TSMC’s debacle in the American desert
TSMC 在美国沙漠中的困境
Missed deadlines and tension among Taiwanese and American coworkers are
plaguing the chip giant’s Phoenix expansion.
错过期限以及台湾和美国同事间的紧张局势
正在困扰芯片巨头在凤凰城扩建计画
By VIOLA ZHOU 23 APRIL 2024‧PHOENIX, UNITED STATES
Bruce thought he’d landed his dream job. The young American engineer had been
eager for a stable, high-paying job in the semiconductor industry. Then, in
late 2020, he received a LinkedIn message from a recruiter for Taiwan
Semiconductor Manufacturing Company. Bruce read up on TSMC — the leading
global manufacturer of advanced chips — and got excited. The job sounded like
he’d be “pushing the boundaries of human technology,” he recalled to Rest
of World.
TSMC was undergoing a transformation at just about the same time Bruce heard
from the recruiter. The coronavirus pandemic was exposing deep faults in
supply chains, and a global chip shortage had slowed production of cars,
smartphones, and refrigerators around the world. Meanwhile, American
policymakers were rallying around what would eventually become the CHIPS and
Science Act, a sweeping piece of legislation designed to boost semiconductor
manufacturing in the U.S. TSMC, which makes most of its chips in Taiwan, was
under pressure to expand its global manufacturing capacities.
Bruce认为他找到了理想的工作。这位年轻的美国工程师渴望在半导体行业找到一份稳定
、高薪的工作。然后，在2020年底，他收到了台湾积体电路制造股份有限公司（TSMC）的
一封LinkedIn讯息。Bruce了解了TSMC——这家全球领先的先进芯片制造商——感到兴奋
。他对Rest of World回忆说，这份工作听起来就像是他将要“突破人类技术的界限”。
就在Bruce收到招聘信息的时候，TSMC正在进行转型。新冠疫情暴露了供应链中的深层次
问题，全球芯片短缺减缓汽车、智慧手机和冰箱的生产速度。与此同时，美国政策制定者
正团结支持最终将成为芯片和科学法案的倡议，这是一项旨在促进美国半导体制造的全
面立法。TSMC主要在台湾生产大多数芯片，因此承受着扩大全球制造能力的压力。
Bruce would be working as a semiconductor engineer. The recruiter explained
that he would first spend more than a year in Taiwan learning the ins and outs
of the complex chipmaking process. Then, he’d return to Arizona. There, in a
cactus-dotted suburb of Phoenix, TSMC was building a sprawling new factory to
make the kind of chips that power iPhones and U.S. fighter jets. He’d be
helping bring America’s newest chip factory online. Bruce was in.
But over the next two years, Bruce came to realize that the reality of working
at TSMC wasn’t exactly what he had envisioned. While working on nanometer-
level processes to make state-of-the-art chips, he struggled with language
barriers, long hours, and a strict hierarchy. Bruce soon began second-guessing
what he had signed up for. The plant, which was originally set to begin
operating in 2024, fell woefully behind schedule; production at the facility
is now set to start in 2025. Bruce, who said he signed a confidentiality
agreement with TSMC, requested anonymity for this story.
He wasn’t the only one disappointed with TSMC’s progress in Arizona — other
U.S. workers who spoke to Rest of World echoed Bruce’s concerns. In the past
two years, the company has relocated hundreds of Taiwanese workers and their
families to Arizona. Instead of a gleaming new facility, these workers found
an active construction site, and a company struggling to bridge Taiwanese and
American professional and cultural norms.
Bruce 将成为一名半导体工程师。招聘人员解释说，他将首先在台湾度过一年多的时间，
学习复杂的芯片制造过程的各方面。然后，他将返回亚利桑那州。在那里，位于凤凰城
附近的一个仙人掌遍布的郊区，TSMC正在建造一个广阔的新工厂，生产著iPhone和美国
战斗机所使用的那种芯片。他将协助启动美国最新的芯片工厂。Bruce 表示愿意参与。
但在接下来的两年里，Bruce 开始意识到，在TSMC工作的现实并不完全符合他的想像。在
从事奈米级工艺制造最先进的芯片时，他遇到了语言障碍、长时间工作和严格的阶级制度
。Bruce 很快开始对自己所参与的工作产生了怀疑。该工厂原定于2024年开始运营，但进
度落后严重；工厂现在预计于2025年开始生产。Bruce 表示，他与TSMC签署了保密协议，
要求匿名报导此事。
他不是唯一对TSMC在亚利桑那州的进展感到失望的人——与Bruce交谈的其他美国工人也
对此表示了担忧。在过去的两年里，该公司已经将数百名台湾工人及其家属搬迁到亚利桑
那州。这些工人发现的不是座闪亮的新工厂，而是发现了一个正在建设中的工地，以及一
家在努力协调台湾和美国的专业和文化规范的公司。
Over the past four months, Rest of World spoke with more than 20 current and
former TSMC employees — from the U.S. and Taiwan — at the Arizona plant. All
of them requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the
media or because they feared retaliation from the company. In February, Rest
of World traveled to Phoenix to visit the growing TSMC complex and spend time
with the nascent community of transplanted Taiwanese engineers.
The American engineers complained of rigid, counterproductive hierarchies at
the company; Taiwanese TSMC veterans described their American counterparts as
lacking the kind of dedication and obedience they believe to be the foundation
of their company’s world-leading success.
Some 2,200 employees now work at TSMC’s Arizona plant, with about half of
them deployed from Taiwan. While tension at the plant simmers, TSMC has been
ramping up its investments, recently securing billions of dollars in grants
and loans from the U.S. government. Whether or not the plant succeeds in
making cutting-edge chips with the same speed, efficiency, and profitability
as facilities in Asia remains to be seen, with many skeptical about a U.S.
workforce under TSMC’s army-like command system. “[The company] tried to
make Arizona Taiwanese,” G. Dan Hutcheson, a semiconductor industry analyst
at the research firm TechInsights, told Rest of World. “And it’s just not
going to work.”
