Keep in mind, even 20 year old chips have 6-700 steps in their process...it's a giant loop of Etch, Photo, Implantation, Furnace, Chemical Vapor Deposition, Physical Vapor Deposition, Chemical Mechanical Planarization, etc...don't forget the measurement steps and defect scans. State of the art chips take 3-4 months to complete this process and it's well over a thousand steps.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhqosmgfGR0

30 years is absolutely excessive, but that doesn't mean the guy is not guilty.

Another way to look at it. TSMC profit in 2025 was equivalent to Intel revenue (both about $55B), but Intel made zero dollars profit, yet somehow their market cap is now half of TSMCs.

They didn't force this person through the scanner, they could have asked for a supervisor and discussed the situation. Don't trust the people at the bottom of any organization if you have a concern.

These numbers aren't right...Mars is 4 minutes MINIMUM, but could be up to 22-ish minutes at the maximum distance between Earth and Mars. This is also one way, double that for communication and a response.

This reddit post captures what I've seen at TSMC in Taiwan. $120K is normal pay at the director level...engineers make $2500-5000 a month. TSMC AZ starting pay for a new college grad w/ BS is probably just under $100K/year with just salary, with the potential to make over $120K within a few years with full vested bonuses.

https:

Portland has issues with homeless...no one can deny this fact. Things are a little better since hard drugs were recriminalized, but the city is far from "fine".