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Intel chief Pat Gelsinger: Too many chips made in Asia
- ironmagma 6y agoThis could be great. Personal anecdote time, when I was using ESP32 there were some things it couldn't handle due to a very unconfigurable WiFi interface -- captive portal advertisement via DHCP specifically. (Before people get their knickers in a twist, it was connecting to a box that had no internet access, so there was no hostage situation there.) It turns out there are basically no open source or even American options that replace that chip. A lack of competition leads to a stymied market.
- outworlder 6y agoI've just learned that the ESP32 is manufactured on a TSMC 40mm process. That's essentially caveman tech. All those foundries based on old processes should be churning out at least equivalent (if not more capable) chips. Heck, forget ESP32, is there a ESP8266 equivalent that's entirely made in the USA? Would love to use that instead - for many reasons.
- ironmagma 6y agoHard for me to read the level of hyperbole here, but does that mean it’s something that could conceivably be manufactured in a home?
- mjevans 6y ago40nM is about 13 years old at this point, and has been replaced superseded several times. https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/40_nm_lithography_process https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/40_nm_lithography_process Probably the only reason that line is still running would be validated long term stability products, or niche hardware designed with special application compatibility (E.G. radhard, higher end mil / aerospace concerns, maybe automotive). Semiconductor tooling is rather expensive and I imagine that updating this to a more modern line would require overhauling and re-balancing many systems. It might help someone not familiar with the industry to imagine each technology node as an entirely new model of car.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- samus 6y agoThere are some projects where people try to etch silicon in their garage, but the node they are targetting is from last century. Anything newer and you need toxic and corrosive chemicals, and increasingly exotic equipment. The yield isn't great either.
- baybal2 6y ago> I've just learned that the ESP32 is manufactured on a TSMC 40mm process. That's essentially caveman tech. But it's cheap, and MOQs are still achievable for mortals. This is why. There are way more reasons older litho processes persist beyond just them still making tons of money. 40nm for a microcontroller is rather impressive, given that the most are made with anything up to 180nm. It takes more effort to design a chip with scaling down of geometries, lead times, and test samples are getting longer to get. Mask sets get more expensive. Less fabs are available to produce the chip. Some devices become unavailable at lower geometries. And so on, and on...
- genmud 6y agoThere are tons of options that aren't ESP32s. Many just aren't in the package that you are used to with a ESP32. Nordic, NXP, SiLabs and Microchip all have pretty comparable offerings at a similar price point for bare ICs (and if you are doing anything outside prototyping/small volume, you shouldn't be buying modules IMHO anyways). If you are talking about ESP32 modules, there are still options but they are typically a bit more expensive, like $1-2 more last time I checked. However, there are ARM based wifi/bt modules that you can get as cheap as $1.50-$2.00 for an FCC certified one. Check out Fanstel BlueNor [1] as an example. The huge advantage being you get to use ARM tools instead of the Xtensa stuff, which depending on your workflows can be a definite plus (though I believe they recently added xtensa support in LLVM, so that might be a bit of a moot point). They are definitely going to be difficult to compete with on the new ESP32-C3 line price-wise once they ramp it up though. At the end of the day though the ESP offerings have a bit of tradeoffs when you look at battery life and performance compared to other offerings. I believe they are working or may have fixed the power usage/sleep problems though on the C3s. When it is all said and done though, I think the ESP32-C3 is going to probably take over the sub $1-2 IOT space, at the end of the day batteries are cheap and if you are designing your product to be plugged in... who cares. What personally burns me with Espressif is they charge so much for their ICs. Like sometimes the modules are cheaper than the bare chips, even at 1k quantity, which is kinda irritating when you are space constrained. [1] https://www.fanstel.com/bluenor-summaries https://www.fanstel.com/bluenor-summaries
- TeeMassive 6y agoThis have been bothering me for a while. What would happen if for any reasons the biggest fabs are destroyed? It would take years to get more than half of a century of accumulated knowledge just from patents, and that's not even counting industrial secrets and all the economical machine needed to support such an industry. There have been projects focused on securing Humanity's technological knowledge in case of a worldwide calamity like GitHub storing all its source code in microfilms, but I can't think of any project entirely focused on building from scratch and kick-starting the industrial motor of modern civilization.
