_DSC1693
CBS 60 Minutes on Not enough water to go around: Colorado River basin, ravaged by drought, plans for a dryer future:
foreignpolicy.com/2023/08/04/tsmc-taiwan-arizona-semicond...
No Water, No Workers, No Chips
TSMC and other tech giants need to take climate into account or risk seeing their investments go up in smoke.
All roads lead to Phoenix. On the gravy train of greenfield investment riding on the back of Inflation Reduction Act legislative incentives in the United States, no county ranks higher than Arizona’s Maricopa. The county leads the nation in foreign direct investment, with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp. (TSMC), Intel, LG Energy, and others expanding their footprint in the Grand Canyon State. But Phoenix is neither the next Rome nor the next Detroit. The reasons boil down to workers and water.
First, the labor. America’s skilled worker shortage has been well documented since before the Trump-era immigration slump and pandemic border closures. Especially in the tech industry—the United States’ most productive, high-wage, and globally dominant sector—a huge deficit in homegrown engineering talent and endlessly bungled immigration policies have left Big Tech with no choice but to outsource more jobs abroad.
Arizona dangled its low taxes and sunshine, but TSMC has had to fly in Taiwanese technicians to jump-start production at the 4 nanometer chip plant that was meant to be completed by 2024, but has been delayed until 2025 at the earliest.
But the next slowdown they may face is Arizona’s dwindling water supply. In just the past year, Scottsdale cut off water to Rio Verde Foothills, an upscale unincorporated suburb on its fringes, due to the region’s ongoing megadrought and its curtailed allocation of Colorado River water. This was followed by Phoenix freezing new construction permits for homes that rely on groundwater.
Forced to find other sources, industry players have stepped up buying water rights from farmers, essentially bribing them to stop growing food that would serve the region’s fast-growing population. Then there are the backroom deals involved in an Israeli company receiving the green light for a $5.5 billion project to desalinate water from Mexico’s Sea of Cortez and pipe it 200 miles uphill through deserts and natural preserves to Phoenix.
www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/arizona-is-running-out-of-w...
Arizona is running out of water. Big Tech data centers are partly to blame.
▫️ Arizona is running out of water.
▫️ Governor Katie Hobbs plans to limit construction in and around Phoenix due to a lack of groundwater.
▫️ The area has several data centers that use lots of water. Google is planning yet another big one.
Google was planning a massive data center in Mesa, just east of Phoenix. The deal guaranteed Google 1 million gallons of water a day to cool the facility, and up to 4 million gallons a day if it hit project milestones. (That's a lot of water. Arizona residents each use about 146 gallons a day). I was an editor at Bloomberg at the time and we wrote about it here.
Since then, the Phoenix metro area has been dubbed "THE data center destination" by locals. Microsoft opened one in 2021 in Arizona. Meta is expanding its facility in Mesa.
These huge data centers use incredible amounts of water because the computing gear inside gets really hot when it processes all those YouTube videos, Zoom meetings, and mobile app sessions. Water is often used to cool the equipment.
www.cnn.com/2023/08/01/us/colorado-river-water-loss-lake-...
Colorado River Basin has lost 10 trillion gallons due to warming temps, enough water to fill Lake Mead, study shows
www.cnbc.com/2021/06/04/why-intel-tsmc-are-building-water...
Why Intel and TSMC are building water-dependent chip factories in one of the driest U.S. states
▫️ The Grand Canyon State may not seem like the most obvious place for a chip “foundry” or “fab” since the high-tech manufacturing plants guzzle millions of gallons of water every day.
▫️ Arizona received just 13.6 inches of rainfall on average per year between 1970 and 2000, according to the NOAA National Climatic Data Center, making it the fourth driest state nationwide.
▫️ Intel notes on its website that it is striving to achieve “net positive water use” in Arizona and that it has funded 15 water restoration projects that aim to benefit the state
The Grand Canyon State may not, however, seem like the most obvious place for a chip “foundry” or “fab” since the high-tech manufacturing plants guzzle millions of gallons of water every day
9to5mac.com/2023/06/29/tsmc-arizona-chip-plant-delayed/
TSMC Arizona chip plant over budget and behind schedule; US workers blamed
Construction work on TSMC’s Arizona chip plant, which is set to make chips for some older Apple devices, has run over budget and behind schedule – leading to plans to send over hundreds of additional workers from Taiwan to try to address the problems.
