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Actually, this is true. The big question is what's going on behind the scenes. China has been busy building up its own supply chain after the U.S. closed off sh
by Lind5 6y ago
Actually, this is true. The big question is what's going on behind the scenes. China has been busy building up its own supply chain after the U.S. closed off shipments of any U.S.-based R&D to Huawei last summer. It also has made statements that Taiwan is part of China since then, which has left the U.S. without an advanced-node fab. Intel is at least a node behind both Samsung and TSMC, and the U.S. has no trusted foundry on U.S. soil capable of 7nm volume production, let alone 5nm or 3nm.
For the U.S., this is a potential disaster. If China marches into Taiwan, the U.S. will be left with no advanced-node manufacturing and it will have lost the technology race. It would take at least four to six years to recover, and by that time China would own the market. This is very scary for the U.S., which needs to develop AI chips at the most advanced nodes because density equals more accelerators and other types of processing elements. Even that isn't enough, which is why companies developing AI chips are stitching together chips that are larger than a single reticle. (https://semiengineering.com/the-risk-of-two-supply-chains/ https://semiengineering.com/the-risk-of-two-supply-chains/)
It goes further than that, too. The DoD needs AI chips, too. In the past, the DoD relied on older nodes. That's changed because it needs transistor density for AI. More MACs equals more performance. On top of all of this, TSMC owns the bulk of the fabless market. So this will happen. The big question is who's funding this move.
- magicsmoke 6y agoAs a bit more context, Huawei recently announced they'll be sending orders for 14nm chips to SMIC's new fab instead of TSMC. 14 nm is about 3 gens behind TSMC's 5nm and was starting to be produced back in 2013.
- bildung 6y agoTo add to that, the Kirin 710A that will get produced by SMIC will presumably be very similar to the Kirin 710 from 2018, produced by TSMC with its 16nm/12nm process, so performance-wise this will probably be the same chip but from a different foundry - in mainland China.
- fermienrico 6y agoChina marching into Taiwan would be a losing move. Never mind the civil unrest, the entire world would bail out of China. Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand + India would be even more alerted than they are right now with HK situation. The narrative in these countries is quickly evolving. CCP is over playing their hand by engaging in asymetrical trade.
- magicsmoke 6y agoChina won't march into Taiwan until they can win a naval war with the US to keep the US from retaliating. And if China can do that, they won't have to march into Taiwan. 2050 Indo-pacific naval war is my prediction.
- neilpanchal 6y agoJust broadcast the entire battle on the world stage and we shall watch the show. No human deaths, no civilian casualties, the whole battlefield would be completely remote controlled, streaming in a 128K VR extravaganza. I think the future of war sounds fun.
- threatofrain 6y agoNo way the future will only be robot vs robot in some sterile symbolic chess game. The endgame is robots getting past robots to kill people.
- TeMPOraL 6y agoIndeed. A proxy robot war is just a very expensive game. And if you can settle your differences this way, you may as well do that in Quake 3 Arena for cheaper. And if you can settle your differences with Q3A, you may as well do that over the negotiating table. All of these depend on mutual cooperation; both parties agreeing to respect the outcome of the game. Real war starts when one party is unhappy about the outcome and unilaterally decides to no longer cooperate.
- marcell 6y ago> If China marches into Taiwan, the U.S. will be left with no advanced-node manufacturing and it will have lost the technology race Can you explain this? If China takes over Taiwan, couldn't the US just take over whatever TSMC plants exist in America?
- lliamander 6y agoNo TSMC plants exist in America right now.
- gok 6y agoActually, TSMC has operated a fab in Camas, Washington for many years.
- lliamander 6y agoOh, interesting! Thanks for the correction.
- rrss 6y agoNote that the wafertech/TSMC fab11 only does processes down to 0.16 um. https://www.wafertech.com/en/foundry/technology.html https://www.wafertech.com/en/foundry/technology.html
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- marcell 6y agoI'm not really following the logic... GP said this (TSMC intending to build a factory in US) was bad for US, because China could march into Taiwan and cut off US ability to make chips. Wouldn't a TSMC plant in US be good? Since US would have the factory on its own soil? What am I missing?