- sigstoat 6y ago> What would happen if for any reasons the biggest fabs are destroyed? it "just" takes some years and heaping piles of money to replace them. though probably more if you're trying to replace them all at once, as there aren't a lot of folks who make the equipment to rebuild the fabs. > It would take years to get more than half of a century of accumulated knowledge just from patents, and that's not even counting industrial secrets and all the economical machine needed to support such an industry. sounds like you're more concerned about loss of the personnel and records, rather than the buildings. > I can't think of any project entirely focused on building from scratch and kick-starting the industrial motor of modern civilization. i mean, "world peace" is generally concerned with preventing it from being destroyed in the first place. conventional wisdom is that taiwan bases a chunk of their national security on nobody wanting to see TSMC ruined.
- riversflow 6y agoWorld peace will only go so far if a huge solar storm hits us and we are not adequately prepared.
- TeeMassive 6y ago> it "just" takes some years and heaping piles of money to replace them. though probably more if you're trying to replace them all at once, as there aren't a lot of folks who make the equipment to rebuild the fabs. You can't buy an economy. You'll need a petrochemical industry for example for all the insulators and other substances that go into the making of chips and you'll need mines for precious metals or recycle them from scratch and of course an energy industry. Just those few examples are their own are giant economical pyramids on their own rights, and would be very hard to replace even if most relevant university graduates made it alive to this point. > sounds like you're more concerned about loss of the personnel and records, rather than the buildings. I don't know you say this, I was more focused on the process as a whole on a macro scale. > i mean, "world peace" is generally concerned with preventing it from being destroyed in the first place. I never mentioned war in particular. Could be a solar flare, an asteroid, a plague (and look how we were prepared for this one).
- phendrenad2 6y agoWow he really said that. Kinda stupid if you ask me, people may take it personally. This is why when you mean "We need a more distributed supply chain" you say "we need a more distributed supply chain" and don't single out a geoethnic region.
- xiphias2 6y agoI guess he's not used to political speech, as he has more technical experience. He needs to get used to picking his words more carefully.
- Ar-Curunir 6y agoNot being xenophobic doesn’t require training
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- tester756 6y agoThere are at least two interpretations of his words yet you picked the one that's easier to criticize, well.
- kennywinker 6y agoPointing out that there is a concentration of chip manufacturing in one region (or even country) is not xenophobic. It is globalist, and it is capitalist, but it's not xenophobic any more than it is to say that the concentration of social networks coming out of silicon valley is a problem (it is!).
- zaphirplane 6y agoIsn’t he being politically aware by not naming the Asian country ? Because as a technical person what’s the concern if a lot of chips are made in the continent of Asia
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- philistine 6y agoHe didn't get the memo Trump isn't president anymore. The dog whistles are out of style right now.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- king_magic 6y agoHe's entirely right. I think this is the best move Intel has made in decades.
- topspin 6y agoHe's also talking out of both side of his mouth. Yesterday we learn this[1] and this "Galsigner says" story unironically fails to point it out. [1] Intel to Outsource Some Key CPU Production for 2023 Chips to TSMC https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-to-outsource-some-key-cpu-production-for-2023-chips https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-to-outsource-some-ke...
- 01100011 6y agoWhat's wrong with that? The company has to react both tactically and strategically. Short term, they may have to use overseas production while the domestic capability improves.
- totalZero 6y agoFirst, Intel has bought several businesses and some of them (Altera for example) have a pre-existing relationship with TSMC. Second, every wafer that Intel fabs at TSMC is a wafer that AMD cannot fab at TSMC. Intel plays defense on pricing and supply by producing with TSMC. Not to mention the greater market awareness that Intel gains by being a client of its competitor.
- dannyw 6y agoTSMC knows Intel is a fab competitor, and everyone involved in the relationship will be thinking first about how to protect TSMC interests and trade secrets, and secondly servicing Intel.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- xiphias2 6y agoIt's interesting that Pat hopes that Apple would want another supplier, but I don't see 3nm Intel fab happening in the near future.
- tibbydudeza 6y agoApple did it once before when it sourced CPU's from Samsung and TMSC for the A9 iPhone 6S using a 14 vs 16nm node processes. But I don't see why they would do it unless there was supplier issues.