The news follows concerns about safety at the plant, after multiple accidents, and a claim that an active shooter drill was used to disguise the need to evacuate the plant after a gas leak …
Construction work also behind schedule
TSMC has also admitted that construction work is significantly behind the planned schedule. It was expected that the company would be able to move chip production into the facility in around September of this year, but now expects that this won’t happen until next February or March.
The delay raises questions about when the plant will be able to begin operating, though TSMC sources say that it had always allowed for delays, so the late running “does not necessarily mean” that initial chip production will be delayed.
US workers blamed; TSMC wants more Taiwanese ones
The 12,000 US workers are described as “costly,” and communication with them is “challenging.” TSMC wants to bring in hundreds of workers from Taiwan to speed up the work.
asia.nikkei.com/Business/Tech/Semiconductors/TSMC-to-send...
TSMC to send hundreds more workers to speed U.S. plant construction
World's largest contract chipmaker faces delays in Arizona project as market slows
www.tomshardware.com/news/tsmc-to-send-more-taiwanese-wor...
TSMC to Send More Taiwanese Workers to U.S. to Speed Up Arizona Fab
Negotiations are underway between TSMC, its partners, and the U.S. authorities to expedite the application process for non-immigrant visas in an effort to dispatch more than 500 skilled workers by July. The workforce being sent from Taiwan will include contract technicians and workers with practical experience in a variety of specialties, such as installing wafer fab tools and making them work in concert as well as building mechanical and electrical systems for chip fabs, the report said.
A significant number of managers have already been dispatched from Taiwan to monitor and streamline the build process. Still, it looks like it is not enough to monitor and supervise, and TSMC wants people with hands-on experience to set up the cleanroom at Fab 21.
Despite the intensive efforts, the construction of Fab 21 has already faced delays, and its costs exceeded expectations due to labor shortages and other issues. Construction of TSMC's Fab 21 phase 1 in Arizona was completed in mid-2022 and the company began moving in production equipment in December 2022. Typically it takes about a year for a fab's cleanroom to be equipped, so the company hoped that its chip plant would come online in early 2024. Meanwhile, Nikkei says the delays are so severe that TSMC now expects the fab to start making chips in late 2024.
TSMC's Fab 21 phase 1 will produce chips using TSMC's N5 family, which now encompasses such production nodes as N5, N5P, N4, N4P, and N4X nodes. TSMC's Fab 21 phase 2 will be used to make 3nm-class chips based on a variety of TSMC's N3 nodes, including N3E, N3P, N3AE/N3A, and N3X.
www.reuters.com/technology/tsmc-sending-more-workers-spee...
TSMC sending more workers to speed up building of new Arizona plant
TAIPEI, June 29 (Reuters) - Taiwanese chipmaker TSMC (2330.TW) said on Thursday it is sending more workers from Taiwan to the U.S. state of Arizona to help build a massive $40 billion factory to ensure its "fast ramp up".
The first Arizona chip fabrication facility, or fab, is scheduled to be operational by 2024. A second facility nearby that is expected to make 3 nanometre chips - the most advanced currently in production - is due to be up and running by 2026.
TSMC did not disclose how many workers from Taiwan are currently in Arizona. The additional number who will be going has yet to be determined and will only be in the state for a limited time, it said in a statement.
"Given we are now in a critical phase handling all of the most advanced and dedicated equipment in a sophisticated facility, we require skilled expertise," it said.
The additions will not impact the 12,000 workers currently on-site every day or U.S.-based hiring, it added.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd, as the company is formally called, is the world's largest contract chip maker and a major supplier to global tech firms including Apple Inc (AAPL.O) and Nvidia Corp (NVDA.O).
U.S. President Joe Biden has sought to boost domestic semiconductor production after the COVID-19 pandemic caused supply chain problems that led to shortages of chips for vehicles and many other items.
