> I have coworkers that used to work in chip manufacturing (used to being the key phrase)
A family friend was a chip designer for a large European company. Back in the 2000s he told me he saw the writing on the wall as they moved manufacturing to Asia.
He said he expected design to follow not long after, and sure enough some 5 or so years later he lost his job as they moved design department closer to the factories.
Perhaps it's different now, but as I recall he said there were advantages of chip designers being close to the chip manufacturing folks.
I’ve seen the advantages firsthand. The test guys would drive across town and pick up some chips hot off the fab, put them on the scope under various conditions, and then be pushing updates in a day or two. The designer could actually sit with the test guy and fiddle with the tests to understand the problem better, and then walk upstairs and mess with the simulator. None of this can happen at nearly the fluidity or speed when you’re designing, producing, dicing, packaging, and testing the chips all in different time zones.
A family friend was a chip designer for a large European company. Back in the 2000s he told me he saw the writing on the wall as they moved manufacturing to Asia.
He said he expected design to follow not long after, and sure enough some 5 or so years later he lost his job as they moved design department closer to the factories.
Perhaps it's different now, but as I recall he said there were advantages of chip designers being close to the chip manufacturing folks.