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22- and 28-nm production technology isn't going to lessen fears about being dependent on Taiwan. Nice for a lot of chips needed though.
by protomyth 5y ago
22- and 28-nm production technology isn't going to lessen fears about being dependent on Taiwan. Nice for a lot of chips needed though.
- rbanffy 5y agoThe vast majority of the chips we use are perfectly fine on 22 and 28 nm nodes. Not all applications require the high densities a phone or laptop CPU does.
- numpad0 5y agoFor context, Ivy Bridge is 22nm and iPhone 5s is 28nm.
- barbacoa 5y agoAnd all those automotive grade semiconductor chips that car companies are desperate for are in the order of 60nm.
- coredog64 5y agoThere’s plenty of Malaysian fabs to handle those node sizes and products, no need to site them in Japan. Unless we collectively think that c-19 is going to be a problem in SEA for several more years.
- ketzo 5y agoBuild time for fabs is quite long, and build time for a mature semiconductor industry (in India, for example) will be longer. That said: I have stopped trying to think any COVID timeline is too long. Shit's wack. Shit will continue to stay wack for a while. Maybe a very long while.
- oblio 5y agoFor most of their stuff 60nm provides enough computing power and as for actual electricity usage, that's obviously dwarfed by the "move 2 tons of steel at 150kmph" part :-D
- xyzzy21 5y agoExactly. MOST companies are priced out of deep nanometer nodes these days. So they go for these nodes instead because many are still selling 50-100 nm products so there's cheaper room to improve merely to 22-28 nm.
- protomyth 5y agoI agree, that's why I added the last sentence. On the other hand, I do not expect this announcement to belay any of the fears over dependence on Taiwan by politicians since this fab is not on the cutting edge.
- robbiep 5y agoBut can your initial proposition also be true (or is it strongly true in any useful sense) in the face of the second statement?
- protomyth 5y agoYes. The politicians constantly talk about the advanced process and Apple. They talk about cutting edge and not the logistical chain. The fear is denial of the advanced process fab.
- rbanffy 5y agoThis should still be able to cover a lot of the shortages we see in manufacturing. I suppose a lot of the concerns motivating this are in that space more than ensuring a continuous supply of bleeding edge silicon.
- ChuckNorris89 5y agoThose nodes are perfect for industries where maturity matters more, like automotive, medical, industrial, etc.