_DSC1693
CBS 60 Minutes on Not enough water to go around: Colorado River basin, ravaged by drought, plans for a dryer future:
foreignpolicy.com/2023/08/04/tsmc-taiwan-arizona-semicond...
No Water, No Workers, No Chips
TSMC and other tech giants need to take climate into account or risk seeing their investments go up in smoke.
All roads lead to Phoenix. On the gravy train of greenfield investment riding on the back of Inflation Reduction Act legislative incentives in the United States, no county ranks higher than Arizona’s Maricopa. The county leads the nation in foreign direct investment, with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp. (TSMC), Intel, LG Energy, and others expanding their footprint in the Grand Canyon State. But Phoenix is neither the next Rome nor the next Detroit. The reasons boil down to workers and water.
First, the labor. America’s skilled worker shortage has been well documented since before the Trump-era immigration slump and pandemic border closures. Especially in the tech industry—the United States’ most productive, high-wage, and globally dominant sector—a huge deficit in homegrown engineering talent and endlessly bungled immigration policies have left Big Tech with no choice but to outsource more jobs abroad.
Arizona dangled its low taxes and sunshine, but TSMC has had to fly in Taiwanese technicians to jump-start production at the 4 nanometer chip plant that was meant to be completed by 2024, but has been delayed until 2025 at the earliest.
But the next slowdown they may face is Arizona’s dwindling water supply. In just the past year, Scottsdale cut off water to Rio Verde Foothills, an upscale unincorporated suburb on its fringes, due to the region’s ongoing megadrought and its curtailed allocation of Colorado River water. This was followed by Phoenix freezing new construction permits for homes that rely on groundwater.
Forced to find other sources, industry players have stepped up buying water rights from farmers, essentially bribing them to stop growing food that would serve the region’s fast-growing population. Then there are the backroom deals involved in an Israeli company receiving the green light for a $5.5 billion project to desalinate water from Mexico’s Sea of Cortez and pipe it 200 miles uphill through deserts and natural preserves to Phoenix.
www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/arizona-is-running-out-of-w...
Arizona is running out of water. Big Tech data centers are partly to blame.
▫️ Arizona is running out of water.
▫️ Governor Katie Hobbs plans to limit construction in and around Phoenix due to a lack of groundwater.
▫️ The area has several data centers that use lots of water. Google is planning yet another big one.
Google was planning a massive data center in Mesa, just east of Phoenix. The deal guaranteed Google 1 million gallons of water a day to cool the facility, and up to 4 million gallons a day if it hit project milestones. (That's a lot of water. Arizona residents each use about 146 gallons a day). I was an editor at Bloomberg at the time and we wrote about it here.
Since then, the Phoenix metro area has been dubbed "THE data center destination" by locals. Microsoft opened one in 2021 in Arizona. Meta is expanding its facility in Mesa.
These huge data centers use incredible amounts of water because the computing gear inside gets really hot when it processes all those YouTube videos, Zoom meetings, and mobile app sessions. Water is often used to cool the equipment.
www.cnn.com/2023/08/01/us/colorado-river-water-loss-lake-...
Colorado River Basin has lost 10 trillion gallons due to warming temps, enough water to fill Lake Mead, study shows
www.cnbc.com/2021/06/04/why-intel-tsmc-are-building-water...
Why Intel and TSMC are building water-dependent chip factories in one of the driest U.S. states
▫️ The Grand Canyon State may not seem like the most obvious place for a chip “foundry” or “fab” since the high-tech manufacturing plants guzzle millions of gallons of water every day.
▫️ Arizona received just 13.6 inches of rainfall on average per year between 1970 and 2000, according to the NOAA National Climatic Data Center, making it the fourth driest state nationwide.
▫️ Intel notes on its website that it is striving to achieve “net positive water use” in Arizona and that it has funded 15 water restoration projects that aim to benefit the state
The Grand Canyon State may not, however, seem like the most obvious place for a chip “foundry” or “fab” since the high-tech manufacturing plants guzzle millions of gallons of water every day
9to5mac.com/2023/06/29/tsmc-arizona-chip-plant-delayed/
TSMC Arizona chip plant over budget and behind schedule; US workers blamed
Construction work on TSMC’s Arizona chip plant, which is set to make chips for some older Apple devices, has run over budget and behind schedule – leading to plans to send over hundreds of additional workers from Taiwan to try to address the problems.
