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At 756 pages, this looks to be longer than many textbooks. > Microelectronics power all AI, and the United States no longer manufactures the world’s most sophi

At 756 pages, this looks to be longer than many textbooks. > Microelectronics power all AI, and the United States no longer manufactures the world’s most sophisticated chips. We do not want to overstate the precariousness of our position, but given that the vast majority of cutting-edge chips are produced at a single plant separated by just 110 miles of water from our principal strategic competitor, we must reevaluate the meaning of supply chain resilience and security.

lostcolony 6y ago
So what you're saying is our elected representatives are sure to read it, understand it, and make sound policy from it.
- kemitchell 6y ago
  I share your frustration. But that's really not how elected reps work. Those particularly interested, or with relevant committee appointments, may read the executive summary. 800 pages of report go up, not down. But not all the way up.
- robomartin 6y ago
  I appreciate the sarcasm. The US is facing the realities caused by somewhere in the order of 50 years of incompetence in government at nearly every level. This isn’t going to change any time soon. While we have been busy de-educating our new generations and worshiping idiots like Bernie and AOC, the Chinese worked hard and went from an agricultural society to the second economy in the world. Well done! A line from Star Wars comes to mind: “Your focus determines your reality” Here we are. I believe Europe is in the same boat.
  - laurent92 6y ago
    > I believe Europe is in the same boat You think? While UK was busy banning Huawei for spycraft, Macron was signing a partnership to install Huawei factories in France. I guess “when you can’t beat spies, invite them to your own territory and pay them”, or something like that, I don’t know I’m not a politician.
    - tsimionescu 6y ago
      > Macron was signing a partnership to install Huawei factories in France. So he is doing exactly what China did - Making sure production is happening in his country, regardless of who nominally owns the factory. A step in the right direction.
      - engineer_22 6y ago
        The Germans are doing the right thing by spending money to create domestic competitors for 5G manufacturing
        tsimionescu 6y ago
        Sure, that's even better, absolutely.
    - robomartin 6y ago
      > You think? I don't have any ill-feelings towards China other than some of their political and social proclivities. In the realm of business, they deserve full recognition and respect for what they have achieved. While the developed nations of the world got busy with nonsense and political infighting the Chinese quietly put one foot in front of the other, worked hard and lifted an agrarian economy to become the second economy of the world. Truly amazing. The next couple of centuries will likely belong to China. I can't think of a single thing anyone can do to affect change that took fifty years and an immense amount of hard work. For one thing, people in Europe and the US would have to undergo a massive cultural shift. Entire nations would have to be more entrepreneurial and hard working than China. Politicians would have to actually do what's best for the people of their nations. Universities and schools would have to stop teaching bullshit ideologies and start producing capable and useful adults with financial and entrepreneurial chops (the average US high school graduate is basically only useful for stacking boxes at a warehouse and, maybe, making coffee). These things are not going to happen. Or, put a different way: If, by some miracle, these things did happen, it would take at least 25 years to equalize the world. It would be a monumental effort most western societies are simply not capable of or not interested in embarking on...because, among other things, it will not be comfortable. And, BTW, that assumes China just sits there allowing the world to turn back the clock. Sorry for the pessimism, but someone has yet to explain how we magically wake up one day and magically reverse a fifty year monumental effort by the Chinese people by teaching kids about Karl Marx and fighting about politics day and night. I can only imagine how stupid funny this must look from the Chinese perspective.
  - alfiedotwtf 6y ago