在过去的四个月里，《Rest of World》与亚利桑那州工厂的超过20名现任和前任台积电
员工进行了交流，其中包括来自美国和台湾的员工。所有人都要求匿名，因为他们未获授
权向媒体发言，或者他们担心公司会对他们进行报复。二月份，Rest of World前往凤凰
城参观了不断扩大的台积电工厂，并与移居至此的台湾工程师社区共度时光。
美国工程师抱怨公司的等级制度僵化、适得其反；台湾台积电的老员工则认为，美国同事
缺乏奉献精神和服从精神，而他们却认为，奉献精神和服从精神是该公司取得全球领先成
功的基础。
目前，有约2200名员工在台积电的亚利桑那州工厂工作，其中约一半来自台湾。尽管工厂
内部存在紧张局势，台积电已经加大了对该工厂的投资，最近从美国政府获得了数十亿美
元的补助和贷款。该工厂能否像亚洲工厂一样以同样的速度、效率和盈利能力制造尖端晶
片，这还有待观察，很多人对台积电的军队式指挥系统下的美国劳动力持怀疑态度。半导
体行业研究公司TechInsights的行业分析师G. Dan Hutcheson告诉《Rest of World》说
：“（公司）试图让亚利桑那州的工厂变成台湾工厂，但这是不可能的。”
TSMC’s facilities are located on the outskirts of northern Phoenix,
surrounded by miles of desert hills and wide roads. A glass-walled office
building sits next to a massive parking lot, with a fountain in the shape of a
round silicon wafer just in front of the facility gates.
Next to the office building are the incomplete manufacturing facilities.
Originally slated to open in 2024, the facilities resemble giant stadiums.
Once complete, the entire complex will cover 1,100 acres, or the equivalent of
625 football fields.
At lunch hour on a Monday in February, Taiwanese and American engineers walked
in and out of the office building with badges, hard hats, and see-through
backpacks — which make it easier and faster for workers to pass through
security checks.
TSMC got its start thousands of miles away from Arizona’s arid desert — on
the northern coast of Taiwan. Morris Chang, a U.S.-educated chip engineer who
spent 25 years at Texas Instruments, founded the company in 1987. He did so at
the invitation of the Taiwanese government, which was eager to boost the
island’s economy at the time.
In the 1980s, companies like Intel and Texas Instruments designed and made
their own chips. TSMC set out to do something different. Chang’s company
would focus solely on contract manufacturing: Customers would send designs,
and engineers in the company’s fabrication plants (also called “fabs”)
worked to perfect production methods, minimize the number of defective chips,
and reduce costs.
The model proved a success. “All of a sudden it’s really efficient,”
Hutcheson, of TechInsights, told Rest of World. “You can learn to become a
plumber. But at the end of the day, it’s more efficient for you to focus on
what you make money doing and then pay someone else to come do [the plumbing].
”
台积电的设施位于凤凰城北部郊区，四周被数英里长的沙漠丘陵和宽阔的道路所环绕。一
座玻璃幕墙的办公楼坐落在一个巨大的停车场旁边，设施门口前面有一个圆形硅晶圆造型
的喷泉。
在办公楼旁边是尚未完工的制造设施。原计划于2024年开业，这些设施看起来像是巨型的
体育场。一旦完工，整个综合体将占地1,100英亩，相当于625个足球场的面积。
在二月的一个星期一的午餐时间，台湾和美国的工程师们穿梭在办公楼内外，身上带着证
件、安全帽和透明背包——这让工人们更容易、更快速地通过安全检查。
台积电起源于遥远的亚利桑那州干旱的沙漠之外——位于台湾北部海岸。张忠谋是一位在
美国接受教育并在德州仪器公司工作了25年的芯片工程师，他于1987年创立这家公司。
当时，台湾政府邀请他创立这家公司，当时急于振兴该岛的经济。
在1980年代，英特尔和德州仪器等公司都设计并制造自己的芯片。台积电打算走一条不同
的道路。张忠谋的公司将专注于代工制造：客户将发送设计，公司的制造工厂（也称为“
晶圆厂”）的工程师们致力于完善生产方法，减少不合格芯片的数量，并降低成本。
这种模式被证明是成功的。“突然之间变得非常高效，”TechInsights的Hutcheson告诉
Rest of World说，“你可以学会成为一名水管工。但归根究柢，专注于自己能赚钱的工作
，然后支付其他人来做（水管工作）是更有效的。”
Meanwhile, chip manufacturing collapsed in the U.S. and Europe, and migrated
to East Asia, drawn by government incentives. Hutcheson said the high costs of
building new facilities prevented new companies from joining the competition
and eventually solidified TSMC’s dominance.
TSMC has since grown into a $660 billion giant that has allowed “fabless”
chip designers such as Nvidia and Apple to flourish. The company is now able
to cram more computing power into less space than almost any other chip
manufacturer. Samsung and Intel are still trailing behind the Taiwanese
company.
TSMC is also considered Taiwan’s most important company, with Taiwanese
people dubbing it a “divine mountain that guards the nation.” The world’s
dependence on TSMC, locals reason, could even incentivize the West to defend
Taiwan from a potential invasion from China. The loss of Taiwan and with it
TSMC — the thinking goes — would result in a global tech meltdown.
TSMC insiders told Rest of World the key to the company’s success is an
intense, military-style work environment. Engineers work 12-hour days, and
sometimes weekends too. Taiwanese commentators joke that the company runs on
engineers with “slave mentalities” who “sell their livers” — local slang
that underscores the intensity of the work.
Up until the pandemic, it made sense for TSMC to concentrate its operations in
Taiwan, where it enjoyed unwavering government support, low operating costs,
and access to the island’s top talents. Outside a small plant in Washington
and two plants in mainland China that made chips with older technologies, the
company had little interest in international expansion.
与此同时，芯片制造在美国和欧洲崩溃，并迁移到东亚，受到政府激励的吸引。
建造新设施的高成本阻碍了新公司加入竞争，最终巩固了台积电的主导地位。
从那时起，台积电已发展成一家价值6600亿美元的巨头，使诸如Nvidia和苹果等“无厂”
芯片设计公司蓬勃发展。该公司现在能够在比几乎任何其他芯片制造商都少的空间内塞入
更多的计算能力。三星和英特尔仍然落后于这家台湾公司。
台积电也被认为是台湾最重要的公司，台湾人将其誉为“守护国家的神山”。当地人推断
，世界对台积电的依赖甚至可能激励西方国家保卫台湾免受中国的潜在入侵。人们认为，
失去台湾以及随之而来的台积电将导致全球科技崩溃。
台积电内部人士告诉《Rest of World》，公司成功的关键在于一个强烈的、军事化风格
的工作环境。工程师每天工作12个小时，有时候甚至要工作周末。台湾评论家开玩笑说，
公司运营在“奴隶心态”的工程师上，他们“卖肝”—这是当地俚语，突显工作的强度。
直到疫情爆发之前，台积电专注于在台湾集中其业务是有道理的，因为它得到了政府的坚
定支持，营运成本低廉，可以接触到岛上的顶尖人才。除了华盛顿州的一家小工厂和中国
大陆的两家使用较老技术制造芯片的工厂外，该公司对国际扩张并不感兴趣。
"The world has changed."