- xiphias2 6y agoPeople didn't like Samsung chips, they started complaining about battery life, that was why Apple moved to being TSMC only I think.
- totalZero 6y agoApple always wants another supplier. That's how they hammer input prices lower. https://www.wsj.com/articles/jobs-cook-iveblevins-the-rise-of-apples-cost-cutter-11579803981 https://www.wsj.com/articles/jobs-cook-iveblevins-the-rise-o...
- ngngngng 6y agoI'm stoked. I've been a bit of an Intel hater lately but more competition is good for everyone. Though I'm guessing other people are excited about these directions as well because their stock is pretty high at the moment.
- stingraycharles 6y agoSame here, although I wouldn’t call myself as much as a hater as it’s just schadenfreude. If Intel were to double down on their own fabbing and become a reasonable alternative to TSMC I think that would be great for everyone.
- m463 6y agoThere have traditionally been cycles and we all win. I remember years back when AMD became competitive with intel and then intel turned around and came out with fast cpus, and we had all kinds of choices. I think the PC is a really good thing we don't want to lose it. When we have competition it is better for customers with more choices, and employees who actually have to compete, and there are standard interfaces new companies can develop for. Honestly, what I worry about is Apple and their spiral into themselves and their closed ecosystem. I think Apple was at their best when the adopted the PC architecture and interoperability made everything better.
- not_exactly__ 6y agoHave you used an M1 Air yet? I Because that’s the best computer I’ve ever owned.
- m463 6y agoAt least you can install 3rd party software on a mac. for now. ;)
- samus 6y ago> there are standard interfaces new companies can develop for. Not so much in x86/x86_64 though. This ISA is a minefield of patents if you want to do anything state-of-the-art. AMD and Intel have mutual licencing agreements with each other, which prevents any upstarts from competing with them. Any competitors will have to license ARM or invest into RISC-V.
- Waterluvian 6y agoAmerica should use the "we need to spend spend spend to revitalize the economy" to domesticate more industry.
- paxys 6y agoI think a national security argument will highlight the importance and urgency a lot better.
- r3trohack3r 6y agoI think National Security might have something to do with manufacturing of electronics moving outside the US. The war on crypto called for manufactures to either provide two versions of their product, or move manufacturing to a place they could export a single product: https://www.eff.org/pages/decrypting-puzzle-palace https://www.eff.org/pages/decrypting-puzzle-palace
- kingaillas 6y agoSo? Don't most manufacturers already have to provide multiple product versions if they sell internationally, to handle different electricity/plug differences around the world (among many other things)? Maybe there is an effect, but it isn't as if products sold worldwide come in one version that works everywhere. Corporations love excuses to differentiate (read: charge more, especially for local captive customers) for products. Big Pharma uses all sorts of US government programs to run interference for them - patents, import/export restrictions, legal buying requirements, etc - all to charge more for the US version of products they sell dirt cheap elsewhere. Whatever "National Security" effect was present causing manufacturing to move overseas was dominated by maximizing profits: wringing savings out of the supply chain and lower labor costs. The result was predictable. I see Intel's complaint about this a way to drum up or steer business their way, hobble their competitors that rely on Asian chip manufacturing, seek future government intervention to help them - or accomplish all of the above.
- rtkwe 6y ago
- tibbydudeza 6y agoIt it Intel speak "we can't compete against TMSC/Samsung".
- NobodyNada 6y agoHow is that? As the article explains, they have just announced their plans to directly compete against TSMC/Samsung as a manufacturer of chips for other companies (rather than just manufacturing their own designs). To me, this suggests Gelsinger is confident in the company’s ability to get their 7nm-and-beyond processes back on track and become competitive once again.
- tibbydudeza 6y agoRocket Lake is still on 14nm because of issues with their 10nm process and the new guy a week in is talking smack about them shipping 7nm product and compete against the likes of TMSC/Samsung ???.
- astrange 6y agoThey don't have to do 10 and 7 on the way to 5, right? I assume they can just skip some of the work, especially if the newer process is totally different anyway.
