Do people just forget that intel has fabs all over the world with that expertise as well?
TSMC seems to have achieved a sizable technological lead over Intel, that will perpetuate for the next few years or even decade.
There's also a good possibility that this would be useful in the market as well if it solves some supply chain issues. Car manufacturers won't need 3nm tech for quite some time, if ever. Hobbyist boards like the Pi have been hard to get for months now. Graphics cards that were 2-3 years old were going for huge premiums up until recently as well. All in all it seems as if there would be at least some markets for chip tech that isn't on the bleeding edge.
US Military equipment is pretty famously on old nodes / older technology for reliability and supply chain purposes for example. And its probably entirely domestic (Micron, Intel, GloFo).
The need for higher-end nodes is almost a "luxury" factor. There's a benefit if the latest iPhones were brought onshore and were US-made. This is for economic reasons (less economic disruption if China attacks Taiwan), even if it leads to slightly higher costs.
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I know that TSMC is pissed off at the "culture clash" in Arizona (one of these "on shore" US fab-labs) however. I can pretty much imagine a "Gung Ho" (1986 movie) situation occurring there. It doesn't look like the Arizona fab-lab will be complete in time, and TSMC is blaming US worker culture.
Do we? The current, continuing semiconductor shortage argues otherwise.
I mean, the fact that a "switching regulator" can go out of stock borders on the absurd unless those fabs are busy producing stuff with higher margins.
"North America" is producing 2,623,000 wafers per month in 2020. In 2014, North America was producing 2,245,000 wafers/month.
And remember: wafers are raw silicon. Since geometry continues to shrink (22nm, 14nm, 10nm, 7nm, 5nm), even here in the USA, each wafer is making more and more transistors.
In any case, the issue is one of demand. COVID19 stressed the fab-labs like never before, requiring semiconductors to make laptops, cellphones, cameras and many other components. The car-manufacturing shutdown followed up by the rapid production increase was also a problem.
By all measures, the worldwide supply of chips has increased. Its just that demand has outpaced supply.
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It really does seem like the "cryptocoin" industry is eating up a lot of our production capacity. But also the rise in deep-learing platforms (GPUs/TPUs), SSD storage, and other transitions to semiconductors.
Onshoring will happen. In the US. In China. in the EU. And likely in Russia too.
This has become a national security issue, and at least in the US, we are resolved to make it happen.
The debate is largely over. We're just dealing with the details / qualms right now. Culture clashes as Taiwanese business managers are learning that US workers have a different culture than they expected (and vice versa).
Taiwan / TSMC doesn't like it, but they probably recognize it as necessary. We USA folk have to be reminded though that this technology belongs to another country, we're merely "hosting" them.
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There's also some other knock on effects: Japan is asking TSMC to build a factory within Japan (after all, if USA gets a fab, shouldn't Japan deserve one?). TSMC likely doesn't want to spread itself too thinly around the world.
This overall discussion isn't about one-or-two key / emergency factories being built around the world. That has already happened.
The overall discussion is "how much" should TSMC spread itself around the world and build redundant supply chains?
None of the other nations will stop at a domestic fab either btw. This issue is not going away, and I suspect the EU is as determined to stand up a domestic supply chain as we are.
And don't even get me started on China. We can assume they are probably much further along than is generally known. Because they always are.