TSMC expects the same or more from their employees (and from an article I think you posted last month) TSMC was "shocked" that American fab workers don't want 12 hour days and so they have had a hard time finding employees and the fab start up schedules are way behind plan. Intel must expect similar in order to compete with TSMC. I've always said the semicondictor industry was one of the most highly managed industries in history. Virtually no deadweight. They have perfected methods to squeeze every ounce of productivity from their workforce.
I've been told that Intel expects a rolling 12 hour shift. Something like 3 on, 4 off, 4 on, 3 off.
I'm not sure why anyone thinks this is better than 3 8-hour shifts. When the mills were running in Youngstown, they even had 3 swing shifts that were 4 hours off the main shifts so there was knowledgeable coverage 24/7.
12 hours in a day would be a killer. You'd be fighting your own mind at the end, and you'd basically have to go home, sleep, and do it again.
I remember some of our fab folks, operators and techs I think, were on a 3 on 4 off rotating schedule. Talk about disrupting family time. I was thankful I didn't have to deal with that kind of disruption. To provide technical coverage for all production shifts, engineers were on call 24/7 (uncompensated). I had a pager and/or a cellphone on me at all times. Fortunately I rarely experienced those emergency calls, maybe once a year and was able to resolve the problem on the phone without driving back to the plant. Still, it was very unnerving to hear the pager go off, followed by the cell phone and if that didn't wake me up, the house phone too.
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