That changed in the late 2010s, as governments came to realize the
geopolitical importance of the semiconductor industry and launched a race to
attract chip manufacturing giants. Around 2019, the Trump administration
started courting TSMC to build a larger and more advanced plant in the U.S.
The pandemic further underscored supply-chain weak points. “The world has
changed,” Sujai Shivakumar, director of the Renewing American Innovation
Project at the think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies, told
Rest of World. Depending on chips from a faraway country on China’s doorstep
suddenly felt precarious. “What was purely — from an economics point of
view — an efficient solution is no longer an efficient solution because of
the geopolitics,” Shivakumar said.
In May 2020, then U.S. Under-Secretary of State Keith Krach announced that
TSMC had agreed to open a $12 billion facility in Arizona. The site would
create thousands of jobs, spur cutting-edge research, and attract more
companies on the semiconductor supply chain to move to the U.S. Chips coming
out of the plant were expected to power smartphones, 5G base stations, and
advanced F-35 fighter jets. “This means that chips critical to our lives and
national security will once again be made in America,” Krach said.
TSMC’s investment, Krach later told U.S. media, inspired policymakers to
extend incentives to the entire chip industry. In the summer of 2022, the
Biden administration passed the CHIPS Act, which designated $53 billion to
developing the domestic semiconductor industry. Later that year, TSMC said it
would build a second fab at the same site in Phoenix, increasing its total
investment to $40 billion.
Despite the commitment from both TSMC and Washington, issues related to
exporting a Taiwanese-style work culture to the U.S. swirled from the outset.
Morris Chang, who retired in 2018 but remains the public face of the company
and the godfather of Taiwan’s semiconductor industry, cast doubts on the
Phoenix initiative.
这一切在2010年代末发生了变化，因为各国政府开始意识到半导体行业的地缘政治重要性
，并展开了吸引芯片制造业巨头的竞争。大约在2019年，川普政府开始拉拢台积电，在
美国建立一家更大、更先进的工厂。疫情进一步凸显了供应链的脆弱点。战略与国际研究
中心的《Renewing American Innovation Project》主任苏贾伊·希瓦库马尔告诉
《Rest of World》说：“世界已经改变了。”依赖远在中国门口的一个国家生产的芯片
感到很不稳定。“纯粹从经济角度来看，这是一个有效的解决方案，但由于地缘政治的
原因，它不再是一个有效的解决方案，”希瓦库马尔说。
2020年5月，当时的美国副国务卿基斯·克拉赫宣布，台积电已同意在亚利桑那州建立一
家价值120亿美元的工厂。该地点将创造成千上万个就业机会，推动尖端研究，并吸引更
多的半导体供应链公司迁至美国。这家工厂生产的芯片预计将用于智慧手机、5G基站和先
进的F-35战斗机。“这意味着对我们的生活和国家安全至关重要的芯片将再次在美国制造
”克拉赫表示。
克拉赫后来告诉美国媒体，台积电的投资激励了政策制定者向整个芯片行业提供激励措施
。2022年夏季，拜登政府通过了CHIPS法案，将530亿美元指定用于发展国内半导体行业。
同年晚些时候，台积电表示将在凤凰城同一地点建造第二座晶圆厂，将其总投资增加到
400亿美元。
尽管台积电和华盛顿都做出了承诺，但从一开始就存在将台湾式工作文化输出到美国的问
题。张忠谋于2018年退休，但仍然是公司的公共面孔和台湾半导体行业的始祖，对凤凰城
计划表示怀疑。
When Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan in 2022, Chang lectured the House speaker on
the challenges the U.S. would face in mastering the microscopic precision
required in chip production. Chang has since also warned against the lack of
manufacturing talent in the U.S., and how hard it would be for Taiwanese
managers to supervise Americans. Speaking to the Vying for Talent podcast in
April 2022, Chang concluded that the U.S.’ attempt to onshore semiconductor
manufacturing would be “a very expensive exercise in futility.”
In 2021, as construction kicked off in Arizona, TSMC flew Bruce and about 600
American new hires to the southern Taiwanese coastal city of Tainan. There,
they’d spend more than a year training at Fab 18, TSMC’s most advanced mass
production plant.
当佩洛西在2022年访问台湾时，张忠谋对众议院议长讲解了美国在掌握芯片生产所需的
微观精确度方面面临的挑战。张忠谋还警告说，美国缺乏制造人才，而且台湾经理监督
美国人将会很困难。张忠谋在2022年4月接受《Vying for Talent》播客访谈时总结说，
美国试图在本土生产半导体将是“一场非常昂贵的徒劳行为。
Upon arriving at the facility, Bruce handed in his smartphone and passed
through metal detectors. He was in awe of the semiconductor production line:
Overhead rails carried wafers from one station to another while workers in
white protective suits kept the machinery running. “It really just felt like
I was touring some kind of living thing that was greater than humans; that was
bigger than us,” Bruce recalled.
But the challenges were immediately apparent, too. At Fab 18, nearly all
communication took place in Taiwanese and Mandarin Chinese, the two most
widely spoken languages in Taiwan. The Americans found it difficult to
understand meetings, production guidelines, and chatter among local engineers.
In theory, every American was supposed to have a Taiwanese buddy — a future
Arizona worker who would help them navigate the workplace. But the Americans
said their buddies were often too busy to help with translations, or else not
familiar enough with the technical processes because they were freshly
transferred from other production lines.
Many trainees, including Bruce, relied on Google Translate to get through the
day, with mixed results. Technical terms and images were hard to decipher. One
American engineer said that because staff were not allowed to upload work
materials to Google, he tried to translate documents by copying Chinese text
into a handwriting recognition program. It didn’t work very well.
One former American TSMC engineer who trained in Taiwan said his manager
instructed him to follow along with daily handover meetings, which were
conducted in Mandarin, just by looking at the associated PowerPoint
presentations. “I was mind-blown at his expectations,” he told Rest of World
. “I love challenges and pushing myself, but this was lunatic-level
leadership.”
