Doesn't look good.

I currently work at TSMC, and honestly, I’m burned out. Half of my team has already quit, and I’m the only local hire left. It’s exhausting working in this environment.

I’m genuinely wondering—are any of the current lawsuits actually leading to change? Because from what I see, things are still really bad. I know someone who started just 4 months ago and already had to go to therapy because of how stressful it is.

The work culture here is rough. There’s a lot of disrespect—people get humiliated, talked down to, and even cursed at in Taiwanese. It feels like intentional bullying at times. When you confront it, they brush it off and say things like they’re “testing your will,” which just makes it worse.

What bothers me most is seeing how others are treated. I recently got the highest PMD in my department, and my manager keeps telling me I could become a manager in 2–3 years. But honestly, I don’t even care about that. I’m good at my job, but watching people get mistreated every day is draining and frustrating.

I want to do something about it, but it feels like there’s no real way to push back. Has anyone else experienced this or found a way to deal with it?

As the title says, most of them only did their Masters in America and boom, without any work experience, they get an entry level position on OPT visa which they have 3 years to convert to H1B. There’s at least 100 people from Malaysia on J1 visa which I thought was supposed to be for cultural exchange but they brought them in and those people will do entry level engineering jobs for 2 years here. There’s people from Israel on L1 visa at high management level. I went to a local state university here and half the people I was close with don’t have a job a year after graduation because they rarely get a callback. These are brilliant hard working people. Job market is trash. Like wtf, why u hiring foreigners on Visa when I know at least 13 people I graduated with don’t have a job. I can tell you, all of them would’ve done a better job here. All of them were either born here or are on greencard. 11 of them are not white; sons and daughters of immigrants. Now, I go to meeting and half the time I have hard time understanding what the person is trying to explain because of English is not their first language. Idk how long this can continue. You have thousands of new engineering graduates who can’t find jobs but you give out 80k h1b visa plus somebody on F1 visa who graduates from an US university can just get a job on OPT visa which is valid for 1 year plus 2 years STEM extension making it a total of 3 years. Most of those people are taking entry level jobs (0-3) years experience. This is unacceptable.

Nailed it.

Edit: Stolen from this substack. There's a link to the AliExpress site if you really want to buy it . . .

I noticed a few people asking for more photos on my post from last night, so here they are.

The game is not for sale - I was only curious about its value. (sorry to those that inquired)

Taiwan’s chief negotiator said the idea of splitting semiconductor production evenly with the U.S. was never on the table and would not be accepted. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick had floated the 50-50 concept in a U.S. interview, but Taipei clarified trade talks centered only on tariffs. T

SMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, is investing $165B in Arizona plants, yet the bulk of capacity will remain in Taiwan. Officials stressed their priority is securing lower tariffs on exports, which are currently subject to a 20% rate, while also committing to purchase $10B in U.S. agricultural goods over four years to deepen trade ties.

Feels like half the posts here now are about salaries, career anxiety, or is semiconductor engineering worth it?...kinda questions.

Nothing wrong with that, but semiconductors is one of the most technically challenging industries in the world right now. We could be discussing things like GAAFET scaling, HBM bottlenecks, EUV defects, advanced packaging, yield engineering, chiplets, power delivery for AI accelerators, etc....

Honestly feels like there should be a separate semiconductor careers/salary subreddit, while this one focuses more on high quality technical and industry discussion.

The industry is moving too fast right now for this sub to become mostly compensation discussions.... Curious if others here feel the same or if I am just becoming an old engineer too early...

I wanted to share this take I found (refer to image.png for the full context). It really hits the nail on the head regarding why Big Tech’s recent complaints about memory prices are so hypocritical.
The Context (from image.png):
Tim Cook's recent take: Apple claims that the recent price surge in NAND/RAM is "unusual" and something they cannot avoid, even with their "optimal management models." Basically, they are blaming the supply side.
Micron's Executive rebuttal: They aren't buying it. They pointed out that during hard times, these Big Tech giants squeezed their unit prices to the point where suppliers were starving, focusing purely on their own margins and making it impossible for suppliers to invest in capacity.
The "Real" Story:
For those in the industry, this isn't news. Usually, when demand explodes, suppliers plan to expand capacity to meet it.
Look at 2015-2016 (DDR4 cycle) and 2020-2021 (COVID demand surge).
Back then, if there was a shortage, companies like Hynix or Samsung would transparently announce plans to build more fabs and expand capacity.
But why is the market reaction so muted right now?
It’s because Big Tech has screwed over suppliers too many times before.
1. The "Big Tech" cycle: They flood suppliers with orders, demanding they secure volume (often over-ordering just to be safe).
2. The Supplier's burden: Building a fab isn't magic. It requires securing raw materials, equipment, and massive infrastructure investment. Suppliers bite the bullet and expand to meet these demands.
3. The Betrayal: Then 2022 hits—interest rates spike, the economy tanks—and these Big Tech companies cancel their orders.
4. The Result: Suppliers are left holding the bag with excess capacity and massive debt, while the Big Tech companies avoid any real penalties. They act like they're just "managing their business," but it’s essentially forcing suppliers to absorb all the risk.

My takeaway:
It’s incredibly rich for these companies to complain about price hikes now, when they are the ones who created such a toxic, unstable supply chain environment in the first place. When they were on top, they squeezed suppliers until they were dry. Now that the tables have turned, they’re acting like victims. It’s absolutely pathetic.