    This has nothing to do with governments, but is the logical consequence of capitalism - export to the cheapest labour force. And exporting to your national rival to the point of being a national security issue even goes back to the 1600s with the wool and linen industry.
    - robomartin 6y ago
      You clearly don't understand how the world works. Simple example: Did you know the US and Europe have a treaty with China (and other nations) that was signed in 1874 (yes nearly 150 years ago!) that gives China FREE SHIPPING WITHIN THE US? As a manufacturer, it is actually more expensive to ship something from Los Angeles to New York than from China to anywhere in the US. Why? This treaty subsidizes shipping from China. American tax payers pick-up the bill. US manufacturers can't even compete. Why was this gift granted? Because back then the intent was to help developing nations. China is now the second largest economy in the world and US taxpayer are still subsidizing every single postal package shipped from China today. This is but one of the atrocities committed by our incompetent politicians that have caused US industry to steadily lose the ability to compete. This has nothing whatsoever to do with greedy capitalism, that's preposterous. As usual, people think they know how things work because they reduce reality to a single variable problem. I have been in manufacturing for decades. I can't even count how many variables drive reality, but I can tell you it isn't as simple as casual observers like to think. The usual "greedy corporations" trope is the first thing that reveals someone not having clue. And, to be fair, sometimes the only way to understand it is to be in it up to your neck. Or to listen to those who have first hand experience. That does not include college professors and politicians who have never built anything in their entire lives. Sorry.
  - benlivengood 6y ago
    > While we have been busy de-educating our new generations and worshiping idiots like Bernie and AOC, the Chinese worked hard and went from an agricultural society to the second economy in the world. It's pretty funny to blame AOC and Bernie, neither who have controlled more than a portion of a state government, for China's rise in relative power over the last 50 years. Additionally what is the supposed enemy here? Leftist socialism, like China has?
    - robomartin 6y ago
      Not blaming them. Please quote where I blamed them. They are emblematic of just how wrong things have gone in this country. We live in a time where our young are being indoctrinated into socialism and Marxism by our schools. These are philosophies that have caused until pain and suffering in nearly all corners of this world. We actively have people escaping various veins of these ideologies to come to the US. Once here, they can't comprehend how our young are being sold such nonsense. Pure indoctrination. My own son was nearly forced to take a class on Marxism at one of the top tech schools in the US as a condition for graduation with an engineering degree. I say "nearly" because the way they did it was "soft". He had to take a humanity and the only class available for a year and a half was "Young Karl Marx". So, go to Marxism class or graduate a year and a half later. Disgusting. Anyone who thinks these ideas are, in any way, good, has not lived under them. I have. Most of my family has. Friends have. Neighbors have. To call Socialism and Marxism "dangerous bullshit" is to be kind. The problem is the US has no clue what they are walking into. And so people like Bernie, AOC and others are idolized and supported instead of being laughed out of every possible corner of influence in this country. The average high school graduate in the US is barely good enough to stack boxes in a warehouse or, maybe, make coffee. No financial education. No understanding of business. No marketable skills at all. That's what we are producing by the millions every year. Imagine what we could do if we graduated kids with solid financial, entrepreneurial, business and other chops. It would be absolutely amazing.
      - benlivengood 6y ago