在2021年，随着亚利桑那州的建设开始，台积电将Bruce 和约600名美国新员工送到了台
湾南部沿海城市台南。在那里，他们将在台积电最先进的大规模生产厂Fab 18进行超过一
年的培训。
抵达该设施后，Bruce交出了智慧手机，通过了金属探测器。他对半导体生产线感到惊叹
：头顶的轨道将晶圆从一个工作站运送到另一个工作站，而穿着白色防护服的工人们保持
著机器运转。Bruce回忆道：“它真的感觉就像我在参观某种超越人类的生命体，比我们
更伟大。”
但挑战也立即显现出来。在Fab 18，几乎所有的沟通都是用台语和中文进行的，这是台湾
最广泛使用的两种语言。美国人发现很难理解会议、生产指南以及当地工程师之间的交谈
。理论上，每个美国人都应该有一个台湾伙伴，即一个未来在亚利桑那州工作的人，他
们将帮助他们在工作场所中导航。但美国人表示，他们的伙伴通常太忙，无法帮助翻译，
或者对技术流程不够熟悉，因为他们刚从其他生产线调职过来。
包括Bruce在内的许多培训生依靠Google翻译应付每一天的工作，效果参差不齐。技术术
语和图像很难解读。一位美国工程师说，由于工作人员不允许将工作材料上传到Google，
他试图通过将中文文本复制到手写识别程序中来翻译文件。这并不是很成功。
一位曾在台湾接受培训的美国台积电工程师表示，他的经理要求他只需查看相关的
PowerPoint演示文稿就可以参加每日的交接会议，这些会议都是用中文进行的。他告诉
《Rest of World》说：“我对他的期望感到震惊。”
“我喜欢挑战和自我激励，但这真的是疯狂的领导方式。”
TSMC’s work culture is notoriously rigorous, even by Taiwanese standards.
Former executives have hailed the Confucian culture, which promotes diligence
and respect for authority, as well as Taiwan’s strict work ethic as key to
the company’s success. Chang, speaking last year about Taiwan’s
competitiveness compared to the U.S., said that “if [a machine] breaks down
at one in the morning, in the U.S. it will be fixed in the next morning. But
in Taiwan, it will be fixed at 2 a.m.” And, he added, the wife of a Taiwanese
engineer would “go back to sleep without saying another word.”
During their visit, the Americans got a taste of the company’s intense work
culture. To avoid intellectual property leaks, staff were banned from using
personal devices inside the factory. Instead, they were given company phones,
dubbed “T phones,” that couldn’t be connected to most messaging apps or
social media. In one department, managers sometimes applied what they called
“stress tests” by announcing assignments due the same day or week, to make
sure the Americans were able to meet tight deadlines and sacrifice personal
time like Taiwanese workers, two engineers told Rest of World. Managers shamed
American workers in front of their peers, sometimes by suggesting they quit
engineering, one employee said.
TSMC made attempts to bridge some of the cultural differences. After the
American trainees asked to contact families and to listen to music at work,
TSMC loosened the firewall on T phones to allow all staff access to Instagram,
YouTube, and Spotify. Some Taiwanese workers attended a class on U.S. culture
, where they learned that Americans responded better to encouragement rather
than criticism, according to an engineer who attended the session.
But both American and Taiwanese engineers said that the training for new hires
was largely insufficient. Managers excluded Americans from higher-level
meetings conducted in Mandarin, according to one ex-TSMC engineer. Some of the
Americans said that they rarely had a chance to handle problems themselves,
and were mostly tasked with observing. “It’s like math in school,” Bruce
said. “You can watch your teacher do 500 practice problems on the chalkboard,
but if you don’t do some problems on your own, you are going to fail the
test.”
台积电的工作文化以其严苛闻名，即使按照台湾的标准来看也是如此。前高管们赞扬儒家
文化，这种文化推崇勤奋和尊重权威，以及台湾严格的职业道德，这些都是公司成功的关
键所在。张先生去年谈到台湾与美国的竞争力时表示：“如果（机器）在凌晨一点坏了，
在美国，第二天早上就会修好。但在台湾，这将在凌晨两点修好。”他还补充说，台湾工
程师的妻子“会一言不发回去睡觉”。
在访问期间，美国人深刻体验到了公司的强烈工作文化。为了避免知识产权外泄，工作人
员被禁止在工厂内使用个人设备。相反，他们被配发了公司手机，被称为“T phone”，
这些手机无法连接到大多数消息应用程序或社交媒体。根据两位工程师告诉《Rest of
World》的说法，在某个部门，管理人员有时会宣布当天或当周要完成的任务，以确保美
国人能够满足紧迫的截止期限，并像台湾工人一样牺牲个人时间，他们称之为“压力测试
”。一名员工表示，管理人员有时会在同行面前责怪美国工人，有时甚至建议他们辞去工
工作。
台积电曾试图弥合一些文化差异。在美国培训生要求与家人联系并在工作中听音乐后，台
积电放宽了T phone上的防火墙，允许所有员工访问Instagram、YouTube和Spotify。根据
一位参加过这个会议的工程师的说法，一些台湾工人参加了一个有关美国文化的课程，他
们在课程中了解到，美国人对鼓励的反应比批评更好。
但是美国和台湾工程师都表示，新员工的培训大多是不足的。一位前台积电工程师表示，
管理人员在中文进行的高级会议中排除了美国人。一些美国人表示，他们很少有机会自
己解决问题，大多数任务都是观察。Bruce说：“这就像在学校学数学一样。你可以看你
的老师在黑板上做500道练习题，但如果你自己不做一些题目，你就会考试不及格。”
As training went on, tensions mounted. U.S. engineers told Rest of World that
some Taiwanese male engineers had calendars with bikini models on their desks
and occasionally shared sexual memes in group chats. A female American
colleague, according to an American trainee who witnessed the conversation,
asked a Taiwanese engineer to remove his computer wallpaper depicting a bikini
model. One former American engineer said some local co-workers referred to
him as a “white breeding pig,” implying he was only in Taiwan to sleep with
local women. At a meeting, a manager said Americans were less desirable than
Taiwanese and Indian workers, according to people who saw leaked notes, which
circulated among trainees.