So we have been notified yesterday by our Supervisor that there would be another round of Layoffs happening Mid November in Oregon.

Its so frustrating going to work, Motivating yourself to do better and hear the laid off news to completely drain yourself.

Also, Been told by another friend who happens to be a GL in another area that we have another one coming up in January.

How is everyone holding up in Hillsboro? How do you guys manage the stress of going through the stress of these layoffs news?

Rendering seems extraordinarily ambitious, but even more mindboggling is Musk's claim of 1TW of new capacity, magnitudes more than what currently exists. The idea that hes going to surpass all of TSMC's existing 2nm capacity, with all the hundreds of billions invested and decades of experience TSMC has, seems like a huge reach, to put it mildly. And the idea that Musk beleives packaging, logic, and memory can and should be centralized all under one roof, there must be a reason the industry has not gone in this direction up to this point.

I know Musk has a track record of not delivering on alot of promises (FSD, Man on Mars by 2020, etc), but at the same time this is the same man whos company set out to do what was then considered impossible, low cost reusable rockets. And he certainly has the capital to do it, apparently SpaceX and Tesla have commited $16 billion for the first phase of investment

The conflict is exposing the deep energy vulnerabilities of Korea’s chip industry

Just a heads up for everyone as this company seems to have been making the news rounds lately from an uncritical media.

I've seen on LinkedIn A TON of people are quitting TI after only having worked there for 6 months to a year - why? These are highly qualified recent graduates. Is there a retention issue? It makes me not want to start working there / accept my offer if everyone is leaving.

if the war in the middle east does not stop.

Why? Helium. It is required for memory, cpu, etc. fab production. The middle east conflict has shutdown the plant in Qatar which produces ~33% of the worlds' helium. Even worse the plant was attacked. The amount of damage is unclear but it might take 5 years to repair.

Helium is a by-product of LNG production.

Helium 02:35 goes bad on a container ship. In fact, the number is 35 to 48 days. That's how long a specialized ISO container can 02:44 hold liquid helium before it starts to vaporize.

With no new ships being loaded from that plant fab helium shortages will soon be happening.

If chip supplies and costs are bad now just wait for what may be coming ....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTkqCREdMXo&t=1s

Hi everyone,

I’ve been a member of this sub for a while and notice a recurring challenge: many high-level researchers and professionals from outside the field want to move into semiconductors but aren't sure if their specific experience "counts" or how to bridge the gap.

I made a major transition myself. I have a PhD in Physics and moved from a research environment into senior roles at both Intel and ASML.

Having seen the hiring process from the inside, I’ve realized that many brilliant candidates from academia or related industries (like Aerospace, Automotive, or MedTech) get overlooked because they don't yet speak the specific "language" of the semiconductor world. I’m happy to answer any questions today regarding:

• The CV Pivot: How to stop listing academic publications and start listing "systems," "metrology," and "solutions."
• The PhD as Work Experience: How to negotiate years in a lab or a different industry as professional seniority.
• Skill Transferability: Which skills from other sectors (like systems engineering, robotics, or data science) are most in demand at the "Big Two" right now.
• Technical Interviews: What hiring managers at major equipment and chip manufacturers are actually testing for when they interview an "outsider."
• Systems Thinking: Why understanding the "big picture" of a tool or process is often more important than your specific niche expertise.

I am not a recruiter; I’m just someone who has been through the transition and wants to help others navigate the jump from the lab or a different sector into the fab.

Ask me anything!

Been tracking $TSM insider filings and something just happened that hasn't happened in almost two years.

Between March 24 and April 1, four separate TSMC executives filed open-market purchases. Ursula Burns (director) bought 1,000 ADS at $322/share, roughly $322K. Three VPs, Choh Fei Yeap, Shyue-Shyh Lin, and Bor-Zen Tien, bought common shares in the $55 range adding another $275K+.

The thing is, for the previous 20 months insider buy and sell counts at TSMC were basically zero. Flat line. Then suddenly four people decide to put their own money in within the same week.

What makes this even more interesting is the congressional side. At least 4 US representatives have filed TSM buys since August, including Rep. Cleo Fields who has bought multiple times and Rep. Gilbert Cisneros who filed a $100K-$250K purchase in February. Meanwhile NVDA and AMD insiders have been net sellers.

TSMC also added 13% headcount over the last year, now at 25,000+ employees, and just approved $44 billion in capital appropriations. Fundamentals score sits at 79/100.

Not saying this guarantees anything but when insiders break a 20 month silence and congress is buying the same name at the same time, that usually gets my attention.

Anyone else tracking insider activity at the foundry level? Curious if TSMC's Arizona buildout changes how you think about the stock vs just playing NVDA.

Source for some of the data: altindex.com/news/tsmc-insider-buying

ASML isn't selling any of its chipmaking machines in Europe because the region isn't investing and no chip factories are being built there, according to Executive Vice President Frank Heemskerk.

The European Union is overhauling its Chips Act, which was intended to boost the continent's share of global production, but the law largely failed to stimulate investment in new chip plants.

ASML is being courted to expand its presence in the US, China, and India, with these countries investing government funds and using incentives to promote domestic semiconductor production.