        > My own son was nearly forced to take a class on Marxism at one of the top tech schools in the US as a condition for graduation with an engineering degree. I say "nearly" because the way they did it was "soft". He had to take a humanity and the only class available for a year and a half was "Young Karl Marx". So, go to Marxism class or graduate a year and a half later. Disgusting. A class on Marxism is hardly a bad thing. Learn what it is, and what it is not. Judge it for ones-self. Restriction on education is what the communist regimes did, not the free world. > Anyone who thinks these ideas are, in any way, good, has not lived under them. I have. Most of my family has. Friends have. Neighbors have. To call Socialism and Marxism "dangerous bullshit" is to be kind. The problem is the US has no clue what they are walking into. And so people like Bernie, AOC and others are idolized and supported instead of being laughed out of every possible corner of influence in this country. The good news is that neither AOC nor Bernie Sanders are Marxists, they're Leftists. The difference is that human rights matter to them as opposed to what happened in the hardline Marxist/communist governments where ideology trumped humanity. There's no Leftist call for the destruction of non-Leftist art, non-Leftist science, non-Leftist political parties, or any of that. It's just another way of structuring taxes and social services. > The average high school graduate in the US is barely good enough to stack boxes in a warehouse or, maybe, make coffee. No financial education. No understanding of business. No marketable skills at all. That's what we are producing by the millions every year. Imagine what we could do if we graduated kids with solid financial, entrepreneurial, business and other chops. It would be absolutely amazing. The schools are still stuck in the model of making good little factory/office workers, it's true, but that's no more a fault of the Marxists than it is the Capitalists trying to keep labor cheap, although they've found outsourcing to countries with lower regard for human rights to be far superior. Also, hoping for high-school graduates to have business acumen and marketable skills is pretty optimistic. I'd expect 18-25 to be the years where people develop those highly valuable skills; not everyone can be an entrepreneur and definitely not at 18. Maybe if we hit full automation we can start to expect high-school students to immediately start robotic businesses but realistically it takes a lot of years of practice to be good at business and finance.
  - tsimionescu 6y ago
    > While we have been busy de-educating our new generations and worshiping idiots like Bernie and AOC, the Chinese worked hard and went from an agricultural society to the second economy in the world. It is exactly people like Bernie and AOC who are likely to bring manufacturing back to the USA, instead of letting corporations continue to outsource every last job they can to save a dollar on labor. The current predicament is the fault of capitalism and so called free trade agreements, which have greatly hurt global trade in goods in favor of financial fictions. Instead of US companies having to buy goods from foreign companies, they can just buy the factories and manufacture their own goods with foreign labor. Instead of a free international market for goods, this created a free international market for labor, and a global distributed planned economy, dominated by behemoths that at least nominally own much of their entire supply chain, across many countries. This hurts workers (i.e. the majority of the population) in most countries, but it benefitted the rich investors, especially in the USA. Far from incompetent governance, this has been very competent in achieving the wrong goals. Capitalism working as advertised: prioritizing the needs of capital today over everything else: workers, national security, even capital tomorrow.
    - lifeisstillgood 6y ago
      >>> Instead of US companies having to buy goods from foreign companies, they can just buy the factories and manufacture their own goods with foreign labor. Instead of a free international market for goods, this created a free international market for labor, and a global distributed planned economy I have never thought of the analysis like that. Things like Ricardos law assume countries are independent agents intermediating with trade. it obviously that ... fascinating
      - adamcstephens 6y ago
        Offshoring was almost always about labor. Wall Street wanted higher returns, so the jobs went to cheaper labor pools.
        thoughtstheseus 6y ago
- raverbashing 6y ago
  Governments? I wonder why Apple is not losing sleep over this... It's a major geopolitical risk and they're sitting right on top of it. Like thinking a landmine only hurts enemy combatants and not children playing soccer.
0x426577617265 6y ago
> supply chain resilience Resilience to what exactly? Is the report suggesting the country holding the 'keys' is hostile?
- l33t2327 6y ago
  Are you suggesting they are not?
  - 0x426577617265 6y ago
