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It can happen as these things are mostly about money. They stopped aggressive investing in certain areas to save money and had a lot of stellar quarters in succ

by oblak 4y ago

It can happen as these things are mostly about money. They stopped aggressive investing in certain areas to save money and had a lot of stellar quarters in succession. Even TSMC expects Intel to get back on track in a few years because, again, they started investing again. Please note Intel is about to get huge subsidies from the US (~50b) and EU (~20b) real soon. It's free money for their precious fabs and R&D. I am very much against the EU giving them anything but a kick in the nuts but oh well, gotta keep the US and Israel happy

senttoschool 4y ago
Intel is going to use that money to spend on buybacks and dividends. I'm 100% against tax payer funded chip fabs. It's just a handout to huge corporations. Already happening: https://semianalysis.substack.com/p/intel-cuts-fab-buildout-by-4b-to https://semianalysis.substack.com/p/intel-cuts-fab-buildout-... Also, look for huge executive bonuses in the near future.
- koheripbal 4y ago
  This is a silly cynical outlook. The gov't is specifically paying for new fabs that are already being built. Not to mention this is a national security issue given the possible Chinese invasion of Taiwan.
  - senttoschool 4y ago
    We already buy everything from China. Pretty much everything you own in your home is made in China already, including the computer you're using to browse HN and the router you use to connect to internet. If China and the US severe relationships, the world will go into a depression anyways. Intel CEO Pat most certainly finessed the government into giving Intel a huge payout by exaggerating this threat.
    - Cyph0n 4y ago
      There is a crucial difference between IC fabrication and almost everything else: we don’t even have the capability to fabricate at the most advanced nodes. On the other hand, we are capable of manufacturing everything else; we just need a bit of time to set things up and ramp up capacity. If we don’t gain that capability now, it will take us too long to recover when push actually comes to shove.
      - User23 4y ago
        I think the USA is just as capable of writing fat checks to ASML as Taiwan is.
        Cyph0n 4y ago
        There’s a bit more to IC fabrication than lithography. Regardless, I’d go further and argue that we should be building up the capability to manufacture our own EUV lithography machines.
        User23 4y ago
        The USA developed the technology, holds the patents, and licensed them to ASML. They basically are our machines. That’s why Trump was able to block the China deal.
        Cyph0n 4y ago
        Uh.. what? Can you share a link? As far as I am aware, it’s the exact opposite: over the years, ASML licensed some of their patents to US companies.
        User23 4y ago
        It’s surprisingly hard to craft a search query to get a nice link. Nevertheless, here[1] you can find a somewhat oblique reference. [1] https://asiatimes.com/2022/07/how-china-could-leapfrog-us-chip-making-bans/ https://asiatimes.com/2022/07/how-china-could-leapfrog-us-ch...
    - dragontamer 4y ago
      > We already buy everything from China. Pretty much everything you own in your home is made in China already, including the computer you're using to browse HN and the router you use to connect to internet. If China and the US severe relationships, the world will go into a depression anyways. Not as bad as if Taiwan's exports to the USA are stopped. We can build motherboards / pick-and-place machines in the USA. We literally cannot make the chips that are coming out of Taiwan right now. Samsung is the #2 IIRC, so maybe South Korea can pick up the slack in a hypothetical Taiwan-conflict. > Intel CEO Pat most certainly finessed the government into giving Intel a huge payout by exaggerating this threat. US Government is also got TSMC (Taiwan's semiconductor fabs) to build an Arizona fab-lab. Look, even Taiwan is scared of possible conflict and is hedging on the physical safety of the USA. Hopefully conflict doesn't happen, but the powers that be are making smart moves here. Hopefully it will be enough.