The news follows concerns about safety at the plant, after multiple accidents, and a claim that an active shooter drill was used to disguise the need to evacuate the plant after a gas leak …
Construction work also behind schedule
TSMC has also admitted that construction work is significantly behind the planned schedule. It was expected that the company would be able to move chip production into the facility in around September of this year, but now expects that this won’t happen until next February or March.
The delay raises questions about when the plant will be able to begin operating, though TSMC sources say that it had always allowed for delays, so the late running “does not necessarily mean” that initial chip production will be delayed.
US workers blamed; TSMC wants more Taiwanese ones
The 12,000 US workers are described as “costly,” and communication with them is “challenging.” TSMC wants to bring in hundreds of workers from Taiwan to speed up the work.
asia.nikkei.com/Business/Tech/Semiconductors/TSMC-to-send...
TSMC to send hundreds more workers to speed U.S. plant construction
World's largest contract chipmaker faces delays in Arizona project as market slows
www.tomshardware.com/news/tsmc-to-send-more-taiwanese-wor...
TSMC to Send More Taiwanese Workers to U.S. to Speed Up Arizona Fab
Negotiations are underway between TSMC, its partners, and the U.S. authorities to expedite the application process for non-immigrant visas in an effort to dispatch more than 500 skilled workers by July. The workforce being sent from Taiwan will include contract technicians and workers with practical experience in a variety of specialties, such as installing wafer fab tools and making them work in concert as well as building mechanical and electrical systems for chip fabs, the report said.
A significant number of managers have already been dispatched from Taiwan to monitor and streamline the build process. Still, it looks like it is not enough to monitor and supervise, and TSMC wants people with hands-on experience to set up the cleanroom at Fab 21.
Despite the intensive efforts, the construction of Fab 21 has already faced delays, and its costs exceeded expectations due to labor shortages and other issues. Construction of TSMC's Fab 21 phase 1 in Arizona was completed in mid-2022 and the company began moving in production equipment in December 2022. Typically it takes about a year for a fab's cleanroom to be equipped, so the company hoped that its chip plant would come online in early 2024. Meanwhile, Nikkei says the delays are so severe that TSMC now expects the fab to start making chips in late 2024.
TSMC's Fab 21 phase 1 will produce chips using TSMC's N5 family, which now encompasses such production nodes as N5, N5P, N4, N4P, and N4X nodes. TSMC's Fab 21 phase 2 will be used to make 3nm-class chips based on a variety of TSMC's N3 nodes, including N3E, N3P, N3AE/N3A, and N3X.
www.reuters.com/technology/tsmc-sending-more-workers-spee...
TSMC sending more workers to speed up building of new Arizona plant
TAIPEI, June 29 (Reuters) - Taiwanese chipmaker TSMC (2330.TW) said on Thursday it is sending more workers from Taiwan to the U.S. state of Arizona to help build a massive $40 billion factory to ensure its "fast ramp up".
The first Arizona chip fabrication facility, or fab, is scheduled to be operational by 2024. A second facility nearby that is expected to make 3 nanometre chips - the most advanced currently in production - is due to be up and running by 2026.
TSMC did not disclose how many workers from Taiwan are currently in Arizona. The additional number who will be going has yet to be determined and will only be in the state for a limited time, it said in a statement.
"Given we are now in a critical phase handling all of the most advanced and dedicated equipment in a sophisticated facility, we require skilled expertise," it said.
The additions will not impact the 12,000 workers currently on-site every day or U.S.-based hiring, it added.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd, as the company is formally called, is the world's largest contract chip maker and a major supplier to global tech firms including Apple Inc (AAPL.O) and Nvidia Corp (NVDA.O).
U.S. President Joe Biden has sought to boost domestic semiconductor production after the COVID-19 pandemic caused supply chain problems that led to shortages of chips for vehicles and many other items.