- Hiopl 6y agoYes, they're working on multiple processes. They're working on both 7nm and 5nm, and it's expected that 10nm's yield issues will effectively be solved by releasing 7nm.
- coliveira 6y ago> this suggests Gelsinger is confident in the company’s ability to get their 7nm-and-beyond processes back Or it may suggest that the company wants to say anything to reassure investors that it will change course and stop losing market share. I wouldn't read any particular guarantee into these statements.
- coding123 6y agoWe absolutely do need to keep the secrets for how this stuff is made local.
- tehjoker 6y agoWhy do we need to keep secrets? If chips are distributed evenly, there will be no advantage given to anyone but lots of people can reap the benefits. I don't like nationalist arguments, but I do think it is a bad idea for critical tech to be concentrated in a single place. It would be good for there to be advanced manufacturing sites on all six populated continents owned by different countries.
- leetcrew 6y agothat would be good, but it would be even better to be the people that have the advantage.
- tehjoker 6y agoI don't understand this thinking. Why would we want to impoverish others? After all, it's not like these power brokers give a shit about the American public, it's about great power competition.
- leetcrew 6y agofirst of all, I don't think "impoverish" is quite the right word. if you have a 9700k and I buy a 10900k, my cpu is faster, but your cpu is no slower than it was yesterday. past that, I don't really understand what there is to explain. if it would be good for everyone to have $1000, it would be even better (as an individual) to have $10000. assuming you care about money/chips/whatever. if you don't it obviously doesn't matter. edit: ah, I see what you are really asking is "why should we care who wins a power struggle among the world's elite?". I guess maybe we shouldn't, but personally I'd rather be on the winning team, even if I think the "teams" are silly.
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- gens 6y agoToo many cpu companies are USA-ian.
- smiley1437 6y agoI'm all for redistributing fab capacity geographically. But I thought it became concentrated in Asia because of the lower cost for high quality engineers due to LCOL. How will Intel change this equation to make it profitable in other geographic regions?
- stanislavb 6y agoI guess that if the US gov begins offering skilled VISAs, that’d help.
- phone8675309 6y ago>How will Intel change this equation to make it profitable in other geographic regions? Let me introduce you to this little thing called an H1B visa...
- JumpCrisscross 6y agoWhat fraction of a fab’s costs are labour today versus twenty years ago?
- tantalor 6y agoCost of living is 20% lower in San Jose, Costa Rica (location of Intel manufacturing plant) compared to TSMC in Taiwan.
- WrtCdEvrydy 6y agoYeah, it's not cost of living, it's that everything is there... it's a chicken-egg because even if you move the physical fab, everything you need still needs to be transported or you need to convince people to move with you. This isn't a one year project, this could be a 25 year project to get the entire pipeline from raw resource to a piece of silicon.
- totalZero 6y agoThere are some problems with doing business in Latin America. Corruption (which manifests itself as bureaucracy that can commonly be accelerated by greasing palms) and taxation are both fairly high in many places. It's not all about how much you pay your workers. In my opinion the potential for a greater Pan-American economy is the number one counterargument to Chinese global dominance. We have almost everything we need, right here in the Americas. https://www.tmf-group.com/en/news-insights/business-culture/top-challenges-taiwan/ https://www.tmf-group.com/en/news-insights/business-culture/... https://www.tmf-group.com/en/news-insights/articles/2018/june/challenges-business-in-costa-rica/ https://www.tmf-group.com/en/news-insights/articles/2018/jun...
- Zenst 6y agoI think Intel are more focused upon not surfing the bleeding edge, more the bulk of other silicon production that is usually on many generations behind. So offering those the opportunity to step up in nodes for them but also using proven nodes which , whilst not bleeding edge - will do ok. That with any bleeding edge needs, being open to outsourcing on a case by case bases for their own parts. I think for many, they view Intel based upon how well they do running computer games and think the stock resolves around that when we have learned that their income streams are more widely spread. As for alternative to TSMC, that gets down to getting ahead on nodes or when nodes get to a stage that they won't get any smaller. Also the work with IBM is interesting and whilst IBM left the FAB industry, they still do research and that combination may help Intel catchup or surpase the current cutting edge TSMC offer. I do feel what Intel is going for is opening up their 14nm(insert plus signs to taste) as they shift their core onto the 10nm. They had a lot of investment in 14nm and milked it well, but now they have the opportunity to open that up and gain value from that instead of the usual retooling one node into a new node and some node changes will be more impacting and might well be the case. Let alone the downtime and then to get the plant particle free after all the work - very costly. So to cash in on that as is more and just build new plants from scratch can for the accountants become very much the right direction to go and that is how it seems to be. More so when politically getting subsidies to build new plants over retooling an existing one can make that option even cheaper. However it is being driven, it's good for Intel and the industry as a whole as more choice. Equally I'm very interested in how Intel and IBM will collaborate and have a good feeling about all this.
