Stefan Mileschin

We need water too

Taiwan's farmers are dealing with one of the worst droughts on record and are hacked off that available water is being given to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company to make rich American kid's iPhones.

The authorities have shut off the water to the countries farms to keep the big gizmo factories running. While compensating growers for the lost income, there are fears that the thwarted harvest will drive customers to seek out other suppliers, which could mean years of depressed earnings.

Officials are calling the drought Taiwan's worst in more than half a century. It exposes the enormous challenges involved in hosting the island's semiconductor industry, which is an increasingly indispensable node in the global supply chains for smartphones, cars and other keystones of modern life.

Chipmakers use lots of water to clean their factories and wafers. And with worldwide semiconductor supplies already strained by surging demand for electronics, the added uncertainty about Taiwan's water supply is not likely to ease concerns about the tech world's reliance on the island and on one chip maker in particular:.

https://fudzilla.com/news/52668-taiw...ith-chipmakers