    I'm not sure how you could come to that conclusion based on my questions. China's place on the world stage is largely dependent on having customers. If there is no where for them to sell their manufactured goods, then they are not in a position of power.
    - Fordec 6y ago
      Are you suggesting that if trade with the US stops due to a US-China dispute or war there is literally nobody else in the entire world to trade with?
      - 0x426577617265 6y ago
        Pretty much that’s the case. US is #1 buyer.
        Fordec 6y ago
        US accounts for 16% of Chinese exports. 84% is the rest of the world. So while it's the biggest trade partner, it's not the end all and be all. It's about as important as what the UK was to Ireland before Brexit. Stopping trade isn't helpful, but it's not a showstopper either.
    - Animats 6y ago
      China could discourage export of components and tools while encouraging export of consumer products. The profit margins are better that way, too.
roenxi 6y ago
If we sort-of mush the Democrats and Republicans together; the US Economic Strategy for the last however many decades has been to import stuff from overseas and beef up on services. The result has been titans like Apple (best of breed at outsourcing manufacturing to China), Amazon (best of breed logistics, very strong at importing from China) and Google (amazing service). Is there any reason to be surprised that the US no longer manufactures the world's most sophisticated chips? Is there any political will to change strategy?
- alert0 6y ago
  This arises naturally from the US having been the global reserve currency for so long. Other countries' debts are denominated is dollars, so they seek dollars via mercantilism. This has absolutely cannibalized our manufacturing base. There is a case for a weaker dollar and to rebuild our exports.
Animats 6y ago
It really is a concern just how dependent the entire world is on TSMC. "The best human operator cannot defend against multiple machines making thousands of maneuvers per second potentially moving at hypersonic speeds and orchestrated by AI across domains." Attacks by drone swarms are already here. The first one was Syria vs. Russia in 2018.[1] There was an attack on Saudi oil facilities in 2019.[2] Much of this has little to do with AI. It's more about the US falling further behind in manufacturing. [1] https://tripwire.dhs.gov/news/209478 https://tripwire.dhs.gov/news/209478 [2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2019/09/16/why-the-attacks-in-saudi-arabia-are-a-really-big-deal/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2019/09/16/why-the-atta...
- d110af5ccf 6y ago
  > how dependent the entire world is on TSMC Isn't Samsung nearly on par with them? (Not that two is a much better situation.) It (perhaps naively) seems like most applications could theoretically make due with older processes, but I have difficulty imagining supply chains successfully coping with such a switch (not that I know anything about it).
  - ddeck 6y ago
    They are trying, although not there yet. There is also the capacity issue: TSMC has 28% of the semiconductor market under 40nm, Samsung has 10%. As a foundry, it's ~55% vs ~17%. Add in UMC and a few others and it's 64% Taiwan. Definitely a critical dependency. https://www.notebookcheck.net/TSMC-has-the-largest-market-share-in-the-global-semiconductor-manufacturing-industry-Counterpoints-Research.518137.0.html https://www.notebookcheck.net/TSMC-has-the-largest-market-sh... https://www.eenewsanalog.com/news/foundry-market-jumps-24-percent-2020 https://www.eenewsanalog.com/news/foundry-market-jumps-24-pe...
  - fomine3 6y ago
    Anandtech's Snapdragon 888 review compares vs 865. The article indicates that Samsung 5nm is a bit better or worse (vary on what to compare) than TSMC 7nm (non-EUV). https://www.anandtech.com/show/16463/snapdragon-888-vs-exynos-2100-galaxy-s21-ultra https://www.anandtech.com/show/16463/snapdragon-888-vs-exyno...
stanislavb 6y ago
This
zeckalpha 6y ago
While true about management, TSMC does operate a number of facilities around the world: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/TSMC#Facilities https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/TSMC#Facilities
Invictus0 6y ago
Who ends up reading this sort of report?
1e-9 6y ago
> the vast majority of cutting-edge chips are produced at a single plant separated by just 110 miles of water from our principal strategic competitor ...and located in a seismically active zone that experienced 97 major earthquakes over the last 100 years.

