JAKARTA - Competition between the United States (US) and China in the semiconductor industry is heating up recently, and is now in the spotlight. The reason is, these two countries are fighting for chip companies from Taiwan.
Former US National Security Adviser in the era of Donald Trump, Robert O'Brien told Semafor media this week the US and its allies will destroy Taiwan's main semiconductor Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) facility in Taiwan.
This is done, if they fail to prevent China from attacking and taking over the self-governing island. O'Brien warned, letting China take over the facility would give him too much power.
Likewise control over TSMC, O'Brien said it would turn China into a silicon chip OPEC, referring to the multi-state organization that controls most of global oil production.
He thought China would control the world economy if it succeeded in invading Taiwan and seizing TSMC, of course the US would never allow that to happen.
Even so, O'Brien did not directly state what special plans to destroy TSMC were, but admitted he did not think the company's facilities would survive the invasion. The idea has been raised since at least last year, but is far from the only US option.
TSMC is the main supplier to Apple, Nvidia, Qualcomm, and Chinese tech giant Huawei. Apple is the largest customer and makes processors for most of the 1.4 billion smartphones in the world. TSMC itself has a 60 percent market share reported in automotive semiconductors.
The threat to destroy TSMC could be a tactic to prevent China from carrying out an invasion. Another plan mentioned is to evacuate TSMC technicians from Taiwan.
It should be noted that cutting the US from the TSMC chip will soon cause a severe recession, and even evacuating company personnel could harm the world economy by more than $1 trillion.
All TSMC factories are not in Taiwan, only the most advanced manufacturer. The company is also said to be considering building a Fab in Dresden, Germany.
In response to this, a Chinese newspaper reacted angrily to the company's plans to build 3nm manufacturing facilities in Arizona, calling the TSMC country "our Taiwan area".
Chen Ming-tong, who is in charge of Taiwan's National Security Bureau, said earlier that the US did not need to destroy the TSMC plant in the event of an invasion because the system was already very integrated with the global supply chain.
This means that the US and other countries can stop production without having to destroy their factories. Chen emphasized that to make some chips, TSMC relies on spare parts made by the Dutch company's ASML.
He described, even if China got a gold chicken, it wouldn't be able to produce gold eggs. This was quoted from TechSpot, Thursday, March 16.
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