4 ms·

You're not making any clear arguments why foundries in the US would be better (outside the strategic reasons). Firms can already get chips done overseas.

rektide 5y ago
I'd love to hear some university perspectives, on how hard it was for them to get their departments able to make chips. My feeling is that the strategy of availability is the key, vast, & dominating factor in all of this. Getting more and more people being creative about chipmaking, by giving them access to chipmaking, is the thing. That patently seems less and less accessible, less possible. The strategy of making your nation a place of great makers, seems, to me, the only thing worth considering, but your definition/restrictions seem- to me- to oppose thinking of how a nation can improve itself, can beget a good & powerful & creative people. If the world were well served by chip-making, then I think your disregard would be due. But we seem to be well well well into a period of mass consolidation, of less & less accessibility to chip-making. America & many other places that have been hotbeds of intellectual knowledge & creativity will surely languish & die unless the environment can be improved, unless access to the means of production can be secured & made available to the people, to the students, to the upstarts. Ignore that "stragedy" at your nation's mortal peril, imo. I think it's a bit telling that the Google/SkyWater collaboration is still on 130nm. It's great that some patron is out there trying to encourage novel chip making, trying to reboot a general knowledge in a dying decaying sector. And there's some reasons why perhaps like 40nm or so might be un-strategic a choice. But generally I think access to even vaguely-quasi-modern chipmaking is falling away, is collapsing. The strategy of keeping this industry accessible is, to me, a defining battle. (That said, OLED making is not where I think accessible, competitive silicon foundries are needed. But this thread, this story is a telling indicator to me.)

rektide 5y ago

I'd love to hear some university perspectives, on how hard it was for them to get their departments able to make chips. My feeling is that the strategy of availability is the key, vast, & dominating factor in all of this. Getting more and more people being creative about chipmaking, by giving them access to chipmaking, is the thing. That patently seems less and less accessible, less possible. The strategy of making your nation a place of great makers, seems, to me, the only thing worth considering, but your definition/restrictions seem- to me- to oppose thinking of how a nation can improve itself, can beget a good & powerful & creative people. If the world were well served by chip-making, then I think your disregard would be due. But we seem to be well well well into a period of mass consolidation, of less & less accessibility to chip-making. America & many other places that have been hotbeds of intellectual knowledge & creativity will surely languish & die unless the environment can be improved, unless access to the means of production can be secured & made available to the people, to the students, to the upstarts. Ignore that "stragedy" at your nation's mortal peril, imo. I think it's a bit telling that the Google/SkyWater collaboration is still on 130nm. It's great that some patron is out there trying to encourage novel chip making, trying to reboot a general knowledge in a dying decaying sector. And there's some reasons why perhaps like 40nm or so might be un-strategic a choice. But generally I think access to even vaguely-quasi-modern chipmaking is falling away, is collapsing. The strategy of keeping this industry accessible is, to me, a defining battle. (That said, OLED making is not where I think accessible, competitive silicon foundries are needed. But this thread, this story is a telling indicator to me.)