A new report out of Taiwan has revealed that the current US administration is tying the reduction on trade of trade tariffs on Taiwan to significant TSMC investment in the US. This investment includes a 49% stake in Intel.
Investing another $400 billion in the US sounds like a bigger commitment than buying Intel.
I am not even sure what TSMC would do with 49% of Intel. Upgrade their Intel’s existing fabs using TSMC tech? I can’t imagine TSMC getting into developing semiconductors (e.g. x86 CPUs), doesn’t seem to fit their strategy and Intel only strong position is x86 CPUs for laptops.
A mere decrease of tariffs from 20% to 15% doesn’t seem all that enticing (without security guarantees for Taiwan), one would think TSMC could easily make their customers eat the 5% extra tariff cost, it’s not like they have much of an option.
Investing another $400 billion in the US sounds like a bigger commitment than buying Intel.
I am not even sure what TSMC would do with 49% of Intel. Upgrade their Intel’s existing fabs using TSMC tech? I can’t imagine TSMC getting into developing semiconductors (e.g. x86 CPUs), doesn’t seem to fit their strategy and Intel only strong position is x86 CPUs for laptops.
A mere decrease of tariffs from 20% to 15% doesn’t seem all that enticing (without security guarantees for Taiwan), one would think TSMC could easily make their customers eat the 5% extra tariff cost, it’s not like they have much of an option.