Comments by "Grak70" (@Grak70) on "Will Young Americans Want to Work in Semiconductor Manufacturing?" video.

They will, but Americans are not going to live in the fab for peanuts. If TSMC intends to expand further into the US, they need to get on board with the US office/fab culture. The Arizona fab is already having problems with this: they don’t want to compete hard on salaries and expect you to die in your bunny suit.
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It’s incredible that for as many people as Motorola employed throughout its existence, I’ve never once heard a positive story about working there.
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@dxelson yet somehow Intel manages to make billions a year? The fab I work for (in the US, not Intel) is decades old and still bonkers profitable. The idea that a cutting edge fab (or even one built in the 80s) can’t make money in the US because our engineers are paid significantly more than an engineer in Taiwan is laughably wrong.
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@Formosan I retract what I’ve said about the pay. On a cost of living basis, TSMC pay is very generous (although less senior engineers live like paupers on their salary waiting for that bonus). Median engineering pay seems to be about $120k/year after bonuses which is pretty generous. The only thing I stand firm on here is the complete lack of work-life balance. I spent years going to Fab12 and Fab14 and having meetings with photo engineers and even after years working there, they basically have no life. I never had a meeting where anyone who wasn’t a big shot didn’t have a hairnet line in their forehead. They only come out of the fab to take a dump.
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@epicsuper6775 so economically unviable, Samsung has one of the biggest fab complexes in the world in Austin, TX making one of the lowest margin commodities in semiconductors? And has for two decades?
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@epicsuper6775 then it’s pretty weird how Samsung did it like a dozen times and still makes money on razor thin margin products.
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@4473021 fab engineering is not IT. What are YOU on about?
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@azuaraikrezeul1677 all well and good until Winnie the Pooh steals your assets.
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At the operator and tech level I 100% agree. Grunt labor is in short supply at most fabs right now. You can make the same hourly wage working at a grocery store in most semi-heavy US states. Why bust your ass in a fab for the same amount and get fired for dropping one FOUP worth $2M?
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Olaf Willocx I suspect they will be persuaded with the chips money, in which case, yes: they want to.
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@alexanderphilip1809 I lived in Texas for 30 years and its people are no more “intelligent” than any other large state. They’re just very pro-business, which is fine for encouraging fab construction. But A, this fab won’t be built in Texas and B, TSMC work-life imbalance won’t fly in Texas either.
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