Semiconductor Investments Won’t Pay Off if Congress Doesn’t Fix the Talent Bottleneck

[VCT]

I know people who work in Intel's manufacturing group who work on problem-solving. They're on call 24/7, depending on their role. The problems get worked immediately. Even in the product design groups, I know people who have been called back from sabbaticals. Intel has a lot of problems, but I've never noticed that a lack of sense of urgency was one of them.

Also TSMC suppliers are on call to solve the problem.
One TSMC Japanese supplier said 10 years ago, the same problem need to send back to Japan and took 4 weeks to solve the problem.
Now they are required to have office next to TSMC fab and the same problem can solve in one day.

 

[blueone]

Also TSMC suppliers are on call to solve the problem.
One TSMC Japanese supplier said 10 years ago, the same problem need to send back to Japan and took 4 weeks to solve the problem.
Now they are required to have office next to TSMC fab and the same problem can solve in one day.

Pick any of Intel's fab vendors, search for their offices in Hillsboro, OR. They all have offices in Hillsboro.

The reasons TSMC beat Intel in fab process have nothing to do with sense of urgency or vendor support.

 

[benb]

TSMC has 56K employees, Intel has 121K, and Samsung has 287K.
TSMC is the leanest by a wide margin, this is part of their cost advantage I think.
I wonder how these numbers will change over the next few years.

 

[blueone]

TSMC has 56K employees, Intel has 121K, and Samsung has 287K.
TSMC is the leanest by a wide margin, this is part of their cost advantage I think.
I wonder how these numbers will change over the next few years.

Those employee counts aren't comparable. Tens of thousands of Intel employees work in chip design and software development. Samsung is a conglomerate with numerous businesses. Just as a guess, for the foreseeable future I expect the employee counts for all three of these companies to go up.

 

[hist78]

If we measure the employee productivity by net profit, TSMC is significantly stronger than Intel.

2021 TSMC average net profit per employee, based on 65,000 employees and US$21.354 billion net profit for 2021:
US$ 328,523

2021 Intel average net profit per employee, based on total 121,000 employees and US$19.87 billion net profit for 2021:
US$ 164,214

 

[benb]

Morningstar can chart INTC, TSM and 005930 (Samsung) together, and the 10 year chart is amazing:

Who won the pandemic? TSM