lostcolony 6y ago

So what you're saying is our elected representatives are sure to read it, understand it, and make sound policy from it.

kemitchell 6y ago
I share your frustration. But that's really not how elected reps work. Those particularly interested, or with relevant committee appointments, may read the executive summary. 800 pages of report go up, not down. But not all the way up.
robomartin 6y ago
I appreciate the sarcasm. The US is facing the realities caused by somewhere in the order of 50 years of incompetence in government at nearly every level. This isn’t going to change any time soon. While we have been busy de-educating our new generations and worshiping idiots like Bernie and AOC, the Chinese worked hard and went from an agricultural society to the second economy in the world. Well done! A line from Star Wars comes to mind: “Your focus determines your reality” Here we are. I believe Europe is in the same boat.
- laurent92 6y ago
  > I believe Europe is in the same boat You think? While UK was busy banning Huawei for spycraft, Macron was signing a partnership to install Huawei factories in France. I guess “when you can’t beat spies, invite them to your own territory and pay them”, or something like that, I don’t know I’m not a politician.
  - tsimionescu 6y ago
    > Macron was signing a partnership to install Huawei factories in France. So he is doing exactly what China did - Making sure production is happening in his country, regardless of who nominally owns the factory. A step in the right direction.
    - engineer_22 6y ago
      The Germans are doing the right thing by spending money to create domestic competitors for 5G manufacturing
      - tsimionescu 6y ago
        Sure, that's even better, absolutely.
  - robomartin 6y ago
    > You think? I don't have any ill-feelings towards China other than some of their political and social proclivities. In the realm of business, they deserve full recognition and respect for what they have achieved. While the developed nations of the world got busy with nonsense and political infighting the Chinese quietly put one foot in front of the other, worked hard and lifted an agrarian economy to become the second economy of the world. Truly amazing. The next couple of centuries will likely belong to China. I can't think of a single thing anyone can do to affect change that took fifty years and an immense amount of hard work. For one thing, people in Europe and the US would have to undergo a massive cultural shift. Entire nations would have to be more entrepreneurial and hard working than China. Politicians would have to actually do what's best for the people of their nations. Universities and schools would have to stop teaching bullshit ideologies and start producing capable and useful adults with financial and entrepreneurial chops (the average US high school graduate is basically only useful for stacking boxes at a warehouse and, maybe, making coffee). These things are not going to happen. Or, put a different way: If, by some miracle, these things did happen, it would take at least 25 years to equalize the world. It would be a monumental effort most western societies are simply not capable of or not interested in embarking on...because, among other things, it will not be comfortable. And, BTW, that assumes China just sits there allowing the world to turn back the clock. Sorry for the pessimism, but someone has yet to explain how we magically wake up one day and magically reverse a fifty year monumental effort by the Chinese people by teaching kids about Karl Marx and fighting about politics day and night. I can only imagine how stupid funny this must look from the Chinese perspective.
- alfiedotwtf 6y ago
  This has nothing to do with governments, but is the logical consequence of capitalism - export to the cheapest labour force. And exporting to your national rival to the point of being a national security issue even goes back to the 1600s with the wool and linen industry.
  - robomartin 6y ago
    You clearly don't understand how the world works. Simple example: Did you know the US and Europe have a treaty with China (and other nations) that was signed in 1874 (yes nearly 150 years ago!) that gives China FREE SHIPPING WITHIN THE US? As a manufacturer, it is actually more expensive to ship something from Los Angeles to New York than from China to anywhere in the US. Why? This treaty subsidizes shipping from China. American tax payers pick-up the bill. US manufacturers can't even compete. Why was this gift granted? Because back then the intent was to help developing nations. China is now the second largest economy in the world and US taxpayer are still subsidizing every single postal package shipped from China today. This is but one of the atrocities committed by our incompetent politicians that have caused US industry to steadily lose the ability to compete. This has nothing whatsoever to do with greedy capitalism, that's preposterous. As usual, people think they know how things work because they reduce reality to a single variable problem. I have been in manufacturing for decades. I can't even count how many variables drive reality, but I can tell you it isn't as simple as casual observers like to think. The usual "greedy corporations" trope is the first thing that reveals someone not having clue. And, to be fair, sometimes the only way to understand it is to be in it up to your neck. Or to listen to those who have first hand experience. That does not include college professors and politicians who have never built anything in their entire lives. Sorry.
- benlivengood 6y ago
  > While we have been busy de-educating our new generations and worshiping idiots like Bernie and AOC, the Chinese worked hard and went from an agricultural society to the second economy in the world. It's pretty funny to blame AOC and Bernie, neither who have controlled more than a portion of a state government, for China's rise in relative power over the last 50 years. Additionally what is the supposed enemy here? Leftist socialism, like China has?
  - robomartin 6y ago