- foobarbazetc 6y agoThis already exists/existed at GlobalFoundaries and they’ve been closing fabs. The fab business isn’t great, tbh, because most of the money is in the value add.
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- foobarbazetc 6y agoSort of what he has to say to sell his fabs, no? I mean, he’s not saying Intel have a better product, because they don’t. Eh.
- friedman23 6y agoIntel is the only product you can go out and buy right now, so there's that.
- Nokinside 6y agoAs he says here, the decision not to take risk and jump to EUV with TSMC and Samsung was the mistake that started this downfall and it snowballed. The decision happened somewhere in the pathfinding stage into 10nm. When Gerald Marcyk was running Intel components research back in the 2001 Intel was already considering using EUV lithography for the 45nm technology node that would come out 2007. It turned out that the switch to EUV could be delayed and delayed again. Intel thought they could get away with it this last time and it was a wrong decision. EUV is super hard. There is only one company that can make EUV lithography machines, Dutch company called ASML. TWINSCAN NXE:3400B costs ~$120 million https://www.asml.com/en/products/euv-lithography-systems/twinscan-nxe3400b https://www.asml.com/en/products/euv-lithography-systems/twi... Intel, Samsung and TSMC invested billions into ASML in 2012. In exchange Intel got 15% ownership, Samsung 10% and TSML 5% if I remember correctly. They don't have any significant ownership anymore.
- baybal2 6y agoWell, not to forget the 157i debacle. Intel first started cheaping out as far back as 2003-2005. 157i could've been almost as good as EUV, at much lower cost, but Intel fully consciously decided to forego it because "nobody can beat us on 193i yet," and of conern that 157i consortium will give superior litho to potential competitors.
- rowanG077 6y agoWhat is 157i? Googling with various helper terms doesn't turn anything up.
- trishmapow2 6y agoAs someone with no background knowledge, I first looked up "193i" intel which lead me to the term 193nm immersion lithography. After that doing the same for 157nm was trivial.
- baybal2 6y ago157nm lithography process using fluorine excimer laser light source.
- brundolf 6y agoIs there a term for "company starts advocating a valid social concern when it aligns with their interests"?
- jacquesm 6y agoSalon Socialism?
- lacker 6y ago“standard practice”
- oblio 6y agoIt's broader than just social, but I really like "strategy credit": https://stratechery.com/2013/strategy-credit/ https://stratechery.com/2013/strategy-credit/ Basically, do the right thing when it's easy to do, or even better, it directly benefits you.
- granularity 6y agoSee also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_luck https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_luck
- da_big_ghey 6y agosince social concern are in most case lead to legislationing i would call "regulatory recapture".
- heckerhut 6y agoTime to buy some stonks
- excalibur 6y agoTSMC is far too important to far too many parties. We're getting dangerously close to a direct US/China war for Taiwan. That wouldn't be good for anybody. Both sides will claim it's about something else, but really it's all about the chips.
- rory 6y agoIt really is pretty terrifying. I'd go as far to say that the most likely thing the next World War (pray there isn't one) will be fought over is TSMC.
- mjevans 6y agoMy view (opinion): Both sides will arm for war, mostly as a deturant and bargaining point. Espionage at a corporate and nation state level will be used to erode the value of the problem; probably by every advanced nation state. The other 21st century and beyond area of competition will be energy tech (of all sorts), because of that old science fiction meme of the only two things an advanced species need being space and energy.
