He said that the TSMC Arizona fab was effectively a paperweight in any geopolitical tension or war [with China over Taiwan] due to the fact that it still requires sending the chips back to Taiwan for packaging.

The Arizona factory -- which has been a focal point of the Biden chip plan and will cost $40 billion to build -- will do little to make the US self-reliant in chips, Patel said.

"That's because many advanced chips made in Arizona for Apple or other customers such as Nvidia, AMD and Tesla will still require assembly in Taiwan in a packaging process.

GA-Albright Stonebridge Group senior vice president for China Paul Triolo said that building packaging facilities is a huge expenditure of capital, time, and effort, and it does not seem likely that TSMC will want to do this anytime soon in the desert in Arizona, particularly given all the problems the firm has encountered with construction, costs and personnel so far.