A well-known analysis firm revealed that according to its senior industry expert Scott Jones' strategic cost and price model for wafer fabs, TSMC Arizona, a subsidiary of TSMC located in Arizona, USA, has a processing cost for 12 inch wafers that is less than 10% higher than local factories in Taiwan.

The report further explains that although labor costs in Arizona are about three times higher than in Taiwan, due to the highly automated wafer manufacturing process, the proportion of labor costs in overall production costs has dropped to less than 2%. Therefore, even if the salary level is high, the impact on total costs is relatively limited.

In addition, semiconductor equipment currently accounts for over 70% of wafer processing costs, and equipment prices are globally uniform, effectively offsetting other cost fluctuations caused by regional differences.

Regarding TSMC Arizona's first wafer fab, the organization did not deny TSMC's founder's previous statement of "50% higher costs", but believed that this cost increase was in line with the general pattern when establishing the first wafer fab in a new location. Especially in recruiting and training inexperienced local labor, this is a common situation faced by new factories.

However, previous analyses did not agree with this. As early as 2021, Morris, the founder of TSMC, said that the cost of chip manufacturing in the United States would be higher than that in Taiwan, China, China, or even 60% higher. He added that the "chip bill" subsidy provided by the United States could only provide short-term relief, because Taiwan, China would take the lead in the long run through its cost and labor advantages.

Exyte, a leading American engineering, architecture and design company specializing in the construction of high-tech facilities such as wafers, has also released a report that although it takes about 19 months to build a wafer factory in Taiwan, China, it will take up to 38 months to build a wafer factory of the same size in the United States, almost twice the cost of Taiwan, China, China, and the cost of wafer factory construction is about twice that of Taiwan, China. This will undoubtedly increase the manufacturing cost of TSMC's US factory.

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