    Not blaming them. Please quote where I blamed them. They are emblematic of just how wrong things have gone in this country. We live in a time where our young are being indoctrinated into socialism and Marxism by our schools. These are philosophies that have caused until pain and suffering in nearly all corners of this world. We actively have people escaping various veins of these ideologies to come to the US. Once here, they can't comprehend how our young are being sold such nonsense. Pure indoctrination. My own son was nearly forced to take a class on Marxism at one of the top tech schools in the US as a condition for graduation with an engineering degree. I say "nearly" because the way they did it was "soft". He had to take a humanity and the only class available for a year and a half was "Young Karl Marx". So, go to Marxism class or graduate a year and a half later. Disgusting. Anyone who thinks these ideas are, in any way, good, has not lived under them. I have. Most of my family has. Friends have. Neighbors have. To call Socialism and Marxism "dangerous bullshit" is to be kind. The problem is the US has no clue what they are walking into. And so people like Bernie, AOC and others are idolized and supported instead of being laughed out of every possible corner of influence in this country. The average high school graduate in the US is barely good enough to stack boxes in a warehouse or, maybe, make coffee. No financial education. No understanding of business. No marketable skills at all. That's what we are producing by the millions every year. Imagine what we could do if we graduated kids with solid financial, entrepreneurial, business and other chops. It would be absolutely amazing.
    - benlivengood 6y ago
      > My own son was nearly forced to take a class on Marxism at one of the top tech schools in the US as a condition for graduation with an engineering degree. I say "nearly" because the way they did it was "soft". He had to take a humanity and the only class available for a year and a half was "Young Karl Marx". So, go to Marxism class or graduate a year and a half later. Disgusting. A class on Marxism is hardly a bad thing. Learn what it is, and what it is not. Judge it for ones-self. Restriction on education is what the communist regimes did, not the free world. > Anyone who thinks these ideas are, in any way, good, has not lived under them. I have. Most of my family has. Friends have. Neighbors have. To call Socialism and Marxism "dangerous bullshit" is to be kind. The problem is the US has no clue what they are walking into. And so people like Bernie, AOC and others are idolized and supported instead of being laughed out of every possible corner of influence in this country. The good news is that neither AOC nor Bernie Sanders are Marxists, they're Leftists. The difference is that human rights matter to them as opposed to what happened in the hardline Marxist/communist governments where ideology trumped humanity. There's no Leftist call for the destruction of non-Leftist art, non-Leftist science, non-Leftist political parties, or any of that. It's just another way of structuring taxes and social services. > The average high school graduate in the US is barely good enough to stack boxes in a warehouse or, maybe, make coffee. No financial education. No understanding of business. No marketable skills at all. That's what we are producing by the millions every year. Imagine what we could do if we graduated kids with solid financial, entrepreneurial, business and other chops. It would be absolutely amazing. The schools are still stuck in the model of making good little factory/office workers, it's true, but that's no more a fault of the Marxists than it is the Capitalists trying to keep labor cheap, although they've found outsourcing to countries with lower regard for human rights to be far superior. Also, hoping for high-school graduates to have business acumen and marketable skills is pretty optimistic. I'd expect 18-25 to be the years where people develop those highly valuable skills; not everyone can be an entrepreneur and definitely not at 18. Maybe if we hit full automation we can start to expect high-school students to immediately start robotic businesses but realistically it takes a lot of years of practice to be good at business and finance.
- tsimionescu 6y ago
  > While we have been busy de-educating our new generations and worshiping idiots like Bernie and AOC, the Chinese worked hard and went from an agricultural society to the second economy in the world. It is exactly people like Bernie and AOC who are likely to bring manufacturing back to the USA, instead of letting corporations continue to outsource every last job they can to save a dollar on labor. The current predicament is the fault of capitalism and so called free trade agreements, which have greatly hurt global trade in goods in favor of financial fictions. Instead of US companies having to buy goods from foreign companies, they can just buy the factories and manufacture their own goods with foreign labor. Instead of a free international market for goods, this created a free international market for labor, and a global distributed planned economy, dominated by behemoths that at least nominally own much of their entire supply chain, across many countries. This hurts workers (i.e. the majority of the population) in most countries, but it benefitted the rich investors, especially in the USA. Far from incompetent governance, this has been very competent in achieving the wrong goals. Capitalism working as advertised: prioritizing the needs of capital today over everything else: workers, national security, even capital tomorrow.
  - lifeisstillgood 6y ago
    >>> Instead of US companies having to buy goods from foreign companies, they can just buy the factories and manufacture their own goods with foreign labor. Instead of a free international market for goods, this created a free international market for labor, and a global distributed planned economy I have never thought of the analysis like that. Things like Ricardos law assume countries are independent agents intermediating with trade. it obviously that ... fascinating
    - adamcstephens 6y ago
      Offshoring was almost always about labor. Wall Street wanted higher returns, so the jobs went to cheaper labor pools.
      - thoughtstheseus 6y ago
raverbashing 6y ago
Governments? I wonder why Apple is not losing sleep over this... It's a major geopolitical risk and they're sitting right on top of it. Like thinking a landmine only hurts enemy combatants and not children playing soccer.