      - Throwawayaerlei 4y ago
        "US Government is also got TSMC (Taiwan's semiconductor fabs) to build an Arizona fab-lab. Look, even Taiwan is scared of possible conflict and is hedging on the physical safety of the USA." I don't think that's the case, as I understand it this comes from the US wanting to onshore some of TSMC's capabilities and Taiwan screwing up electricity production on the island. It does Taiwan the government and ruling class no good whatsoever to place assets beyond the PRC's military reach, rather the incentives are entirely opposite of that. The more valuable TSMC's fab lines there are, the more incentive the US has to help with the ROC's defense, or war if it comes to that. Which in the case of torpedoes from attack subs can even be done with some plausible deniability.
        dragontamer 4y ago
        https://www.tomshardware.com/news/tsmcs-arizona-fab-construction-emerges-at-breakneck-speed https://www.tomshardware.com/news/tsmcs-arizona-fab-construc... The TSMC factory in Arizona is full speed ahead. Its literally in Arizona right now, undergoing construction / hiring / spinning up.
      - patentatt 4y ago
  - paganel 4y ago
    Money doesn’t smell, i.e. it does not have an intrinsic “purpose” to it. More exactly, the money that Intel would have been invested out of their own pockets in order to build those fabs has most probably now been diverted to those dividends, because there’s new money for those fabs being provided by the taxpayers.
    - jvanderbot 4y ago
      It is absolutely possible to earmark government funding and arguments to the contrary are cynical at best and deceptive at worst. You can offset internal Rd investment with gov money and use that elsewhere, sure, but when the magnitudes are large and immediate, that doesn't play. You get one check, and it better be spent on the intended cause in X fiscal years or you pay it back. The tech community has suffered under the Cost Plus and other workaround bullshit for long enough that the cynicism is inbred. But there's plenty of gov funded RD money that does precisely what it was invested to do.
      - paganel 4y ago
        There’s no cynicism about it (not that cynicism would be intrinsically something bad, but that’s another discussion), but that’s the thing, the Government saying and actually checking that X sum is spent by a certain company on objective Y doesn’t make any sense, because once the X sum of money enters the company’s coffers its “substance” changes, it isn’t “X” anymore, it is “drowned” in the anonymity of said company’s available (or achievable) funds (funding). Again, I have no doubts that the Government will actually check that the money marked as “Z”, money which had been given to said company, is actually spent on objective Y, but it’s all illusory, because that money has stopped “being” Z once it entered the company’s accounts. To put it another way, it’s similar to the futility of those well-meaning people who give some homeless person $5 on the express condition that they spend those $5 on food, not on alcohol or drugs. Which said homeless person is all too happy to do, he/she will gladly spend those gifted $5 on food, which leaves the other hipotethical $5 which he/she had in their pocket all available for buying drugs or alcohol, money which otherwise would have been spent probably half and half (2.50 on food, 2.50 on drugs). At least in the counter-example I gave the result of largesse is a homeless person better fed, which is good (and also more intoxicated, which is not so good), but in this example with Intel you have taxpayers filling the pockets of one of the biggest tech companies in the world.
jjtheblunt 4y ago
> gotta keep the US and Israel happy why? isn't it in the interest of the EU to not be dependent on China for chips, if they take over Taiwan to corner that market?