- yongjik 6y ago> "Having 80% of all supply in Asia simply isn't a palatable manner for the world to have its view of the most critical technology," Mr Gelsinger said. Eh, the whole set of FAANG plus Intel itself is based on American West Coast, and this guy's take is that so many chips being made in East Asia is not "palatable" for the world? There's nothing wrong with saying "That's a large pie they're eating and we want a bigger slice for ourselves." We could do without this kind of self-serving pseudo-cosmopolitanism.
- colinmhayes 6y agoWhen he says "the world" he means the US and western Europe.
- m463 6y agoI would say the #1 consumer good in the world (not just the west) is the cellphone. I would even say it is even more heavily dependent on the cellphone than the west.
- tw04 6y agoI think you missed the point. He isn't going to outright say "If China decides to follow-through on their threats to invade Taiwan it will cause a worldwide disruption to technology". But at the end of the day, that IS reality, and it's a systemic threat to both Europe and the US. The fact it's self-serving doesn't make the statement any less factually accurate or important.
- kmonsen 6y agoThat's not really a counterpoint though. It is kind of bad for the world that FAANG++ and for example most of the movie industry is centered in US (west coast)? Also with tensions rising there it is not good if 80% of the chips are being made in a war zone. And bad for everyone but China if China takes control of Taiwan. I don't think any of these are value statements?
- samus 6y agoChina has realized the truth of your counterargument long ago. Alibaba, Baidu, WeChat, Weibo, the list goes on.
- davedx 6y agoFull of sound and fury, isn't he? Let's see Intel really take that gigantic mountain of cash they have and actually execute on this. Then we'll see.
- dannyw 6y agoIntel spends $13.5B a year on R&D. AMD spends $2B. TSMC spends about $3B. Spending more cash isn't the problem. I know it's easy to blame the bean counters for everything, but in the chip-making business, today's problems are created 5 years ago, and if Bob did a good job, we'll see it years after his departure.
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- Animats 6y agoThe other big problem is that countries that don't produce complete consumer electronics products have to export their ICs to China. If you're not a full-stack country, you have to get along with China.
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- j_walter 6y agoAmerican fabs have focused on too many feel good measures to competitively compete with the Asian fabs. The new TSMC Arizona HR director came from Intel and one of the first questions out of his mouth was about TSMC's commitment to diversity. TSMC doesn't have a commitment to diversity...it has a commitment to hire the best and brightest to bring value to their end customers. Pure and simple that is how you succeed.
- fermienrico 6y agoBy all means, hire every diverse candidate you can if they’re the best and the brightest. Diversity and inclusion is a sure fire way to hire mediocre people. Every culture and every race has some brilliant folks. Hire them.
- j_walter 6y agoExactly. In some cases getting a diverse background of opinions and viewpoints can make your company better. Like a clothing company or social media company. However when you are talking about advancing technology through modifying physics and scaling up systems then you simply need the best and brightest.
- ksec 6y ago>TSMC Arizona HR director came from Intel That whole Intel diversity programme came from BK. And look at what it has done to Intel in that 4 years.
- kats 6y agoArm has a better business model because there are so many great computer engineers in the world and with ARM they all create new SoCs. Because of Arm's model there are many diverse ARM SoCs, and ARM is the leader in everything from wireless keyboards up to the fastest smartphones. ARM is also in the fastest supercomputer. In the areas of desktops and servers, ARM will keep gaining popularity because there will be many new ARM-based designs for every 1 produced by Intel or AMD. Intel will never catch up when they are competing against many excellent companies that are all sharing some of their code.
- worker767424 6y agoHe's really just deflecting from Intel dropping the ball. He didn't talk about how we got here, he's just campaigning for support for a company that's had a hard time executing by playing the politics card. I'm not an Intel hater, but this lack of ownership and deflection isn't something I like to see in CEOs.
- nottorp 6y agoYep, too many chips made in Asia. I'd like to see more chips made in Europe. Mr Intel chief there seems to have gone suddenly patriotic since they can't compete on technical merits at the moment.`
- holografix 6y agoCouldn’t agree more. The day China decides they had enough of Taiwan an appropriate TSMC will be a difficult day for the west.
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- anfilt 6y agoI dont disagree too many chips are made in Asia, yes the EU and the Americas can use more local fabs. As for intel they need to get back on their game for leading edge nodes/processes.