“They really are trying to push this narrative that Americans are slower
because of lower technical ability, but I really don’t believe that’s the
truth,” an American engineer who recently left TSMC told Rest of World. “The
Taiwanese create this false sense of urgency with every single task, and they
really push ‘you need to finish everything immediately.’ But it’s just not
realistic for people that want to have some normal work-life balance.”
Several former American employees said they were not against working longer
hours, but only if the tasks were meaningful. “I’d ask my manager ‘What’s
your top priority,’ he’d always say ‘Everything is a priority,’” said
another ex-TSMC engineer. “So, so, so, many times I would work overtime
getting stuff done only to find out it wasn’t needed.”
随着培训的进行，紧张局势不断升级。美国工程师告诉《Rest of World》一些台湾男性
工程师的办公桌上有比基尼模特的日历，偶尔在群聊中分享性爱迷因。据一位见证了对话
的美国培训生表示，一位女性美国同事要求一名台湾工程师更换他电脑桌布，因为桌布上
是一位比基尼模特。一位前台积电工程师表示，一些当地同事称他为“白人种猪”，暗示
他来台湾只是为了与当地女性发生关系。据见过外泄笔记的人士透露，有一位经理在会议
上表示，美国人比台湾和印度工人不受欢迎。
一位最近离开台积电的美国工程师告诉《Rest of World》说：“他们真的在试图推动这
样一个观点，即美国人由于技术能力较低而更慢，但我真的不相信这是事实。”“台湾人
总是对每一个任务都创造一种虚假的紧迫感，他们真的强调‘你需要立即完成所有事情’
。但对于那些想要一些正常工作与生活平衡的人来说，这并不现实。”
几位前美国员工表示，他们不反对加班，但前提是任务有意义。“我问我的经理‘你的首
要任务是什么’，他总是说‘一切都是首要任务’，”另一位前台积电工程师说。“所以
，很多时候我会加班做完事情，结果发现其实并不需要。”
Training in Taiwan, which typically lasted one to two years, wasn’t all
miserable, the Americans said. On the weekends, the trainees traveled across
the island, marveling at the country’s highly efficient public transport
network. Bruce spent his weekends hiking and frequenting nightclubs. He
chatted with the families that run night-market food stalls, and entertained
strangers who requested selfies with foreigners.
Still, at least dozens of trainees quit before the end of training, according
to the American employees. TSMC announced a recurring retention bonus in 2022.
The remaining American workers began speculating that the company only hired
them to secure CHIPS Act funding, Bruce said. But he stayed on: He wanted to
see TSMC come to life in Arizona.
In late 2022, the employees began migrating from humid southern Taiwan to the
desert of northern Phoenix. The group included the Americans, as well as
hundreds of Taiwanese employees who would help install tools, manage suppliers
, and prepare the Arizona plant for mass production.
For the Taiwanese, many of whom planned for extended stays in Phoenix, that
meant relocating entire families — toddlers and dogs included — to a foreign
country. Many regarded it as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to explore the
world, practice English, and send their children to American schools. Younger
families planned pregnancies so they could give birth to American citizens. “
If we are going to have children, of course we will have them here,” a
Taiwanese engineer told Rest of World. “As an American citizen, they will
have more options than others.”
To cover the high living costs, TSMC provided the Taiwanese workers with
stipend for cars and housing. Some families moved into apartment complexes
reserved for employees, dubbed “TSMC villages.” Local schools introduced
Mandarin visual aids in classrooms for Taiwanese pupils. A Chinese Baptist
church in Phoenix organized English-language classes, taught by earlier
generations of Taiwanese immigrants, to help the newcomers settle in.
在台湾的培训，通常持续一到两年，并不全是令人悲惨的。美国培训生表示，在周末，他
们穿梭于岛屿各地，对该国高效的公共交通网络感到惊叹。Bruce在周末喜欢去远足和夜
店。他与经营夜市摊位的家庭聊天，并且乐于接受要求与外国人自拍的陌生人。
尽管如此，根据美国员工的说法，至少有几十名培训生在培训结束前就已经离职。台积电
于2022年宣布了一项固定的留职奖金。Bruce表示，其余的美国员工开始猜测公司仅仅是
为了确保《CHIPS法案》的资金才聘请了他们。但他坚持留下来：他想要看到台积电在亚
利桑那州开始运作。
到了2022年底，员工们从潮湿的台湾南部迁移到了干旱的凤凰城北部沙漠地区。这个团队
包括了美国人，以及数百名台湾员工，他们将协助安装设备、管理供应商，并为亚利桑那
工厂的大规模生产做准备。
对于许多计划在凤凰城长期居住的台湾人来说，这意味着将整个家庭——包括幼儿和狗—
—搬到一个外国国家。许多人将其视为探索世界、练习英语并将子女送入美国学校的一次
千载难逢的机会。年轻的家庭计划在这里生孩子，这样他们就可以生下美国公民。“如果
我们要生孩子，当然会在这里生，”一位台湾工程师告诉《Rest of World》。“作为美
国公民，他们将拥有比其他人更多的选择。”
为了应对高昂的生活成本，台积电为台湾员工提供了汽车和住房的津贴。一些家庭搬进了
为员工保留的公寓大楼，被称为“台积村”。当地学校在课堂上引入了中文视觉辅助工具
，以帮助台湾学生。凤凰城的一间华人浸信会教会组织了英语课程，由先前的一代台湾移
民教授，以帮助新来者安顿下来。
Many experienced a culture shock. The bustling cities of Taiwan are densely
packed and offer extensive public transport, ubiquitous street food, and 24-
hour convenience stores every few blocks. In northern Phoenix, everyday life
is impossible without a car, and East Asian faces are scarce. “Everything is
so big in America,” said one engineer, recalling his first impression. He
recounted his wife summarizing her impression of the U.S.: “Great mountains,
great rivers, and great boredom.”
The Taiwanese engineers brought with them the intense TSMC work culture.
Having spent years under the company’s grueling management, they were used to
long days, out-of-hours calls, and harsh treatment from their managers. In
Taiwan, the pay and prestige were worth it, they told Rest of World — despite
the challenges, many felt proud working for the island’s most prominent firm
. It was the best job they could hope for.
But the American workers didn’t have the same sense of loyalty. In the U.S.,
engineers had a plethora of job options that provided competitive pay and
abundant personal time. The Taiwanese workers described their Phoenix
colleagues as arrogant, carefree, and more willing to challenge orders. “It’
s hard to get them to do things,” a Taiwanese engineer in Phoenix told Rest
of World.
