Recently, TSMC founder Zhang Zhongmou rarely spoke out, saying that the United States has introduced a subsidy of US$76 billion. This move cannot make up for the United States' backwardness in chip technology and cannot become fat in one bite. The United States' backwardness in a

Recently, TSMC founder Zhang Zhongmou rarely spoke out, saying that the United States has introduced a subsidy of US$76 billion. This move cannot make up for the United States' backwardness in chip technology, and it will not become fat in one bite. The United States' backwardness in advanced technology cannot be solved simply by money.

The United States had a long-term leading position in advanced technology in its early years. Intel has been a global chip manufacturing company for many years. Relying on its unique advanced technology advantages, Intel defeated many chip companies and forced its direct competitor AMD to sell its office building for a time.

However, since the mass production of the 14nm process in 2014, Intel has stopped in advanced processes. The 10nm process was not mass-produced until the end of 2019. The current 7nm process has been repeatedly delayed. It is expected to be mass-produced at the end of this year. Before the 10nm process, Intel had to continuously improve the 14nm process and launch the 14nm++ process.

In those years, TSMC and Samsung have been making continuous breakthroughs, from the 14/16nm process to the 5nm process. The advantages gained in advanced processes have helped AMD to continue to leap forward in the PC processor market in recent years. According to statistics, AMD has surpassed Intel in the PC processor market, bringing huge pressure to the US chip industry.

Faced with the dilemma in terms of chip manufacturing technology, the United States asked TSMC and Samsung to set up factories in the United States a few years ago and introduced 5nm processes. Under tremendous pressure, TSMC and Samsung finally set up 5nm factories in the United States. The 5nm factory is currently under construction. However, TSMC and Samsung are not local American companies after all, so the United States launched a subsidy plan of $76 billion to support local chip manufacturing companies.

The US chip subsidy plan was originally US$52 billion, and this US$52 billion originally promised to give part of the subsidy to Samsung and TSMC's US factories. However, after Samsung and TSMC built factories in the United States, the US promise was delayed. American domestic companies Intel, , Qualcomm , etc. lobbyed to only subsidize these funds to local American companies, and TSMC and Samsung were quite dissatisfied.

For this reason, Zhang Zhongmou frequently speaks out, and Zhang Zhongmou’s statement is actually not unreasonable. The research and development of advanced processes cannot be started from scratch, but is improved step by step. TSMC's 7nm has 7nm and 7nm EUV, and before the 3nm process, there are 5nm and 4nm processes. However, there are still huge difficulties in developing the 3nm process. The United States has not yet mass-produced the 7nm process, and the hope of leaping to the 2nm process is undoubtedly quite small.

Zhang Zhongmou also believes that in addition to technical accumulation, advanced process processes also require talents. However, the United States now accounts for only 12% of the global chip manufacturing capacity of . GM has announced that it will stop developing 7nm and more advanced processes. Intel itself has many difficulties in developing 7nm processes. In this case, it is difficult to believe that using money can solve the talent problem.

It is particularly worth noting that Intel has not set up its 7nm factory in the United States, but in Ireland. This may be because in addition to the lack of chip manufacturing talents in the United States, it is also because the costs of labor, energy, land, etc. in the United States are too expensive. Even local American companies are unwilling to set up advanced process factories locally, let alone non-US companies?

Now TSMC has a little regretful about building a factory in the United States. Its executives are worried that American factories will be difficult to make profits in the future. The local costs are too high. If subsidies are not available, this may become a loss-making investment. It is precisely based on these concerns that talents such as Zhang Zhongmou have spoken out. Of course, some industry insiders believe that this may be because they hope to express their attitude and ask the United States to implement the subsidies they promised as soon as possible.