4 ms·

Government can't make a website, let alone a chip fab. Talk to Intel and ask them why we've fallen behind. Do any VCs want to fund a direct Intel competitor? I

Government can't make a website, let alone a chip fab. Talk to Intel and ask them why we've fallen behind. Do any VCs want to fund a direct Intel competitor? I doubt it. Making chips seems to be quite a bit more complicated than making and launching rockets, I don't think even Elon Musk could do it.

bumby 5y ago
>Government can't make a website, let alone a chip fab. Tbf, many (most?) government websites are built and maintained by private companies. Remember the ACA website debacle a few years back? The government was mad at the contractor for building a shoddy product. They claimed they would take action against them but I’m not sure anything happened. If the government should be held to task on anything it should be an inability to write good contracts or hold companies feet to the fire. I’ve heard civil servants are unwilling to to the latter because they don’t want to hurt businesses or are afraid of legal protests.
- wincy 5y ago
  Anecdotal, I know, but the saddest interview I’ve ever done was a state government web developer. I was writing a js on the whiteboard, setting up a problem that started something like var a = 1; a = 2; Before I got any further they blurted out “that’s false! The second line is false” and this was someone who had been writing production code for the government for the last five years. I honestly just felt really bad for them, more than anything.
  - bumby 5y ago
    I wonder how much of this is due to being forced to select lowest bid contractors. I’ve seen some orgs rely on rely bad programmers because they were relatively cheap. Programmers who make changes on the fly in meetings to live production systems or say their test plan is to push it to production and just wait for customers to send in work tickets when they encounter a bug. Or blatantly lie about feasibility because they would prefer to work in an antiquated framework rather than learn a new one. The govt owns some responsibility for lack of technical oversight but I can’t help but think a lot of it is due to business contracting incentives.
jvanderbot 5y ago
Just subsidize it. I'm not asking for the Fab Czar, I'm asking for the NSF, DARPA, and national subsidies for it. Accelerated permitting, tax breaks, tarif support, state vs national investments, accelerated green cards for key personnel, and price breaks for a "buy US Chips" initiative for the first 5 years until things get serious and exports ramp up. I'm spitballing over morning coffee, but come on, this seems obvious. Exports won't offset operating costs here in the USA, but perhaps we could apply some ingenuity to that through national research investments and the ensuing startup ecology. The ancillary benefits of funding research and small business infrastructure around the big fabs would be huge. Sandia national labs has a ~3.5 annual Giga$ budget! That's _entirely_ publicly funded and represents about half of TSMC's operating budget (https://investor.tsmc.com/english/encrypt/files/encrypt_file/reports/2021-01/4Q20EarningsRelease.pdf https://investor.tsmc.com/english/encrypt/files/encrypt_file... , looking at 50% profit yielding ~12 G$)
- zsmi 5y ago
  Will this do? https://www.eetimes.com/biden-ups-ante-to-50-billion-for-chips-act/ https://www.eetimes.com/biden-ups-ante-to-50-billion-for-chi...
  - jvanderbot 5y ago
    Yes. That's precisely what I'm asking for.
  - nebula8804 5y ago
    We are lucky to have a Dem in office so we at least get something vs just spinning our wheels. Who knows, the next republican might just tank this strategy in the long run anyway.
- cma 5y ago
  EUV LLC was already heavily funded by DARPA in the 90s and is why we are able to have export restrictions on ASML machines used by TSMC for the latest EUV nodes etc.
  - 5y ago
thedougd 5y ago
The 18F group is more than capable: https://github.com/18F https://github.com/18F
- nebula8804 5y ago
  They are probably referring to the Obamacare initial rollout which predates 18F right?
Retric 5y ago
The US government manufactures a lot of classified chips in house. It’s unclear what their exact capabilities are, but looking at funding they could in theory be ahead of the industry.
gregors 5y ago
The UK Gov seems to be doing an ok job - https://github.com/alphagov https://github.com/alphagov

bumby 5y ago

>Government can't make a website, let alone a chip fab. Tbf, many (most?) government websites are built and maintained by private companies. Remember the ACA website debacle a few years back? The government was mad at the contractor for building a shoddy product. They claimed they would take action against them but I’m not sure anything happened. If the government should be held to task on anything it should be an inability to write good contracts or hold companies feet to the fire. I’ve heard civil servants are unwilling to to the latter because they don’t want to hurt businesses or are afraid of legal protests.

wincy 5y ago
Anecdotal, I know, but the saddest interview I’ve ever done was a state government web developer. I was writing a js on the whiteboard, setting up a problem that started something like var a = 1; a = 2; Before I got any further they blurted out “that’s false! The second line is false” and this was someone who had been writing production code for the government for the last five years. I honestly just felt really bad for them, more than anything.
- bumby 5y ago
  I wonder how much of this is due to being forced to select lowest bid contractors. I’ve seen some orgs rely on rely bad programmers because they were relatively cheap. Programmers who make changes on the fly in meetings to live production systems or say their test plan is to push it to production and just wait for customers to send in work tickets when they encounter a bug. Or blatantly lie about feasibility because they would prefer to work in an antiquated framework rather than learn a new one. The govt owns some responsibility for lack of technical oversight but I can’t help but think a lot of it is due to business contracting incentives.

jvanderbot 5y ago

Just subsidize it. I'm not asking for the Fab Czar, I'm asking for the NSF, DARPA, and national subsidies for it. Accelerated permitting, tax breaks, tarif support, state vs national investments, accelerated green cards for key personnel, and price breaks for a "buy US Chips" initiative for the first 5 years until things get serious and exports ramp up. I'm spitballing over morning coffee, but come on, this seems obvious. Exports won't offset operating costs here in the USA, but perhaps we could apply some ingenuity to that through national research investments and the ensuing startup ecology. The ancillary benefits of funding research and small business infrastructure around the big fabs would be huge. Sandia national labs has a ~3.5 annual Giga$ budget! That's _entirely_ publicly funded and represents about half of TSMC's operating budget (https://investor.tsmc.com/english/encrypt/files/encrypt_file/reports/2021-01/4Q20EarningsRelease.pdf https://investor.tsmc.com/english/encrypt/files/encrypt_file... , looking at 50% profit yielding ~12 G$)

zsmi 5y ago
Will this do? https://www.eetimes.com/biden-ups-ante-to-50-billion-for-chips-act/ https://www.eetimes.com/biden-ups-ante-to-50-billion-for-chi...
- jvanderbot 5y ago
  Yes. That's precisely what I'm asking for.
- nebula8804 5y ago
  We are lucky to have a Dem in office so we at least get something vs just spinning our wheels. Who knows, the next republican might just tank this strategy in the long run anyway.
cma 5y ago
EUV LLC was already heavily funded by DARPA in the 90s and is why we are able to have export restrictions on ASML machines used by TSMC for the latest EUV nodes etc.
- 5y ago

thedougd 5y ago

The 18F group is more than capable: https://github.com/18F https://github.com/18F

nebula8804 5y ago
They are probably referring to the Obamacare initial rollout which predates 18F right?

Retric 5y ago

The US government manufactures a lot of classified chips in house. It’s unclear what their exact capabilities are, but looking at funding they could in theory be ahead of the industry.

gregors 5y ago

The UK Gov seems to be doing an ok job - https://github.com/alphagov https://github.com/alphagov