I got a pack­age today con­tain­ing a chip. Some ship­ping label mark­ings include:
From: Nor­wood, Mass­a­chu­setts, USA (Guess who!)
Coun­try of Assem­bly: South Korea
Coun­try of Dif­fu­sion: Ireland

It turns out “coun­try of dif­fu­sion” is where the sil­i­con dies are man­u­fac­tured. From there they are inex­plic­a­bly trans­ported to a clean­room on the oppo­site side of the globe where they are mounted and wire­bonded into their plas­tic pack­ages. Then to a ware­house in exur­ban Boston, where they are re-packaged for ship­ment to (a) real cus­tomers and (b) peo­ple like me.

Stu­pid “global economy.”