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WhyMorrisChangSaidU.S.FabsWillFail,WaferCostandEconomicsofTaiwanvs.U.S.Fabs,TSMC SupplyChainDetails ,,ANDDEC01,2025 ∙PAIDDYLAN PATEL STEVEN LEE Earlier this year, U.S. President Donald Trump called TSMC “one of the most importantbusinesses in the world.” Although he was incorrect, TSMC isthe most important business in the world, his government and others do realize the importance of bringing TSMC into their man in the room” according to President Trump. Source: AFP overseas ventures: in the United States, Japan, and Germany. Five years on, these projects are all yielding wafers. But at what cost? Have both TSMC (andby extension, Taiwan) and these foreign countries achieved their goals? Are the overseas fabseconomically competitive? Dr. Morris Chang, the company’s legendary founder, hasbeenpessimistic on the U.S. fabs(emphasis added): …We think that the recent effort of the U.S. to increase onshore manufacturing ofsemiconductors, right now you’re talking about spending only tens of billions of dollars of With the fabs operating in high volume, we canfinally answer all of that and more in this report. First, some details on what makes TSMC successful, including their history, culture, and structure. Next a discussion of the “clustering” effect that makes Hsinchu Science Park the semiconductor epicenter of the world, and Arizona’s progress towards replicating it,including a detailed look at the supply chains in both places. Finally, we’ll detail the economics of the TSMC Arizona fab - is it truly more expensive to make wafers in the U.S.? TaiwaneseRoots TSMC operates as a global leader in semiconductor manufacturing, collaborating with hundreds of international clients. Yet, unlike many multinational corporations, it remainsdeeply Taiwanese at its core, with operations and talent overwhelmingly concentrated on the Of TSMC’s 83,000+ global employees, close to 90% are Taiwanese, including 88% ofmanagement-level staff. By location, 87% of employees work in Taiwan. The next-largestgroups are based in China, the United States, and Japan. In manufacturing, over 90% of TSMC’s total capacity is in Taiwan—meaning that this smallisland supports more than 60% of the world’s semiconductor output and over 90% of globaladvanced-node capacity. Even as TSMC expands globally, Taiwan remains its largest talent base. It’s not just theirbase of operations, the company’s talent pipeline is also Taiwanese. With strong government support, TSMC has launched 57 semiconductor programs across 17 local universities, coveringareas from fundamental science to advanced packaging. It also provides process design kits World-classcorporategovernance TSMC has also demonstrated world-class corporate governance throughout its 38-yearhistory. It was clear even from the initial vision for the company: When I founded a semiconductor company, there was only one path: to make it a world-class one. -Dr. Morris Chang, TSMC founder Unlike most Taiwanese companies - where boards are often dominated by major shareholders - Morris emphasized professional governance and independence from the start. Whenfounding TSMC, he designed a board structure grounded in two key principles: 2.Independent directors must remain free from both management influence and majorshareholders. Today, TSMC’s 10-member board reflects that philosophy: 7 members are independentdirectors. Of the total, 4 are Taiwanese—including Chairman C.C. Wei, former CEO F.C.Tseng, and a representative of the Taiwanese government. The remaining members comprise Compare this tothe board that presided over Intel’s decade+ of disastrous choices: 7members, more than half, had no semiconductor experience whatsoever. Including the advanced degrees from leading U.S. universities in science or engineering. This blend of local WaferTech TSMC’s Arizona fab isn’t the company’sfirst U.S. production site. In 1996, TSMC founder Dr.Morris Chang decided to establish WaferTech as a joint-venture fab in Camas, Washington,alongside three clients: Altera, Analog Devices, and ISSI. These clients had urged TSMC to From 1990-1999, TSMC achieved a CAGR of nearly 45%, with 1995 revenue at $1.1B and netmargin of $500M. These results gave company leaders the confidence to invest in a U.S. fab.According to Dr. Chang’s 2024 biography, they knew costs would be higher than Taiwan but,for reasons unclear, assumed margin would remain acceptable. Reality soon proved otherwise: Initially it was chaos,it was just a series of ugly surprisesbecause when wefirst went in, wereally expected the costs to be comparable to Taiwan. And that was extremely naive.-Morris Chang on early years of the WaferTech venture After groundbreaking, nearly every cost exceeded estimates, and coordination between theWaferTech management team and TSMC headquarters in Taiwan became strained. TSMC’sSenior Vice President of Operations, Steve, Tso, was tapped to stabilize the project. It tookfour years to normalize operations, and