a failure of management to plan and deeply understand the people, culture and way business is done in another country. You’d have thought the WaferTech experience as well as Samsung and GF would have given them great reason to consider everything they’d do. Instead they just did it the old way and total disregard for their approach with a very diverse and you external local workforce, engagement and expectations of the local contractor, subcontractors and labor norms. Was it in ignorance or arrogance, I’ll say a lot of the latter.

Amazing such a dominant company is actually so old school eastern arrogant

 

[Daniel Nenni]

Everything that happened in Arizona is a failure of management to plan and deeply understand the people, culture and way business is done in another country. You’d have thought the WaferTech experience as well as Samsung and GF would have given them great reason to consider everything they’d do. Instead they just did it the old way and total disregard for their approach with a very diverse and you external local workforce, engagement and expectations of the local contractor, subcontractors and labor norms. Was it in ignorance or arrogance, I’ll say a lot of the latter.

Amazing such a dominant company is actually so old school eastern arrogant

By local contractor you mean the bloated and corrupt unions we have here in the US? Maybe TSMC is not used to paying bribes? I'm sure Samsung is.

 

[count]

But the topic here is fabs. Are they similar?

They are similar enough. Here is how high tech manufacturing works, regardless of if it is fabs or batteries or medical devices:

The most expensive cost is equipment depreciation, not labor. The most important KPI is OEE (Overall equipment effectiveness). OEE includes factors for availability, reliability, and yield. Keeping the machines running takes highly disciplined labor. You need to develop a very deep understanding of how the machines work. You need to follow strict maintenance procedures. If there are issues causing downtime or yield loss you need to fix those problems as quickly if possible, no matter if the problem happens between 9-5 or at 2AM. There can be hundreds of machines on a line, and when everything is working it's like a perfectly choreographed dance. But if there are any problems with any of the machines for any period of time, production will quickly come to a halt.

Here is where culture comes in. Your purpose is to keep the line running smoothly, and you need to essentially see yourself as a critical part of the line. In US factories, we have a hard time getting people to even show up on time. Shifts will start 15-20 minutes late because one person on a crew of 20 wasn't in on time. That means the line was not running for 15-20 minutes. If you have $2b in machinery depreciating at 20% a year this works one person showing up 15 minutes late just cost the company $10,000. The American will always have some excuse, like "I had to drop my kids off at day care and there was traffic, isn't this company supposed to be family friendly?" Well that's tough but machinery which is depreciating $10,000 every 15 minutes doesn't care that your kid needed to go to day care so figure out how to get to work on time.

In Asia they don't have such problems. People live in the factory dorms, people meet their spouses on the assembly line and their kids go to factory day care. Their life revolves around working in the factory. There is no way you could convince Americans to live like that. You have a hard time convincing people to move from the city to a small town in the Midwest because "It's too boring" or "we don't like the weather in Michigan"

 

[nghanayem]

Here is where culture comes in. Your purpose is to keep the line running smoothly, and you need to essentially see yourself as a critical part of the line. In US factories, we have a hard time getting people to even show up on time. Shifts will start 15-20 minutes late because one person on a crew of 20 wasn't in on time. That means the line was not running for 15-20 minutes. If you have $2b in machinery depreciating at 20% a year this works one person showing up 15 minutes late just cost the company $10,000. The American will always have some excuse, like "I had to drop my kids off at day care and there was traffic, isn't this company supposed to be family friendly?" Well that's tough but machinery which is depreciating $10,000 every 15 minutes doesn't care that your kid needed to go to day care so figure out how to get to work on time.

In Asia they don't have such problems. People live in the factory dorms, people meet their spouses on the assembly line and their kids go to factory day care. Their life revolves around working in the factory. There is no way you could convince Americans to live like that. You have a hard time convincing people to move from the city to a small town in the Midwest because "It's too boring" or "we don't like the weather in Michigan"

How to tell me you have never been in an American fab without saying you've never been in an American fab before.

 

[Paul2]

By local contractor you mean the bloated and corrupt unions we have here in the US?

Taiwan has corrupt unions too

 

[Barnsley]

I did and there is not. But as I said it is still early and the grass is greener. TSMC can fix that by adding bonuses and other moving incentives. I forgot to ask if the fabs will be full communities or just fabs. In Taiwan the fabs have everything you need in a day: restaurants, laundry, coffee houses, markets, etc..... You do not see that here in the US.

Do they have housing also?

I think this is quite popular method in parts of Asia.

UMC even have a dormitory close by their FAB here in Singapore

 

[Barnsley]

Taiwan also has corrupt unions

Blimey!

 

[Paul2]

Blimey!

Mainland China has no unions at all

 

[TBiggs]

Do they have housing also?

I think this is quite popular method in parts of Asia.

UMC even have a dormitory close by their FAB here in Singapore

They have multiple housing complex, just like they had Taisugar in Tainan and the policies and experience of the residents pissed everyone off. Seems like TSMC HR and executives could use some common sense, but their opinion is everyone should be happy with the opportunity to work at TSMC, LOL

 

[Daniel Nenni]

I remembered Dr. CC Wei said he will use ChatGPT to prepare his material in next Tech Symposium. Let's see what AI capabilities have been implemented as a check.

He did not speak at the symposium.

 

[Barnsley]

Mainland China has no unions at all

Its one great collective is it not?

Or is that a facade?

 

[Artificer60]

I think AZ was a big learning experience for TSMC and the fast Japan fab build was a response to that experience. Asian cultures are much more compatible than the current US working culture for sure and it makes one wonder if Intel can really compete with Asian based fabs?

I see this a bit differently. Based on my experience working with a Taiwanese managed company in the U.S. I believe it may be more of a case of TSMC being unprepared/unable to accept the U.S. work culture and work within that paradigm rather than a failure of the U.S. working culture. Intel on the other hand is well versed in getting things done within the context of the U.S. work culture and until management decided to face plant on 10nm did quite well on pushing the technology curve for logic.

I never really heard much about how Intel's Fab 68 start up in China went before Intel sold off the venture due to government restrictions on what could be manufactured there, so don't really know how things worked out for Intel when the shoe was on the other foot.

 

[Paul2]

I never really heard much about how Intel's Fab 68 start up in China went before Intel sold off the venture

It was going poorly, because Intel's "Copy Exactly!" was not working in China. Everything down to fab construction services that Intel had in US was not available in China. They had to find entirely new working recipes.

 

[TBiggs]

I believe it may be more of a case of TSMC being unprepared/unable to accept the U.S. work culture and work within that paradigm rather than a failure of the U.S. working culture. Intel on the other hand is well versed in getting things done within the context of the U.S. work culture and until management decided to face plant on 10nm did quite well on pushing the technology curve for logic.

The key were was unable and also can’t accept an alternative way to possibly get the job done. There were many classes on how the US work, how to communicate, etc etc. but you can’t get a thousand people to change over night and the managers the are the ones the hardest to cha fe with most engrained and difficult to change habits. It’s those extreme habits that got them promoted and successfully. The senior leadership had few role models and they are all gone now. A US hire will see it is the TSMC Taiwan way or a dead end for their career currently.

 

[Anki]

This would be considered as toxic management in any other environment. Yet, somehow, here, semiconductor people are speaking about "cultural" differences:

"In one department, managers sometimes applied what they called “stress tests” by announcing assignments due the same day or week, to make sure the Americans were able to meet tight deadlines and sacrifice personal time like Taiwanese workers, two engineers told Rest of World. Managers shamed American workers in front of their peers, sometimes by suggesting they quit engineering, one employee said."