by oblak 4y ago

senttoschool 4y ago

Intel is going to use that money to spend on buybacks and dividends. I'm 100% against tax payer funded chip fabs. It's just a handout to huge corporations. Already happening: https://semianalysis.substack.com/p/intel-cuts-fab-buildout-by-4b-to https://semianalysis.substack.com/p/intel-cuts-fab-buildout-... Also, look for huge executive bonuses in the near future.

koheripbal 4y ago
This is a silly cynical outlook. The gov't is specifically paying for new fabs that are already being built. Not to mention this is a national security issue given the possible Chinese invasion of Taiwan.
- senttoschool 4y ago
  We already buy everything from China. Pretty much everything you own in your home is made in China already, including the computer you're using to browse HN and the router you use to connect to internet. If China and the US severe relationships, the world will go into a depression anyways. Intel CEO Pat most certainly finessed the government into giving Intel a huge payout by exaggerating this threat.
  - Cyph0n 4y ago
    There is a crucial difference between IC fabrication and almost everything else: we don’t even have the capability to fabricate at the most advanced nodes. On the other hand, we are capable of manufacturing everything else; we just need a bit of time to set things up and ramp up capacity. If we don’t gain that capability now, it will take us too long to recover when push actually comes to shove.
    - User23 4y ago
      I think the USA is just as capable of writing fat checks to ASML as Taiwan is.
      - Cyph0n 4y ago
        There’s a bit more to IC fabrication than lithography. Regardless, I’d go further and argue that we should be building up the capability to manufacture our own EUV lithography machines.
        User23 4y ago
        The USA developed the technology, holds the patents, and licensed them to ASML. They basically are our machines. That’s why Trump was able to block the China deal.
        Cyph0n 4y ago
        Uh.. what? Can you share a link? As far as I am aware, it’s the exact opposite: over the years, ASML licensed some of their patents to US companies.
        User23 4y ago
        It’s surprisingly hard to craft a search query to get a nice link. Nevertheless, here[1] you can find a somewhat oblique reference. [1] https://asiatimes.com/2022/07/how-china-could-leapfrog-us-chip-making-bans/ https://asiatimes.com/2022/07/how-china-could-leapfrog-us-ch...
  - dragontamer 4y ago
    > We already buy everything from China. Pretty much everything you own in your home is made in China already, including the computer you're using to browse HN and the router you use to connect to internet. If China and the US severe relationships, the world will go into a depression anyways. Not as bad as if Taiwan's exports to the USA are stopped. We can build motherboards / pick-and-place machines in the USA. We literally cannot make the chips that are coming out of Taiwan right now. Samsung is the #2 IIRC, so maybe South Korea can pick up the slack in a hypothetical Taiwan-conflict. > Intel CEO Pat most certainly finessed the government into giving Intel a huge payout by exaggerating this threat. US Government is also got TSMC (Taiwan's semiconductor fabs) to build an Arizona fab-lab. Look, even Taiwan is scared of possible conflict and is hedging on the physical safety of the USA. Hopefully conflict doesn't happen, but the powers that be are making smart moves here. Hopefully it will be enough.
    - Throwawayaerlei 4y ago
      "US Government is also got TSMC (Taiwan's semiconductor fabs) to build an Arizona fab-lab. Look, even Taiwan is scared of possible conflict and is hedging on the physical safety of the USA." I don't think that's the case, as I understand it this comes from the US wanting to onshore some of TSMC's capabilities and Taiwan screwing up electricity production on the island. It does Taiwan the government and ruling class no good whatsoever to place assets beyond the PRC's military reach, rather the incentives are entirely opposite of that. The more valuable TSMC's fab lines there are, the more incentive the US has to help with the ROC's defense, or war if it comes to that. Which in the case of torpedoes from attack subs can even be done with some plausible deniability.
      - dragontamer 4y ago
        https://www.tomshardware.com/news/tsmcs-arizona-fab-construction-emerges-at-breakneck-speed https://www.tomshardware.com/news/tsmcs-arizona-fab-construc... The TSMC factory in Arizona is full speed ahead. Its literally in Arizona right now, undergoing construction / hiring / spinning up.
    - patentatt 4y ago
- paganel 4y ago
  Money doesn’t smell, i.e. it does not have an intrinsic “purpose” to it. More exactly, the money that Intel would have been invested out of their own pockets in order to build those fabs has most probably now been diverted to those dividends, because there’s new money for those fabs being provided by the taxpayers.
  - jvanderbot 4y ago
    It is absolutely possible to earmark government funding and arguments to the contrary are cynical at best and deceptive at worst. You can offset internal Rd investment with gov money and use that elsewhere, sure, but when the magnitudes are large and immediate, that doesn't play. You get one check, and it better be spent on the intended cause in X fiscal years or you pay it back. The tech community has suffered under the Cost Plus and other workaround bullshit for long enough that the cynicism is inbred. But there's plenty of gov funded RD money that does precisely what it was invested to do.
    - paganel 4y ago
      There’s no cynicism about it (not that cynicism would be intrinsically something bad, but that’s another discussion), but that’s the thing, the Government saying and actually checking that X sum is spent by a certain company on objective Y doesn’t make any sense, because once the X sum of money enters the company’s coffers its “substance” changes, it isn’t “X” anymore, it is “drowned” in the anonymity of said company’s available (or achievable) funds (funding). Again, I have no doubts that the Government will actually check that the money marked as “Z”, money which had been given to said company, is actually spent on objective Y, but it’s all illusory, because that money has stopped “being” Z once it entered the company’s accounts. To put it another way, it’s similar to the futility of those well-meaning people who give some homeless person $5 on the express condition that they spend those $5 on food, not on alcohol or drugs. Which said homeless person is all too happy to do, he/she will gladly spend those gifted $5 on food, which leaves the other hipotethical $5 which he/she had in their pocket all available for buying drugs or alcohol, money which otherwise would have been spent probably half and half (2.50 on food, 2.50 on drugs). At least in the counter-example I gave the result of largesse is a homeless person better fed, which is good (and also more intoxicated, which is not so good), but in this example with Intel you have taxpayers filling the pockets of one of the biggest tech companies in the world.

jjtheblunt 4y ago

> gotta keep the US and Israel happy why? isn't it in the interest of the EU to not be dependent on China for chips, if they take over Taiwan to corner that market?