- 6y ago
- gok 6y ago> [China] also has made statements that Taiwan is part of China since then. Since 1949, you mean?
- catalogia 6y agoThe recency of such statements is relevant since it shows their position hasn't waned.
- baybal2 6y ago> So this will happen. The big question is who's funding this move. Indeed, hearing this was a shock to me. $12B would be a double digit of their capex plan for the decade. Them committing even to basic operation in the Arizona plant would mean to take double digit percentage off their existing 5nm, 3nm plant plans, or having this money come from the outside. Also take this, their CapEx plan for the decade is entirety committed to the sprint towards 2nm. And even with all those money raised, and after going to bond market, they were already signalling that they have to raise even more money, or the 2nm may not happen.
- mikro2nd 6y agoUnless it's all just strategy smoke and mirrors at this stage. Many a slip possible between now and actually starting construction.
- someguydave 6y agoI wonder if tsmc is getting a sweetheart defense contract for this fab.
- p1esk 6y agoWhat makes you think Intel is behind TSMC in terms of process technology?
- wtallis 6y agoIntel's 10nm process does finally exist in a shippable form, but it's not yet mature enough or high-volume enough to handle the entire breadth of their CPU product line. Intel launched new 14nm processors last month, 5.5 years after introducing their first 14nm processors. Meanwhile, TSMC's 7nm process has been shipping since Q3 2018, and their EUV-based N7+ process is now in mass production. There's no question that TSMC is currently ahead of Intel both nominally and in all the important technical metrics. It's still entirely possible that Intel could re-take the lead if/when they get something post-10nm out the door, but that isn't going to happen this year. Intel's own CFO says it might take two more generations for them to regain the lead: https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-process-tech-lag-competitors-late-2021-leadership-5nm https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-process-tech-lag-com...
- akvadrako 6y agoAlthough what you say is technically true, intel’s 10nm is more advanced than TSMCs 7nm — they aren’t using a shared scale. The biggest mistake intel made was probably being too ambitious.
- wtallis 6y ago> intel’s 10nm is more advanced than TSMCs 7nm Depends on which Intel 10nm you're talking about, and which TSMC 7nm. Comparing Intel's failed initial 10nm from Cannonlake against something that is in mass production on the TSMC side isn't exactly fair. With respect to the 10nm Intel product that you can actually buy, TechInsights has this to say: "Produced in Intel's new 10 nm 2nd Gen process that should offer comparable performance to TSMC’s 7 nm process"— and that's coming from the pros with electron microscopes who teardown these chips to reverse engineer process tech. Numbers reported elsewhere (eg. WikiChip) indicate that TSMC's 7nm allows for about a 15% smaller SRAM cell, and AMD's Renoir notebook processors seem to have about the same overall transistor density advantage over Intel's Ice Lake notebook processors. And as far as I can tell, AMD's not even using the EUV 7nm process from TSMC yet.
- ilamont 6y ago> For the U.S., this is a potential disaster. If China marches into Taiwan, the U.S. will be left with no advanced-node manufacturing and it will have lost the technology race. The real disaster is the loss of untold lives defending an independent nation and full-fledged democracy. Strong parallels to Europe in the 1930s. Looking back, no one cares much about the technology giants of that era being shut down, but rather the lives that were lost in the invasions, and the mass murder of civilians that followed.
- amaajemyfren 6y ago> More MACs equals more performance. What does the acronym MAC stand for please?
- ebalit 6y agoMultiply and Accumulate. It's the hardware equivalent of a dot product. [0] Sometimes it's also called FMA, for Fused Multiply and Add. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiply%E2%80%93accumulate_operation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiply%E2%80%93accumulate_op...
- AlgorithmicTime 6y agoChina probably can't win decisively in Taiwan in the short term.
- csomar 6y ago> If China marches into Taiwan, the U.S. will be left with no advanced-node manufacturing and it will have lost the technology race. China marching into Taiwan could trigger a global war. They'd have to get Russia on-board. Hong Kong is reasonable as a first target. This would also frighten its SEA neighboring countries. Don't forget that China has lots of enemies (ie: Japan/South Korea).