alt Hacker NewsI'm not sure how true it is or not but I heard that TSMC has the ability to remotely destroy all of their main fab equipment in the event the Chinese are invading Taiwan.
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bob1029 • 01/16/2026
You don't need to physically destroy anything. All you need to do is zero-fill the storage devices in the facility and walk away. The tools are worthless without parameters/recipes/configuration. Reinventing this stuff is harder than acquiring an EUV tool.
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jfoster • 01/16/2026
I wonder if the destruction would actually go ahead.
What's worse, China having a monopoly on production, or the entire world being set back by X years?
In this scenario X is a two-digit number, right?
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This is correct: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-05-21/asml-tsmc...
The most advanced ASML machines also cost something like $300-400M each and I am willing to bet if configured wrong can heavily damage themselves and the building they are in.