0x426577617265 6y ago

> supply chain resilience Resilience to what exactly? Is the report suggesting the country holding the 'keys' is hostile?

l33t2327 6y ago
Are you suggesting they are not?
- 0x426577617265 6y ago
  I'm not sure how you could come to that conclusion based on my questions. China's place on the world stage is largely dependent on having customers. If there is no where for them to sell their manufactured goods, then they are not in a position of power.
  - Fordec 6y ago
    Are you suggesting that if trade with the US stops due to a US-China dispute or war there is literally nobody else in the entire world to trade with?
    - 0x426577617265 6y ago
      Pretty much that’s the case. US is #1 buyer.
      - Fordec 6y ago
        US accounts for 16% of Chinese exports. 84% is the rest of the world. So while it's the biggest trade partner, it's not the end all and be all. It's about as important as what the UK was to Ireland before Brexit. Stopping trade isn't helpful, but it's not a showstopper either.
  - Animats 6y ago
    China could discourage export of components and tools while encouraging export of consumer products. The profit margins are better that way, too.

roenxi 6y ago

If we sort-of mush the Democrats and Republicans together; the US Economic Strategy for the last however many decades has been to import stuff from overseas and beef up on services. The result has been titans like Apple (best of breed at outsourcing manufacturing to China), Amazon (best of breed logistics, very strong at importing from China) and Google (amazing service). Is there any reason to be surprised that the US no longer manufactures the world's most sophisticated chips? Is there any political will to change strategy?

alert0 6y ago
This arises naturally from the US having been the global reserve currency for so long. Other countries' debts are denominated is dollars, so they seek dollars via mercantilism. This has absolutely cannibalized our manufacturing base. There is a case for a weaker dollar and to rebuild our exports.

Animats 6y ago

It really is a concern just how dependent the entire world is on TSMC. "The best human operator cannot defend against multiple machines making thousands of maneuvers per second potentially moving at hypersonic speeds and orchestrated by AI across domains." Attacks by drone swarms are already here. The first one was Syria vs. Russia in 2018.[1] There was an attack on Saudi oil facilities in 2019.[2] Much of this has little to do with AI. It's more about the US falling further behind in manufacturing. [1] https://tripwire.dhs.gov/news/209478 https://tripwire.dhs.gov/news/209478 [2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2019/09/16/why-the-attacks-in-saudi-arabia-are-a-really-big-deal/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2019/09/16/why-the-atta...

d110af5ccf 6y ago
> how dependent the entire world is on TSMC Isn't Samsung nearly on par with them? (Not that two is a much better situation.) It (perhaps naively) seems like most applications could theoretically make due with older processes, but I have difficulty imagining supply chains successfully coping with such a switch (not that I know anything about it).
- ddeck 6y ago
  They are trying, although not there yet. There is also the capacity issue: TSMC has 28% of the semiconductor market under 40nm, Samsung has 10%. As a foundry, it's ~55% vs ~17%. Add in UMC and a few others and it's 64% Taiwan. Definitely a critical dependency. https://www.notebookcheck.net/TSMC-has-the-largest-market-share-in-the-global-semiconductor-manufacturing-industry-Counterpoints-Research.518137.0.html https://www.notebookcheck.net/TSMC-has-the-largest-market-sh... https://www.eenewsanalog.com/news/foundry-market-jumps-24-percent-2020 https://www.eenewsanalog.com/news/foundry-market-jumps-24-pe...
- fomine3 6y ago
  Anandtech's Snapdragon 888 review compares vs 865. The article indicates that Samsung 5nm is a bit better or worse (vary on what to compare) than TSMC 7nm (non-EUV). https://www.anandtech.com/show/16463/snapdragon-888-vs-exynos-2100-galaxy-s21-ultra https://www.anandtech.com/show/16463/snapdragon-888-vs-exyno...

stanislavb 6y ago

This

zeckalpha 6y ago

While true about management, TSMC does operate a number of facilities around the world: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/TSMC#Facilities https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/TSMC#Facilities

Invictus0 6y ago

Who ends up reading this sort of report?

1e-9 6y ago

> the vast majority of cutting-edge chips are produced at a single plant separated by just 110 miles of water from our principal strategic competitor ...and located in a seismically active zone that experienced 97 major earthquakes over the last 100 years.