Bruce said that working conditions didn’t improve for the Americans once they
relocated to Arizona. The American workers did not get more say in how the
company was run, and they found the obsequiousness of their Taiwanese
colleagues irritating. TSMC workers were asked to draw up reports and keep
other documents in a PowerPoint format so that they could regularly make
presentations to upper management. The Taiwanese employees were used to it,
while the Americans became impatient with typing up weekly work reports. The
Americans also resented that Taiwanese colleagues stayed late at the office
for no good reason. “That pisses me off,” Bruce said. “They were just doing
it for show.”
许多人经历了文化冲击。台湾繁华的城市密集拥挤，提供广泛的公共交通、无处不在的街
头小吃和每几个街区就有24小时便利店。在凤凰城北部，如果没有汽车，日常生活是不可
能的，东亚人面孔也很少见到。“在美国，一切都是如此巨大，”一位工程师回忆起他的
第一印象时说。他讲述了他妻子对美国的印象的总结：“伟大的山脉，伟大的河流，和极
大的无聊。”
台湾工程师带来了激烈的台积电工作文化。在公司的严格管理下度过了多年，他们已经习
惯了长时间的工作、非工作时间的电话以及来自主管的严厉对待。他们告诉《Rest of
World》，在台湾，薪水和声望是值得的——尽管面临着挑战，许多人为能在该岛上最知
名的公司工作感到自豪。这是他们所能期望的最好的工作。
但美国员工并没有同样的忠诚感。在美国，工程师有很多提供竞争性薪水和丰富个人时间
的工作选择。台湾工人描述了他们在凤凰城的同事为傲慢、无忧无虑，更愿意挑战命令。
“让他们做事很难，”一位在凤凰城的台湾工程师告诉《Rest of World》。
Bruce说，一旦美国工人搬到亚利桑那州后，工作条件并没有改善。美国工人并没有更多
发言权来参与公司的管理，他们发现台湾同事的阿谀奉承令人不快。台积电员工被要求起
草报告，并将其他文件以PowerPoint格式保存，以便他们定期向高级管理层进行演示。台
湾员工已经习惯了这一点，而美国人则对每周填写工作报告感到不耐烦。美国人还对台湾
同事无故加班感到不满。“这让我很恼火，”Bruce说。“他们只是为了表现而已。”
Five former employees from the U.S. told Rest of World that TSMC engineers
sometimes falsified or cherry-picked data for customers and managers.
Sometimes, the engineers said, staff would manipulate data from testing tools
or wafers to please managers who had seemingly impossible expectations. Other
times, one engineer said, “because the workers were spread so thin, anything
they could do to get work off their plate they would do.” Four American
employees described TSMC culture as “save face”: Workers would strive to
make a team, a department, or the company look good at the expense of
efficiency and employee wellbeing.
In mid-2023, TSMC announced delays in the construction of its first facility
in Arizona, dubbed Fab 21 — production at the facility would start in 2025
instead of 2024 as planned. TSMC blamed a shortage of skilled workers.
Construction unions, however, complained of safety hazards and questioned if
TSMC was using this as an excuse to bring in cheap labor from Taiwan.
Engineers who were supposed to run production lines were reassigned to work
remotely for Fab 18 back in Tainan, and asked to join late-night meetings.
Some Americans and Taiwanese engineers were reassigned to help speed up the
building of the facility, and asked to oversee construction workers. Clad in
their clean-room suits and hard hats, engineers would sometimes collect trash
at the unfinished sites. One ex-employee recalled colleagues collecting
bottles of urine left by construction crews.
五名来自美国的前员工告诉《Rest of World》，台积电工程师有时会为客户和管理人员
伪造或挑选数据。工程师们说，有时，工作人员会操纵测试工具或晶圆的数据，以取悦那
些似乎不切实际的期望的经理。其他时候，一位工程师说，“因为工人们分工太细，他们
会做任何能减轻工作负担的事情。”四名美国员工将台积电的文化描述为“挽回面子”：
工人们会努力让团队、部门或公司看起来不错，却牺牲了效率和员工福祉。
2023 年中期，台积电宣布了位于亚利桑那州的首个设施 Fab 21 的建设延宕，该设施的
生产将从原定的 2024 年推迟到 2025 年开始。台积电指责技术工人短缺。然而，建筑工
会抱怨存在安全隐患，质疑台积电是否在以此作为借口引进来自台湾的廉价劳动力。
原本应该负责生产线的工程师被重新分配到台南的 Fab 18 远程工作，并被要求参加深夜
会议。一些美国和台湾工程师被重新分配以加快设施的建设速度，并被要求监督建筑工人
。身穿清洁室服和安全帽的工程师有时会在未完成的工地收集垃圾。一位前员工回忆起同
事们收集建筑工作人员留下的尿液瓶子的情景。
Just like in Taiwan, language barriers contributed to tension in Phoenix.
Bruce said his department manager, who had come from Taiwan, spoke poor
English. So instead of communicating with Bruce directly, he’d channel
feedback or instructions through a Taiwanese colleague. One U.S. engineer said
managers trusted Taiwanese workers with important tasks, starving the
Americans of hands-on experience. One ex-employee later joked that the biggest
skill he learned at TSMC was making PowerPoint slides.
Disgruntled Americans flocked to post complaints to workplace review website
Glassdoor, reporting long hours, high stress, unrealistic deadlines, and “
Asian culture.” TSMC currently has a rating of 3.2 out of 5 stars on the site
. American chipmakers Intel and Texas Instruments, by comparison, have a 4.1
rating. The poor Glassdoor rating made it more difficult for TSMC to hire
experienced American workers, a former TSMC manager told Rest of World.
Another former employee said he convinced six engineer friends to turn down
offers from TSMC.
The company made further attempts to adapt to American work culture. In early
2023, TSMC held weekly English-language and cultural classes for Taiwanese
managers. A former TSMC staffer who worked on the education program said
managers were instructed not to yell at employees in public, or threaten to
fire them without consulting human resources. “They would say, ‘Okay, okay,
I get it. I’m not going to do that,’” the employee recalled to Rest of
World. “But I think in the heat of the moment, they forgot, and they did do
it.”
