Reality is that chips became that cheap that it isn't viable to produce them in any western nation. With a unit price of a few cents you can calculate how many you would have to bring into the market considering R&D and production costs. It would be billions of units.
Taiwan will be able to produce them because they have the infrastructure, know-how and manufacturing processes established. Especially the knowledge was outsourced into foreign countries and companies now get their invoice for short term profits.
Overall I think Mr. Chang is correct and doesn't only want to pronounce the importance of Taiwan for domestic industry. The industry did became reliant on low wage workers manufacturing components to improve their quarterly reports.
Positive side is that since the shortage exists, industry has begun to recycle chips and solder them off boards that would otherwise be thrown away, I guess. That wasn't viable when the chip did cost .05$, but worthwhile if its value rises to 5$ or more.
These are high performance chips with unit prices way beyond most chips that are missing today. Sure, they are expensive as well because of high demand, but the industry that relies on cheap silicon has the most problems right now.
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[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 31.0 ms ] threadTaiwan will be able to produce them because they have the infrastructure, know-how and manufacturing processes established. Especially the knowledge was outsourced into foreign countries and companies now get their invoice for short term profits.
Overall I think Mr. Chang is correct and doesn't only want to pronounce the importance of Taiwan for domestic industry. The industry did became reliant on low wage workers manufacturing components to improve their quarterly reports.
Positive side is that since the shortage exists, industry has begun to recycle chips and solder them off boards that would otherwise be thrown away, I guess. That wasn't viable when the chip did cost .05$, but worthwhile if its value rises to 5$ or more.