WEBVTT

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imagine if the world's biggest manufacturer of chips just shut down and

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I'm not talking Fredo I mean tsmc the

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massive company based out of Taiwan that produces around 90% of the world's

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leading Edge computer chips recently earthquakes That Shook Taiwan as well as

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tensions with neighboring China have led people around the world to be concerned

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about what would happen if tsmc suddenly

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couldn't make chips anymore so exactly

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how would the planet fair with the sudden loss of one of its most important

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companies before we answer we'd like to thank our friend Dr Ian cutus for

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helping us out with this video when you're done watching go check out his

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website more than more and his YouTube channel tech tech potato first let's

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talk about natural disasters Taiwan is located squarely within the infamous

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Pacific Ring of Fire meaning earthquakes are a concern tsmc along with other Fabs

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is generally quite well protected against vibrations that can disturb the

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delicate Machinery needed to produce chips between anchors that dampen the

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effects of Earth earthquakes and floating piles that allow buildings to

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be supported by more stable soil deep underground tsmc can and does get back

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up and running even after significant earthquakes within a matter of hours

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good thing too considering 1 hour of downtime could cost the company millions

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of dollars but earthquakes are one thing human caused problems like War are

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another so let's say tsmc was wiped out due to some kind of military

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confrontation what then well do you remember the graphics card shortage from

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a few years back it would be like that

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except much worse a big part of the reason for this is not just because tsmc

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makes so many chips but because they produce tons of Leading Edge chips

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basically these are chips that have smaller transistors than other chips

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allowing them to be higher performance and much more power efficient think

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current gen CPUs and computers or the S so's that power Flagship smartphones but

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it isn't just higher end chips that would suffer a big time Supply shortage

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of the roughly 12 million 12in Wafers

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that tsmc produces yearly about 95

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million of those are on older nodes for cheaper chips for applications that

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don't need the highest performance in a smartphone for example about 70% of the

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Silicon inside is on these older nodes

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this means there would be shortages of everything resulting not only in higher

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prices say on cars for example but also a Ras to the bottom what we mean is

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you'd start seeing PCS and phones being made with the fewest number of chips

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possible meaning more basic functionality lower resolutions and

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refresh rates older versions of Wi-Fi and less responsive performance in

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general from most devices on the market would likely be the order of the day if

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you don't want to deal with this extreme version of paying more for Less you'd

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have to hope your current devices are high-end enough to last until tsmc could

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get back up and running but how would the world try to recover in the meantime

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we'll tell you right after we thank ODU for sponsoring today's video to car for

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below and start building your very own website with Odo of course if tsmc went

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away there are are other chip Fabs that would try to fill the void but they

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don't have the capacity that tsmc does especially for Leading Edge Products

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much more strain would be put on firms like Intel Global foundaries and lesser

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known companies like Tower semiconductor along with other companies like Tokyo

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electron and ASM which make equipment important for chipm that they then sell

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to Fabs all this pressure means that there wouldn't be a whole lot of

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innovation for a while you know how Intel does that thing where every year

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they talk about how their upcoming chip lineup is faster consumes less power

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well instead of that all their efforts would be going into just cranking out as

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many chips as possible on existing process nodes so it would be very

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difficult to upgrade even if you had the cash the problem would be exacerbated

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even further as some companies AMD being one of them are very reliant on tsmc to

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produce their chips to the point where their designs assume they'll have access

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to tsmc manufacturing this means upcoming designs would instead get

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abandoned for the time being and AMD would have to try and adapt anything

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still in development for foundries like Samsung or even Intel ironic if you know

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Computing history this kind of situation would probably last for 6 years or so

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until tsmc could be rebuilt and in the meantime there would be obvious

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geopolitical consequences as tsmc is a crucial source of chips for NATO member

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states and NATO alligned countries maintaining a sufficient chip Supply

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would suddenly become a major national security issue for those Nations meaning

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you might see nationalization or at least closer government Direction Over

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chip Fabs within some country's borders of course the assumption is that the

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most likely way this would happen is due to a Chinese attack on Taiwan but

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there's a high possibility that such an attack would result in the most costly

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war in human history and that China would be cut off from nearly all Global

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Financial markets as a result so do we really have to worry about tsmc going up

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in Flames tomorrow most likely not but no one would blame you if you squirreled

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away a latest gen high performance Ultra Book fresh in the Box to go in your

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doomsday stockpile of canned lima beans thanks for watching guys if you like

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this video you might like the one where we covered this dude who built his own

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graphics card at home very cool