8 ms·

This must be scary reading for Intel, still battling to make anything decent at 10nm (which I know is more like 7nm TSMC, but still, this is another 2 steps on

This must be scary reading for Intel, still battling to make anything decent at 10nm (which I know is more like 7nm TSMC, but still, this is another 2 steps on from their 7). It's a bit worrying how all this innovation, with the possibility (perhaps even likelihood) of completely cornering the market, is all in one country, that is very close to another country, that doesn't want it to be its own country.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
davedx 6y ago
TSM will build a factory in the USA: https://time.com/5837274/tsm-chip-plant-arizona/ https://time.com/5837274/tsm-chip-plant-arizona/
- ETHisso2017 6y ago
  which is only 5nm, only entering production in 2023, and only 20,000 wafers / month vs their gigafabs which are orders of magnitude larger
  - m00x 6y ago
    It's a good start. They need to move carefully while balancing their assets. They also need to train the new employees in the US, it'll take time to get great chip engineers there, and get Taiwanese volunteers to move to the US.
    - throwaway4good 6y ago
      Why would they do that?
      - oseityphelysiol 6y ago
        The moving part? Probably because of better salaries. I don't know much about Taiwan and how nationalistic they are, but for most of the world working in the US is seen as the career endgame (or means to get there). If the question was why would Intel invest into making the chips in US - from recent news it seems like US understands how dependent it is on other nations for silicon manufacturing, which poses many questions. The biggest one seems to be national security, which looking from the side is the only factor that gets thing done in US.
        vaxman 6y ago
        > I don't know much about Taiwan and how nationalistic they are You will want to read up on The Republic of Formosa, WWII and the history of Taiwan at some point. There are enough Chinese nationals on this website to downvote us all but suffice to say, it is widely regarded at the federal level that Taiwan could come under siege by the Chinese Communist Party at anytime and be used as a bargaining chip with the West along with Hong Kong, the DPRK armistice and Western financial interests in Macau. We need to begin evacuating Hong Kong and Taiwan immediately back to the USA --in fact, China just seized a boat of people fleeing Hong Kong last night, the first time they have done that (and on what charges, nobody knows, not even the Chief of Police of Hong Kong). As the President said today, we are going to break it off cold with China and as you expand your knowledge of the situation, you will realize that China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and the people of Taiwan do not.
        m00x 6y ago
        Hong Kong was legally handed over to China, but they had a 50(?) year handover period which they're breaking. Taiwan was never China's. A bunch of Chinese nationals went to China during the cultural revolution, and China would love to have Taiwan, but Taiwanese people are basically Chinese refugees and do not want that. China has been posturing to conquer them for years. My wife's parents (Taiwanese) immigrated to Canada during one of the periods of high tension between the countries. China was flying fighter jets over Taipei as an intimidation tactic.
    - amelius 6y ago
      Isn't IC fabrication mostly automated? So wouldn't most jobs be in research?
      - jiggawatts 6y ago
