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I think that the capability to design a modern CPU is pretty essential for future defence independence. I think that ARM represents a good chunk of the UKs clai
by sgt101 6y ago
I think that the capability to design a modern CPU is pretty essential for future defence independence. I think that ARM represents a good chunk of the UKs claim to be able to do that. If the UK wants a share of future US programs of all sorts then it needs to be able to make these claims - or face must less generous terms.
- klelatti 6y agoWhat's the point of being able to design CPUs if we can't make them? We certainly don't have defence independence at all. I'm not sure about the second point but it seems premised on withholding IP from US which seems unlikely. Much more likely that there is intense collaboration between say GCHQ and Arm (maybe both ways -> GCHQ gets to understand modern CPU security issues from Arm and Arm benefits from GCHQ input on threats). If that relationship swaps to NSA then there would be real damage to UK security apparatus.
- nottorp 6y ago> What's the point of being able to design CPUs if we can't make them? We certainly don't have defence independence at all. If you needed them for defence I'm sure you could set up a fab on older process nodes fairly fast. A tank consumes and generates so much power for moving that it doesn't matter if the CPUs in it will last only 2 hours in a cell phone...
- dijit 6y agoWe get our panties in a bunch (and I do too) about the real high end fabs for CPUs, but push-come-to-shove there _are_ fabs in the UK. Infineon (German owned) and Nexperia (Dutch owned) both own fabrication plants in the UK, so it's possible to scale that up if we were at war, the knowledge is here.
- klelatti 6y agoFair comment but no one is suggesting that we'll lose access to CPU designs that work on older nodes so the point still doesn't really stack up.