6 ms·

Forgive the naive question but why doesn't the US government fund several foundries in the US immediately? $20B over 3 years is a drop in the bucket compared to

by njovin 5y ago

Forgive the naive question but why doesn't the US government fund several foundries in the US immediately? $20B over 3 years is a drop in the bucket compared to a lot of military spending and these chip shortages surely have downstream impact on the defense industry, no? At this point I'd be much happier subsidizing chip manufacturing than most of the other ways this country spends money overseas.

andrewmcwatters 5y ago
They are currently doing this with Intel afaik
- epsilon_greedy 5y ago
  There were early talks but I believe this only recently became official. See https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/newsroom/news/intel-wins-us-project-develop-foundry-ecosystem.html https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/newsroom/news/intel-...
nexuist 5y ago
Might scare Taiwan and embolden China? A huge reason we hold Taiwan as an ally is their chip production capabilities. If we become self reliant on those then we don't really need Taiwan and China might try to invade them, which would be bad for our own national security interests.
- vmception 5y ago
  Why would that be bad for our own national security interests if we have our own semiconductor lines? What else does Taiwan offer to the US? We have "strategic bases" everywhere. One being 100 miles from mainland china versus 200 miles makes no difference to US in the 21st century. A shipping lane maybe? Also not US problem really, got plenty of those too.
  - Rafuino 5y ago
    Well, for one, we don't want a humanitarian crisis and civil war or even international war... that's bad for the whole region and thus bad for US interests. We also don't want China able to just take over land and territory at will, which they've threatened to do all over the region. That destabilizes the region and once again is bad for US interests. This also emboldens other nations with expansion desires which threatens stability across the world... No US ally would trust us again if we just let Taiwan be taken over... again, bad for US interests...
    - vmception 5y ago
      There are 190 other countries that applies to so where are they? I don't share the ego for the US' hegemony or I also don't place importance on the US' soft power. I do care about semiconductors though. Is there a stronger argument, because I'm still stuck on what specific strategic advantage that Taiwan has to the US, after we duplicate their one interesting company's infrastructure.
      - pertymcpert 5y ago
        Why do those other countries matter here? We’re talking about the US, the worlds joint number one superpower.
        vmception 5y ago
        Its obvious that isn’t important to me, right? This sentiment crosses party lines. We uniquely have the resources to be the most developed nation, domestically, but subsidize other countries’ defense instead and they subsidize other advances in their own country that we domestically deem too expensive. So how about we get this semiconductor geopolitical nightmare out of the way and use our massive domestic resources the way we can. There are consequences, not the US’ problem. There are a lot of people thinking like me, so hawkish people will need more articulate arguments for specific US foreign policy with specific countries.
noelsusman 5y ago
The US Senate recently passed $52 billion for domestic chip manufacturing.
naruvimama 5y ago
It is one thing to build massive fabs it is quite another to run them profitably especially with China in the game, you are competing with a large pool of cheap R&D engineers and a captive market. This was a mistake with 5G, where each country guarded their patent pool, R&D and failed to collaborate with strategic partners.
kragen 5y ago
Lots of governments have spent billions of dollars trying to build the next Silicon Valley. Shenzhen and arguably Taipei succeeded, but all the others failed. It's not as simple as just spending money; the people whose knowhow makes the endeavor possible have to decide to go there, and then they have to be in charge of it. The Manhattan Project would have failed, as the German project in fact did, if Oppenheimer hadn't been a physicist, and if the US weren't full of Jewish refugees from Germany who just happened to be physicists. Its immense budget was necessary to its success, but not sufficient.
systemBuilder 5y ago
$20B is enough for 1 foundry if you can find the people but the people at Intel do not make good hires because they don't know how to make state of the art chips at Intel anymore! Our only other domestic fab are the former IBM fabs owned by global foundries in East Fishkill New York but global foundries has given up on state of the art chips too!

by njovin 5y ago

andrewmcwatters 5y ago

They are currently doing this with Intel afaik

epsilon_greedy 5y ago
There were early talks but I believe this only recently became official. See https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/newsroom/news/intel-wins-us-project-develop-foundry-ecosystem.html https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/newsroom/news/intel-...

nexuist 5y ago

Might scare Taiwan and embolden China? A huge reason we hold Taiwan as an ally is their chip production capabilities. If we become self reliant on those then we don't really need Taiwan and China might try to invade them, which would be bad for our own national security interests.

vmception 5y ago
Why would that be bad for our own national security interests if we have our own semiconductor lines? What else does Taiwan offer to the US? We have "strategic bases" everywhere. One being 100 miles from mainland china versus 200 miles makes no difference to US in the 21st century. A shipping lane maybe? Also not US problem really, got plenty of those too.
- Rafuino 5y ago
  Well, for one, we don't want a humanitarian crisis and civil war or even international war... that's bad for the whole region and thus bad for US interests. We also don't want China able to just take over land and territory at will, which they've threatened to do all over the region. That destabilizes the region and once again is bad for US interests. This also emboldens other nations with expansion desires which threatens stability across the world... No US ally would trust us again if we just let Taiwan be taken over... again, bad for US interests...
  - vmception 5y ago
    There are 190 other countries that applies to so where are they? I don't share the ego for the US' hegemony or I also don't place importance on the US' soft power. I do care about semiconductors though. Is there a stronger argument, because I'm still stuck on what specific strategic advantage that Taiwan has to the US, after we duplicate their one interesting company's infrastructure.
    - pertymcpert 5y ago
      Why do those other countries matter here? We’re talking about the US, the worlds joint number one superpower.
      - vmception 5y ago
        Its obvious that isn’t important to me, right? This sentiment crosses party lines. We uniquely have the resources to be the most developed nation, domestically, but subsidize other countries’ defense instead and they subsidize other advances in their own country that we domestically deem too expensive. So how about we get this semiconductor geopolitical nightmare out of the way and use our massive domestic resources the way we can. There are consequences, not the US’ problem. There are a lot of people thinking like me, so hawkish people will need more articulate arguments for specific US foreign policy with specific countries.

noelsusman 5y ago

The US Senate recently passed $52 billion for domestic chip manufacturing.

naruvimama 5y ago

It is one thing to build massive fabs it is quite another to run them profitably especially with China in the game, you are competing with a large pool of cheap R&D engineers and a captive market. This was a mistake with 5G, where each country guarded their patent pool, R&D and failed to collaborate with strategic partners.

kragen 5y ago

Lots of governments have spent billions of dollars trying to build the next Silicon Valley. Shenzhen and arguably Taipei succeeded, but all the others failed. It's not as simple as just spending money; the people whose knowhow makes the endeavor possible have to decide to go there, and then they have to be in charge of it. The Manhattan Project would have failed, as the German project in fact did, if Oppenheimer hadn't been a physicist, and if the US weren't full of Jewish refugees from Germany who just happened to be physicists. Its immense budget was necessary to its success, but not sufficient.

systemBuilder 5y ago

$20B is enough for 1 foundry if you can find the people but the people at Intel do not make good hires because they don't know how to make state of the art chips at Intel anymore! Our only other domestic fab are the former IBM fabs owned by global foundries in East Fishkill New York but global foundries has given up on state of the art chips too!