        It is automated in the sense that silicon goes in one end, and ideally no human being touches it until it comes out of the other end in a finished package. It is not at all automated in the sense that there is a ton of maintenance work on the production line. I love reading through random tech journals, the type with highly industry-specific ads in them, as an insight into the worlds other people live in. Jobs and every day problems I will never experience first-hand. One of the single most eye-popping experiences like that was an ad in a chip industry quarterly I found somewhere that was breathlessly advertising that their latest tool (a machine the size of a garage) now had an MTBF of "just" 27 hours instead of the previous 2-3 hours, a massive tenfold improvement! Cutting edge stuff, apparently, compared to the competition. The really impressive part apparently was that by cutting down on maintenance time, it could be "online" for up to 90% of the time instead of just 30-50% of the time or somesuch. Apparently that's impressively good in this space. The rest of the ad (and much of the journal) kept going on and on (and on!) about how their tool has easy-swap parts, can keep the vacuum during repair, has tool-less panels, quick access, no need for heavy lifting, etc... I don't think I'm exaggerating too much by saying that nearly 50% of all technical development in the fab industry is about reducing the maintenance effort, and hence staffing costs.
        amelius 6y ago
        I can only wonder why one would use ads in an industry which is so specialized and has so few players. Wouldn't it be more efficient to just talk to these people?
        skissane 6y ago
        I think they want to do both. Put ads and positive press in trade journals you know your customers read. It increases the percentage of their minds you occupy. In-person contact does that too. They aren't mutually exclusive strategies. A lot of this equipment is so expensive, that the cost of a few trade journal ads is negligible compared to the amount of revenue involved.
  - baybal2 6y ago
    > which is only 5nm, only entering production in 2023, and only 20,000 wafers / month vs their gigafabs which are orders of magnitude larger And there is a good chance that it may never be, just like Foxconns Wisconsin facility.
gerash 6y ago
IIUC graph core chips are very different from Intel chips so idk if their manufacturing can be compared. Or is it that chip manufacturing does not depend on what chip is being manufactured?
CarbyAu 6y ago
The US invaded for oil. What will it do for chip production?
- breatheoften 6y ago
  Lose its competitive advantage, slowly consolidate remaining assets into private hands with borderless migration capacity, elect a government composed entirely of conman, and five to ten years from now, begin losing every violent international confrontation that it tries to start?
  - craftinator 6y ago
    When's the last time we didn't lose every violent international confrontation we were involved in? Also, yeah, the rest of that is both incredibly depressing, and of such a high plausibility that I can't see another way of it turning out. Pretty much like the US in Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash.
    - sgillen 6y ago
      Idk the US “won” in Iraq very quickly (toppled the head of state, dissolved the official military). It was the occupation and rebuilding efforts afterwards that it failed at IMO.
      - raducu 6y ago
        The US victory was a textbook 19th century victory, but a 21th century catastrophic failure/pyrrhic victory -- in Irak and Afghanistan. You cannot win a war if you fail to reach your strategic objectives -- then it's not a war, but a bar brawl you "won".
        sgillen 6y ago
        The Iraq/Afghan wars were a mess, but the strategic objectives aren't even entirely known and some of them were achieved. The Iraq war at least: 1. Secured strategic access to Iraq's oil resources. 2. Establish a permanent military presence in the region. 3. Removed the the de facto government.
calcifer 6y ago
> all in one country, that is very close to another country, that doesn't want it to be its own country. That's actually good news for Taiwan. TSMC is already very important for everyone. If it becomes the only player in high-end chip making, there is a good chance western countries won't let China invade Taiwan.
- pk_kinetic 6y ago
  Why would China invade Taiwan when it can just buy all of its engineers?
  - calcifer 6y ago
    Because China thinks that territory belongs to them, their motivation has nothing to do with TSMC.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

