blastdoor

discountopinion said:

Politics aside - having geographic distribution of chip production is essential as to not have a freak natural disaster kick us back into the Stone Age if most chips are manufactured in one small location.

Very true! Taiwan sits on the "ring of fire" and is vulnerable to earthquakes and tsunamis. All else equal, not an ideal location for multi-billion dollar fabs. 

This actually might end up being a good self-preservation step for Taiwan. 

Previously, they thought the US would defend them because of the importance of TSMC. 

Now it's clear that the US is led by an incompetent, corrupt, and erratic despot with an incompetent and corrupt national security team and no ability to rally allies to a cause. Which means the US won't be able to defend Taiwan even if it tried. 

So the strategy now can be -- invade us and we'll blow up our fabs, leaving the best remaining fabs in the world in the US. 

That's not quite as powerful a deterrent as the US and allies actually being able to defend Taiwan, but it's not nothing. 

Another “pull forward” that could hurt Apple is China deciding now (or soon) is the time to launch a gambit to take Taiwan. Trump has no credibility with anyone. No country is going to put their soldiers in harms way to support the US under his leadership. That means no country will support the US in defending Taiwan. In fact, Trump might not even try to defend Taiwan.

But I could see Trump blowing up TSMC fabs so the Chinese don’t get them. 

If they start production in 2028 then that means it will be the 2029 iPhone that gets them. 

That tracks based on recent experience. We expect the last N3 class iPhone this year, then we can expect 3 years of N2 (2026, 2027, and 2028). 

Every time there's a new node on the horizon from TSMC, media outlets breathlessly report that the year the node goes into production as the year Apple introduces a product using that node. That *never* pans out. It's always the year after production starts that we get products available for consumers to buy. 

Also, if they do make a consumer oriented robot, they'll have to do something better than this: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJ9mz-JREiU

I had one of those as a kid.