The factories run 24/7. Outside, trees obscure the gas tanks that keep them pumping. Guards patrol the perimeter and ask us to delete photos of the buildings. Inside, rare machines perform exquisitely finicky tasks on a nanoscale. Canteens work overtime to feed thousands of specialist employees.
China’s largest chip producer, the Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation , is lagging behind the Taiwanese leaders. Beijing has pumped more than $36 billion into SMIC over the past three years, hoping to produce five-nanometre chips by as early as this year, UMC founder Robert Tsao puts it like this: “The amount of money needed to upgrade technology and equipment is huge. For a high-end semiconductor used in a car, making one piece will take half-a-billion dollars. So, unless you’re already in mass production, you just can’t do it yourself – it will be too risky. Maybe even crazy.”No personal devices are allowed inside TSMC, for example. Each employee is issued with a company phone. The phone has its photo and storage capabilities disabled.
‘Semiconductors were invented in America … But today, the United States produces less than 10 per cent of global supply and none of the most advanced chips.’In February, President Joe Biden announced the US would invest almost $8 billion in chip research and development. “Semiconductors were invented in America and serve as the backbone of the modern economy,” Biden said in a statement.
Either way, the speed at which Taiwan and the West can outpace China is slowing because they are running out of space. There are only so many transistors – even if they are smaller than 1/500,000 of a grain of sand – that can fit on a chip. TSMC and other industry leaders are now experimenting with ways to revolutionise the packaging of semiconductors and stack more transistors on top of one another.