davedx 6y ago

TSM will build a factory in the USA: https://time.com/5837274/tsm-chip-plant-arizona/ https://time.com/5837274/tsm-chip-plant-arizona/

ETHisso2017 6y ago
which is only 5nm, only entering production in 2023, and only 20,000 wafers / month vs their gigafabs which are orders of magnitude larger
- m00x 6y ago
  It's a good start. They need to move carefully while balancing their assets. They also need to train the new employees in the US, it'll take time to get great chip engineers there, and get Taiwanese volunteers to move to the US.
  - throwaway4good 6y ago
    Why would they do that?
    - oseityphelysiol 6y ago
      The moving part? Probably because of better salaries. I don't know much about Taiwan and how nationalistic they are, but for most of the world working in the US is seen as the career endgame (or means to get there). If the question was why would Intel invest into making the chips in US - from recent news it seems like US understands how dependent it is on other nations for silicon manufacturing, which poses many questions. The biggest one seems to be national security, which looking from the side is the only factor that gets thing done in US.
      - vaxman 6y ago
        > I don't know much about Taiwan and how nationalistic they are You will want to read up on The Republic of Formosa, WWII and the history of Taiwan at some point. There are enough Chinese nationals on this website to downvote us all but suffice to say, it is widely regarded at the federal level that Taiwan could come under siege by the Chinese Communist Party at anytime and be used as a bargaining chip with the West along with Hong Kong, the DPRK armistice and Western financial interests in Macau. We need to begin evacuating Hong Kong and Taiwan immediately back to the USA --in fact, China just seized a boat of people fleeing Hong Kong last night, the first time they have done that (and on what charges, nobody knows, not even the Chief of Police of Hong Kong). As the President said today, we are going to break it off cold with China and as you expand your knowledge of the situation, you will realize that China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and the people of Taiwan do not.
        m00x 6y ago
        Hong Kong was legally handed over to China, but they had a 50(?) year handover period which they're breaking. Taiwan was never China's. A bunch of Chinese nationals went to China during the cultural revolution, and China would love to have Taiwan, but Taiwanese people are basically Chinese refugees and do not want that. China has been posturing to conquer them for years. My wife's parents (Taiwanese) immigrated to Canada during one of the periods of high tension between the countries. China was flying fighter jets over Taipei as an intimidation tactic.
  - amelius 6y ago
    Isn't IC fabrication mostly automated? So wouldn't most jobs be in research?
    - jiggawatts 6y ago
      It is automated in the sense that silicon goes in one end, and ideally no human being touches it until it comes out of the other end in a finished package. It is not at all automated in the sense that there is a ton of maintenance work on the production line. I love reading through random tech journals, the type with highly industry-specific ads in them, as an insight into the worlds other people live in. Jobs and every day problems I will never experience first-hand. One of the single most eye-popping experiences like that was an ad in a chip industry quarterly I found somewhere that was breathlessly advertising that their latest tool (a machine the size of a garage) now had an MTBF of "just" 27 hours instead of the previous 2-3 hours, a massive tenfold improvement! Cutting edge stuff, apparently, compared to the competition. The really impressive part apparently was that by cutting down on maintenance time, it could be "online" for up to 90% of the time instead of just 30-50% of the time or somesuch. Apparently that's impressively good in this space. The rest of the ad (and much of the journal) kept going on and on (and on!) about how their tool has easy-swap parts, can keep the vacuum during repair, has tool-less panels, quick access, no need for heavy lifting, etc... I don't think I'm exaggerating too much by saying that nearly 50% of all technical development in the fab industry is about reducing the maintenance effort, and hence staffing costs.
      - amelius 6y ago
        I can only wonder why one would use ads in an industry which is so specialized and has so few players. Wouldn't it be more efficient to just talk to these people?
        skissane 6y ago
        I think they want to do both. Put ads and positive press in trade journals you know your customers read. It increases the percentage of their minds you occupy. In-person contact does that too. They aren't mutually exclusive strategies. A lot of this equipment is so expensive, that the cost of a few trade journal ads is negligible compared to the amount of revenue involved.
- baybal2 6y ago
  > which is only 5nm, only entering production in 2023, and only 20,000 wafers / month vs their gigafabs which are orders of magnitude larger And there is a good chance that it may never be, just like Foxconns Wisconsin facility.

gerash 6y ago

IIUC graph core chips are very different from Intel chips so idk if their manufacturing can be compared. Or is it that chip manufacturing does not depend on what chip is being manufactured?

CarbyAu 6y ago

The US invaded for oil. What will it do for chip production?

breatheoften 6y ago
Lose its competitive advantage, slowly consolidate remaining assets into private hands with borderless migration capacity, elect a government composed entirely of conman, and five to ten years from now, begin losing every violent international confrontation that it tries to start?
- craftinator 6y ago
  When's the last time we didn't lose every violent international confrontation we were involved in? Also, yeah, the rest of that is both incredibly depressing, and of such a high plausibility that I can't see another way of it turning out. Pretty much like the US in Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash.
  - sgillen 6y ago
    Idk the US “won” in Iraq very quickly (toppled the head of state, dissolved the official military). It was the occupation and rebuilding efforts afterwards that it failed at IMO.
    - raducu 6y ago
      The US victory was a textbook 19th century victory, but a 21th century catastrophic failure/pyrrhic victory -- in Irak and Afghanistan. You cannot win a war if you fail to reach your strategic objectives -- then it's not a war, but a bar brawl you "won".
      - sgillen 6y ago
        The Iraq/Afghan wars were a mess, but the strategic objectives aren't even entirely known and some of them were achieved. The Iraq war at least: 1. Secured strategic access to Iraq's oil resources. 2. Establish a permanent military presence in the region. 3. Removed the the de facto government.

calcifer 6y ago

> all in one country, that is very close to another country, that doesn't want it to be its own country. That's actually good news for Taiwan. TSMC is already very important for everyone. If it becomes the only player in high-end chip making, there is a good chance western countries won't let China invade Taiwan.

pk_kinetic 6y ago
Why would China invade Taiwan when it can just buy all of its engineers?
- calcifer 6y ago
  Because China thinks that territory belongs to them, their motivation has nothing to do with TSMC.