就像在台湾一样，语言障碍也加剧了凤凰城的紧张氛围。Bruce 表示，他们部门的经理来
自台湾，英文不好。因此，他不是直接与Bruce 沟通，而是通过一位台湾同事传达反馈或
指示。一位美国工程师表示，经理信任台湾工人执行重要任务，使美国人无法获得实践经
验。一位前员工后来开玩笑说，他在台积电学到的最重要的技能是制作 PowerPoint。
不满的美国员工纷纷在工作评论网站 Glassdoor 上发帖投诉，报告长时间工作、高压、
不切实际的截止日期和“亚洲文化”。目前，台积电在该网站上的评分为 3.2（满分 5）
。相比之下，美国芯片制造商英特尔和德州仪器的评分为 4.1。一位前台积电经理告诉
《Rest of World》，这种差评使得台积电更难以聘请经验丰富的美国工人。
另一位前员工表示，他说服了六位工程师朋友拒绝了台积电的工作邀请。
公司进一步试图适应美国的工作文化。 2023 年初，台积电为台湾经理举办了每周一次的
英语和文化课程。一位曾参与该教育计划的前台积电职员表示，经理们被告知不要在公共
场合大声呼喊员工，也不要在没有咨询人力资源部门的情况下威胁解雇他们。“他们会说
，‘好的，好的，我知道了。我不会这样做的，’”这名员工对《Rest of World》回忆
道。“但我认为在一时激动下，他们忘记了，他们确实这样做了。”
Taiwanese managers were reminded not to ask employees why they were taking
sick leave, or ask female job applicants about their plans to have children —
an illegal yet common question in Taiwan. An ex-TSMC engineer said the
company once sent an email reminding staff that the commonly used Mandarin
term “nei ge” — which means “that” — could sound like the N-word.
In December 2023, following months of negotiations, TSMC made a deal with
Arizona construction labor unions, agreeing to develop a workforce training
program, maintain transparency on site safety, and focus on hiring locally.
Meanwhile, some American engineers started seeking out opportunities at
companies with less strenuous expectations and better career prospects.
Workers started joking that joining TSMC was a stepping stone to Intel, which
was also expanding in Arizona at the time. An engineer, who has worked at both
Intel and TSMC, said Taiwanese colleagues had also asked him about vacancies
at Intel, where they expected a better work-and-life balance.
Several American former employees said they felt relief after quitting. In
group chats, engineers celebrated the departure of their friends. “TSMC was
the worst possible place to work on Earth,” one American ex-TSMC engineer
told Rest of World. Another, who recently left the company, described TSMC as
having “a purely authoritarian work structure.”
台湾经理们被提醒不要询问员工为什么请病假，或者问女性求职者有关生育计划的问题
— 在台湾这是一个非法但普遍存在的问题。一位前台积电工程师表示，该公司曾发送电
子邮件提醒员工，普遍使用的中文词语“那个”可能听起来像是 N 字词。
在经过数月的谈判后，2023 年 12 月，台积电与亚利桑那州建筑劳工工会达成协议，同
意制定工作人员培训计划，保持工地安全的透明度，并专注于本地招聘。
与此同时，一些美国工程师开始寻找在期望较轻松的工作要求和更好的职业前景的公司的
机会。工人们开始开玩笑说，加入台积电是进入英特尔的一个跳板，当时英特尔也在亚利
桑那州扩建。一位在英特尔和台积电都工作过的工程师表示，台湾同事也问及他在英特尔
的职位空缺，他们期望在那里有更好的工作和生活平衡。
几位美国前员工表示，辞职后感到宽慰。在群聊中，工程师们庆祝了朋友的离开。“在地
球上工作最糟糕的地方就是台积电了”一位美国前台积电工程师告诉《Rest of World》
。另一位最近离职的工程师将台积电描述为具有“纯粹的专制结构”。
Bruce resigned in 2023. He is still friends with his Taiwanese former
colleagues, and kept his TSMC badge, water bottle, and TSMC T-shirt as
mementos. He said he felt triumphant walking out. The American workers had
voiced their concerns in meetings with management, but he didn’t see changes
happening. “All of us gave them every chance to listen, but they never did,”
he told Rest of World.
Three years after construction began, the first planned Phoenix plant is still
incomplete. During an earnings call in April, TSMC chief executive C.C. Wei
said the facility had entered “engineering wafer production,” meaning it’s
making prototype wafers to prepare for commercial operation next year. In
January, TSMC announced further delays at its second facility, too. Originally
set to begin operations in 2026, it won’t open until 2027 or 2028.
Chang-Tai Hsieh, an economics professor at the University of Chicago, told
Rest of World that TSMC had found the U.S. a challenging environment to
operate in because of the complicated regulatory process, strong construction
unions, and a workforce less used to the long hours that are commonplace at
TSMC in Taiwan. “TSMC’s profits from their U.S. fabs will be lower, unless
their clients are willing to pay more to source from the U.S. fabs,” Hsieh
said. “The only thing they need Phoenix for is to make sure that the U.S.
government doesn’t turn against them.” In 2023, TSMC made more than 65% of
its revenue from customers in the U.S. In the April earnings call, chief
executive Wei said customers needed to share the high costs of producing
outside Taiwan.
Bruce在 2023 年辞职。他仍然和台湾的前同事保持着友谊，保留了他的台积电工作证、
水壶和台积电 T 恤作为纪念品。他说，走出公司时感到很得意。美国工人在与管理层的
会议中表达了他们的担忧，但他没有看到任何变化的发生。“我们所有人都给了他们倾听
的机会，但他们从来没有，”他告诉《Rest of World》。
建设开始三年后，首座计划中的凤凰城工厂仍然尚未完工。在 4 月的一次电话会议上，
台积电执行长魏哲家表示，该工厂已进入“工程晶圆生产”阶段，这意味着正在制造
原型晶圆，以准备明年投入商业运营。今年 1 月，台积电宣布第二工厂的进一步延迟。
原计划于 2026 年开始运营，但直到 2027 年或 2028 年才会开放。
芝加哥大学的经济学教授谢常泰告诉《Rest of World》，台积电发现美国是一个具有挑
战性的经营环境，原因是复杂的监管程序、强大的建筑工会，以及一个对长时间工作不太
习惯的劳动力，这在台湾的台积电是司空见惯的。“除非客户愿意支付更高的价格从美国
的工厂购买，否则台积电从美国工厂获得的利润将较低，”谢说。“他们需要凤凰城的唯
一目的就是确保美国政府不会对他们不利。” 2023 年，台积电超过 65% 的收入来自美
国的客户。魏执行长在 4 月的盈利电话会议上表示，客户需要承担在台湾以外生产的高
成本。
That same month, following years of negotiations, the U.S. government
announced plans to award TSMC $6.6 billion in grants and about $5 billion in
loans, with TSMC agreeing to construct a third factory on its Phoenix site
that will start operating by the end of the decade. (Meanwhile, Intel was
awarded $8.5 billion in grants in March, and Samsung was provided $6.4 billion
in direct funding in April.)
