News Earthquake in Taiwan

Thunder 57 · Apr 2, 2024

Wonder how signigicantly this will affect AMD/Intel/Nvidia/many others. Wasn't sure where to post this. Could be a big deal.

TSMC Facilities to Resume Production Overnight After Quake

(Bloomberg) -- Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. said it expects to resume production overnight at facilities that were earlier interrupted after the biggest earthquake in 25 years struck its home island. Most Read from BloombergTrumpism Is Emptying ChurchesTrump Media Spirals as 36% Dive...

finance.yahoo.com

FlameTail · Apr 2, 2024

Are the delicate EUV machines safe?

Thunder 57 · Apr 2, 2024

FlameTail said:
Are the delicate EUV machines safe?

Not much news yet. Hopefully there isn't much loss of life. A 7.5 is quite the quake though.

trivik12 · Apr 2, 2024

More than Chips, let us hope people are ok. I am sure TSMC has process to bring back the lines as soon as its safe. Long term impact should be minimal.

RnR_au · Apr 2, 2024

FlameTail said:
Are the delicate EUV machines safe?

Sounds like they are earthquake protected to some degrees;

Previously, TSMC announced that following the 921 earthquake, they've implemented seismic management measures surpassing regulations. These include conducting thorough post-earthquake inspections of all facilities and structures, installing dampers or shock absorbers to lessen earthquake impacts on buildings, and actively integrating new equipment vibration reduction and isolation technologies to mitigate operational risks associated with earthquakes.

Latest Update: TSMC said EUV equipment all safe and sound

A major earthquake, with a magnitude of 7.4, struck Taiwan at 7:58 am on April 3 local time. Within 10 hours of the April 3 earthquake, the recovery rate of TSMC fab equipment exceeded 70%, and the recovery rate of newly built fabs (e.g., Fab 18) exceeded 80%.

www.digitimes.com

But yeah crosses fingers on their behalf.

Schmide · Apr 2, 2024

I don't need a lot of tech right now but i bought some flash that I needed just because. Fear buying.

The chip plant is on the other side of the mountains. Regardless crazy leaning buildings. The fact that they didn't collapse says a lot about their building strength.

Edit: I'm disappointed in our major news stations, not one has flipped over to the coverage. Watching NHK japan (respect)

Doug S · Apr 3, 2024

The newest fabs are supposedly better protected against earthquakes - basically built on top of gigantic shock absorbers instead of a traditional foundation, so the N3/N5 stuff might be better off than the 28nm/40nm stuff.

If production of the latter is interrupted when supply/demand only got caught up last year, and combined with the shipping woes (Red Sea, Panama drought) we might see covid like supply chain disruptions again. The one saving grace is that TSMC isn't the only supplier of those older nodes, while they are the only game in town for leading edge smartphones, AI, and all the new PC CPUs planned for this year (yes Samsung exists but couldn't have anything ported and out the door in under a year)

moinmoin · Apr 3, 2024

Looks like people and companies mostly were well prepared. Said to be able to restore normalcy in one day.

Taiwan chip supply chain likely to resume normal operation in 1 day amid strongest earthquake in 25 years

Despite a 7.4 magnitude earthquake disrupting the semiconductor supply chains in Taiwan, no major impact is expected, and operations remained stable, according to Taiwan's Hsinchu Science Park Administration.

www.digitimes.com

FlameTail · Apr 3, 2024

Ahh

Taiwan.

The semiconductor dragon

Jewel of the East

zir_blazer · Apr 3, 2024

The flood of Western Digital HD factory and the fire/arson of Hynix factory more than a decade ago should make everyone cynical enough than this will be a fine pretext to jack up prices due to supply speculation.

sdifox · Apr 3, 2024

Production resuming. No idea how much in pipe silicon has to be scratched.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-04-03/tsmc-evacuates-production-lines-after-major-taiwan-quake&ved=2ahUKEwjWi7jYu6aFAxU0MVkFHaYLAyo4FBAWegQICxAB&usg=AOvVaw0FCNEIjB6WMEmxd2BcVARj

Curious_Inquirer · Apr 3, 2024

TSMC has been prepared for this event for years. https://esg.tsmc.com/en/update/governance/caseStudy/1/index.html
https://www.asiafinancial.com/shock-absorbers-help-taiwan-chip-plants-avoid-quake-damage Also Asianometry made a great video on if TSMC and other semiconductor manufacturers got hit by earthquakes.

FlameTail · Apr 3, 2024

Doug S said:
The newest fabs are supposedly better protected against earthquakes - basically built on top of gigantic shock absorbers instead of a traditional foundation,

Amazing

Markfw · Apr 3, 2024

FlameTail said:
Amazing

I forget exactly where I saw it, but as long as 20 years ago, many buildings have been using this method. Most can withstand 8.5 quakes.

Markfw · Apr 3, 2024

Markfw said:
I forget exactly where I saw it, but as long as 20 years ago, many buildings have been using this method. Most can withstand 8.5 quakes.

OK, this is not exactly where I heard about this, but I wanted to google this to prove the validity of my claim.

Shock Absorbers for Buildings and Bridges - NASA

Shock absorbers originally used to protect spacecraft and launch pad equipment during the extreme conditions of shuttle launches are now bracing hundreds of buildings and bridges in earthquake-prone regions all over the world — none of which have suffered even minor damage during an earthquake.

www.nasa.gov

Hundreds of buildings protected in 2016 ? Yes, this has been around awhile.

StefanR5R · Apr 4, 2024

trivik12 said:
More than Chips, let us hope people are ok.

I agree.

moinmoin said:
Looks like people and companies mostly were well prepared.

I just listened to a German radio news item. According to that, the previous severe earthquake in Taiwan happened in 1999, at magnitude 7.3, and cost >2,400 lives. (It's known as the Jiji earthquake.) After that, Taiwan improved building codes and, importantly, apparently took measures to actually enforce these codes.

A counter example is, just to pick one I am vaguely familiar with in this regard, is Turkey. They substantially improved building codes and regulations too after having suffered severely from heavy earthquakes, notably after the İzmit earthquake of 1999. Yet, enforcement of the new codes in Turkey is inconsistent, from what I heard and read, and from what the widely publicized controversies after the 2023 earthquake revealed.

zir_blazer · Apr 9, 2024

Memory makers reportedly stop publishing contract DRAM prices following Taiwan earthquake — further price hikes are expected

But demand on the spot market remains weak.

www.tomshardware.com

Predictable.

Doug S · Apr 9, 2024

zir_blazer said:
Memory makers reportedly stop publishing contract DRAM prices following Taiwan earthquake — further price hikes are expected

But demand on the spot market remains weak.

www.tomshardware.com

Predictable.

Price increases can only hold if there isn't oversupply, which is still the case in the DRAM market. OEMs can raise prices but if it results in building up even more inventory they won't hold for long.

Holding off on publishing contract prices seems prudent until the damage from the earthquake is fully known. The fabs involved would know their damage by now but they may not be forthcoming to alert competitors, so even those without any fabs in Taiwan will want to wait and see what the others do. They are into game theory territory now but unless there was a major disruption any price movement won't last long since there is nothing else happening in the market that will goose the demand side.

News Earthquake in Taiwan

Platinum Member

Platinum Member

Platinum Member

Senior member

Golden Member

Diamond Member

Platinum Member

Diamond Member

Platinum Member

Golden Member

No Lifer

Junior Member

Platinum Member

Moderator Emeritus, Elite Member

Moderator Emeritus, Elite Member

Elite Member

Golden Member

Platinum Member