4 ms·

> A lot of the fab equipment, along with the technical secrets needed to produce such equipment, is locked down in the USA and western Europe. It may look so f

> A lot of the fab equipment, along with the technical secrets needed to produce such equipment, is locked down in the USA and western Europe. It may look so from the West. Big name equipment like steppers, and deposition tools come from the West, but a lion share of everything else is a product of the local supply chain. Without that, setting up new fabs elsewhere is not possible. Because some globally single source consumable are too locally produced, you cannot talk of even resuming production at existing fabs. Fellows funded by some suspicious foundations in the West arguing for "we will coax TSMC to build a fab in America, and then we can betray them" are pushing an exact line as Beijing. First, they are not engineers, and have no idea how the industry functions. Fabs will stall within weeks after running out of consumables from Taiwan. Second, America cannot "weather the storm." There will be absolutely no arrangement possible how the US can regain access to semi once this is over in any way.

seanmcdirmid 5y ago
America already has a huge semiconductor industry (45% of the market by revenue), it’s not like all the fabs shipped off to Taiwan and Korea. “Regain access” isn’t a problem, but ramping up capacity would take a couple of years.
- baybal2 5y ago
  > has a huge semiconductor industry (45% of the market by revenue), What matters is not revenue, but physical manufacturing, and where it is. The global industry today is paralysed by lack of nothing more than few cent microcontrollers. As I said above, restoring working of existing fabs will require rebuilding the entire Asian supply chain for chemicals, spare parts, consumables, and services. LAM, KLA, Advanced Materials, ASML — their tools are 50%+ foreign parts, and materials.
  - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
    > As I said above, restoring working of existing fabs will require rebuilding the entire Asian supply chain for chemicals, spare parts, consumables, and services. As I said, we produce a lot of high-end semiconductors in the USA: the supply chains are already there, they are simply more expensive. If consumer semiconductor production had to move back to the states, we would have to repurpose those supply chains, they probably would never be as cheap, but we are talking 10 or 20%, not something horribly crippling to the economy.
    - baybal2 5y ago
      Yes, US produces something, but there are things US simply doesn't produce, and never produced. This is where the price doesn't matter. Non-fluoropolymer high temperature super low outgassing plastics, and plastic parts used in semi equipment for example. That's an expertise that simply never existed in the West, and will have to be built from scratch, taking precious years.

seanmcdirmid 5y ago

America already has a huge semiconductor industry (45% of the market by revenue), it’s not like all the fabs shipped off to Taiwan and Korea. “Regain access” isn’t a problem, but ramping up capacity would take a couple of years.

baybal2 5y ago
> has a huge semiconductor industry (45% of the market by revenue), What matters is not revenue, but physical manufacturing, and where it is. The global industry today is paralysed by lack of nothing more than few cent microcontrollers. As I said above, restoring working of existing fabs will require rebuilding the entire Asian supply chain for chemicals, spare parts, consumables, and services. LAM, KLA, Advanced Materials, ASML — their tools are 50%+ foreign parts, and materials.
- seanmcdirmid 5y ago
  > As I said above, restoring working of existing fabs will require rebuilding the entire Asian supply chain for chemicals, spare parts, consumables, and services. As I said, we produce a lot of high-end semiconductors in the USA: the supply chains are already there, they are simply more expensive. If consumer semiconductor production had to move back to the states, we would have to repurpose those supply chains, they probably would never be as cheap, but we are talking 10 or 20%, not something horribly crippling to the economy.
  - baybal2 5y ago
    Yes, US produces something, but there are things US simply doesn't produce, and never produced. This is where the price doesn't matter. Non-fluoropolymer high temperature super low outgassing plastics, and plastic parts used in semi equipment for example. That's an expertise that simply never existed in the West, and will have to be built from scratch, taking precious years.