Despite the flood of investments, the U.S. has a long way to go before chip
self-reliance, experts told Rest of World. TSMC Arizona’s first two
facilities are expected to make 600,000 wafers a year — a fraction of the
company’s current annual capacity of 16 million wafers. Many of the chips
made in the U.S. still need to be shipped back to Asia for assembly, testing,
and packaging. Chip packaging company Amkor, which has most of its factories
in Asia, will build a plant in Arizona to package Apple chips made at TSMC.
The U.S. needs to offer timely, consistent support to companies like TSMC in
order to create the kind of chip ecosystem that took Taiwan three decades to
build, according to Jason Hsu, a former legislator in Taiwan and now a
research fellow at Harvard Kennedy School with a focus on semiconductors and
geopolitics. It would be easier to leave the job to its Asian allies. “You
don’t need to raise a cow to have the milk,” Hsu said. “You just have to
make sure that the milk can be delivered to your doorstep.”
同一个月，在多年的谈判之后，美国政府宣布计划向台积电提供约 66 亿美元的补助和约
50 亿美元的贷款，台积电同意在凤凰城的工厂基地建造第三个工厂，该工厂将在本十年
末开始运营。（与此同时，英特尔于三月获得了 85 亿美元的补助，三星则于四月获得了
64 亿美元的直接资金。）
尽管投资大幅增加，但专家告诉《Rest of World》，美国在芯片自给自足方面还有很长
的路要走。台积电亚利桑那州的前两个工厂预计每年生产 60 万片晶圆，仅占公司目前年
产 1600 万片晶圆的一小部分。美国生产的许多芯片仍然需要运送回亚洲进行组装、测试
和封装。芯片封装公司Amkor因位于亚洲的大多数工厂将在亚利桑那州建造一个工厂，将在
该工厂封装在台积电生产的苹果芯片。
哈佛大学肯尼迪学院研究员、台湾前立法者Jason Hsu表示，美国需及时、持续地支持像
台积电这样的公司，以建立起台湾用了三十年时间才建立的芯片生态系统。将这项工作交
给其亚洲盟友将更容易。“你不需要养牛才能得到牛奶，”许说。“你只需要确保牛奶可
以送到你家门口。”
On February 24, 2024, TSMC inaugurated its newest factory, located in Kumamoto
, Japan, where construction had begun about a year later than in Arizona.
At the ribbon-cutting ceremony, guests were served Taiwan’s signature
pineapple cakes and greeted by the beloved bear mascot Kumamon. Thanks to
strong government support, local partnerships, and a low-cost labor force that
worked 24/7, the factory had been completed at dazzling speed.
“We committed to getting it ready in two years because that’s what TSMC
asked us,” Kumamoto Governor Ikuo Kabashima told Bloomberg. Chang hailed the
factory as the start of “a renaissance of semiconductor manufacturing” in
Japan.
Although the factory in Japan will make less-advanced chips than the American
one, the news out of Kumamoto prompted feelings of envy in Phoenix. There,
engineers felt that they were falling even further behind.
The same weekend as the opening of the Japanese plant, Taiwanese engineers
discussed the struggle of working with Americans at a gathering in Phoenix. “
The Japan factory opened first. I’m very frustrated,” a Taiwanese engineer
said.
在2024年2月24日，台积电在日本熊本县正式启用了位于熊本市的最新工厂，该工厂的建
设比亚利桑那州的工厂晚了大约一年左右开始。
在剪彩仪式上，来宾们享用了台湾标志性的凤梨酥，并受到了深受喜爱的熊本吉祥物熊本
熊的欢迎。由于政府的大力支持、当地的合作伙伴关系，以及一支全天候工作的低成本劳
动力，该工厂以令人惊叹的速度完成。
熊本县知事蒲岛郁夫告诉彭博社：“我们承诺在两年内准备好，因为这是台积电要求的。
” 张忠谋将这家工厂称为日本半导体制造业“复兴”的开端。
尽管日本工厂生产的芯片比美国的工厂落后，但熊本的消息引起了凤凰城的嫉妒情绪。在
那里，工程师们感到自己正在进一步落后。
就在日本工厂开幕的同一周末，台湾工程师在凤凰城的一次聚会上讨论了与美国人合作的
困难。“日本工厂首先开幕了。我感到非常沮丧，”一位台湾工程师说。
Sitting in a room together, the engineers admitted that although they had made
some progress in acclimating to life in the U.S., TSMC had yet to find a
balance between the two work cultures. Some Taiwanese workers complained that
management was being too accommodating in giving Americans less work, paying
them high salaries, and letting them get off work early.
Another engineer said the company babied Americans. “If local hires are not
ready, this is our opportunity to apply for a green card,” he joked.
Another engineer said he sometimes shared the Americans’ frustration with the
hierarchy, discipline, and long hours. But these things, he believed, had
enabled TSMC to surpass its competitors to become the chip leader.
“Everything comes from working hard. Without this culture, TSMC cannot be
number one in the world,” he said with passion. “I want to support TSMC to
be great. It’s my religion.”
坐在一起的工程师们坦承，尽管他们在适应美国生活方面已经取得了一些进展，但台积电
尚未找到两种工作文化之间的平衡。一些台湾工人抱怨管理层过于迎合美国人，给他们减
少工作量，支付高薪水，让他们提早下班。
另位工程师说公司娇惯了美国人。“如果当地雇佣不够合格，这是我们申请绿卡的机会”
他开玩笑说。
另一位工程师说他有时会和美国人一样对阶级制度、纪律和长时间工作感到沮丧。但他相
信，这些事情使得台积电能够超越竞争对手成为芯片行业的领导者。
“一切都来自于努力工作。没有这种文化，台积电就无法成为世界第一，”他充满激情地
说道。“我想支持台积电变得更伟大。这是我的信仰。”
Source：https://reurl.cc/QR6eMo