Think tank suggests U.S. poach 3,500 TSMC and Samsung Foundry workers

When it comes to designing chips, the U.S. has some top companies headquartered in the states. Apple has become a chip powerhouse, a title certainly earned over the last few years. And of course, there is Qualcomm, based in San Diego, which draws up designs for many top chips under the Snapdragon line.

But neither Apple nor Qualcomm can build the chips they design since they do not own their own manufacturing facilities. And when it comes to finding a foundry to manufacture cutting-edge chips, there are really only two choices.

Taiwan's TSMC is considered the top foundry in the world and Apple is responsible for 26% of its revenue. Chasing TSMC is Samsung Foundry and the latter had been producing Qualcomm's top Applications Processor (AP), the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1.

However, Qualcomm recently announced that it is switching back to TSMC because Samsung was experiencing low yields of 35%, half the number that TSMC has been experiencing. This means that on a single wafer that individual chips are cut out of, 65% of the chips failed QC testing.

Many believe that the U.S. needs to develop its own foundries and TSMC is building one in Arizona that will churn out chips using the 5nm process node by 2024. However, by 2024 the most cutting-edge chips will be built using the 3nm node and we could be getting close to 2nm.

According to ITHome, a U.S. think tank called The Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET) debated whether the U.S. would have to import semiconductor experts and other employees to meet the requirements of potential legislation that still needs to be passed by both chambers of Congress and signed by the president. The legislation is intended to promote investments in semiconductor production in the U.S. and it is estimated that U.S. chip manufacturers would have to employ as many as 27,000 workers.

The think tank, CSET, says that the U.S. might have to import as many as 3,500 experienced workers. And to do that, it said, "Ideally, many of the 3,500-plus foreign workers will be current employees of leading logic chip makers such as TSMC and Samsung."

The goal is to prevent the U.S. from having to be dependent on any one country for chips. With China in the background lacking the ability to produce its own cutting-edge chips, as recently as December experts mulled over the possibility that China would seek to take control of Taiwan allowing it to takeover TSMC.

TSMC and Samsung Foundry are no doubt unhappy with the prospect of losing key employees. The think tank suggests that the U.S. add new Visa routes to make it easier for workers in Taiwan and South Korea (where TSMC and Samsung are located, respectively) to gain entry to the United States.