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How real is America’s chipmaking renaissance?
- duxup 3y agoWon’t we have to wait to find out?
- adamanz 3y agohttps://archive.is/jmpBa https://archive.is/jmpBa
- _8j50 3y agoThanks, but can't get past captcha. 12ft.io blocked it and archive.ph doesn't work on my browser due ri ssl error. Anyone know other sites?
- 1980phipsi 3y agoI've been having problems with them since yesterday. I had a little luck with archive.org/web, but it's not quite as stream-lined.
- overtomanu 3y agoBelow extension seems to work https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome
- howard941 3y ago> can't get past captcha For days now Firefox gets stuck in an infinite loop of captchas for all of the archive links posted to HN. Nothing changed at my end.
- edgyquant 3y agoAt the very least it’s several hundred billion dollars worth of real. We’ll have to see if the policy sustains itself or not.
- hospitalJail 3y agoDoes that include the several hundred billion dollars from CHIPS act? That was a sad moment last year, I am extremely concerned we Zombified our tech sector.
- cezart 3y agoCan you please elaborate what the issues are, and what do you mean by Zombified?
- Mouthfeel 3y ago[dead]
- v8xi 3y agoI've seen this argument elsewhere so I think I know what he means. Basically the idea is you throw money around too easily and companies that would otherwise die (due to poor management/inability to compete) stay around. Too much subsidy yields poor incentive to compete yields fewer breakthroughs and slower technological progress.
- javajosh 3y agoWhen these types of things are funded one always gets the sinking feeling that the money is just getting stolen and/or wasted by savvy insiders who know how to write grants or who know the right people. In fact, I think that's a reasonable assumption and some proof is required to show that it is not the case.
- merman 3y agoGood thing there are $200B worth of proof already. At what point would you be satisfied, if 100% of semi manufacturing took place in the US and 0 chips were manufactured elsewhere the instant the grants were handed out?
- javajosh 3y agoIt's odd but comments like yours would normally elicit something like anger, now elicit sadness. Why do you take this tone? Why do you willfully misunderstand my point? Why not take a charitable view? I'd be happy if even half of that money actually went into a fab, and only half was wasted on lawyers, fees, studies, and wherever else free money manages to go rather than to actually building things. The timeline doesn't matter, nor does the fraction of on-shore chips made. You created those measurements out of thin air.
- merman 3y agoI took a very charitable take of your comment, that at best can be interpreted as “this policy was completely useless” when the evidence is staring you in the face. TSMC was clearly motivated by CHIPS to build fabs in the US for dozens of billions and pocketed a fraction of that as a handout. The fact that I’m writing this obvious information down is charitable.
- crote 3y agoThe big question is what exactly is being built. The CHIPS Act was marketed as an "AI cold war", and needing to bring high-tech research and production back to the US. Is is actually doing that by incentivizing companies to build leading-edge fabs in the US, or are companies just using it as free money to expand the production capacity of their trailing-edge processes? Sure, having locally-sourced trailing-edge chips is still better than getting them from overseas, but it doesn't exactly do anything to reach the intended goals.
- kadu123 3y ago[flagged]
- mejthemage 3y agoI think you're looking for ":q!"
- kadu123 3y ago[flagged]
- tylerfontaine 3y agoI live in a relatively small city that has a 30B phased wafer fab project under way, and an another separate 5B wafer fab project underway, and plans for at least one more in the next couple years. Anecdotal, of course, but there's some real things being built for sure.
- qbasic_forever 3y agoIs that a city that TSMC is already throwing under the bus and saying the American workers there are lazy and not cut out for their harder Taiwanese business/work ethic? https://9to5mac.com/2023/06/29/tsmc-arizona-chip-plant-delayed/ https://9to5mac.com/2023/06/29/tsmc-arizona-chip-plant-delay... I don't think any of this onshoring, if it ever actually happens, is going to be a net positive for the areas that host the fabs. TSMC is already sending hundreds of their own workers over to America to work on stuff because they aren't happy with the local workforce, I don't see any reason why this will change any time soon. The US is just going to be a place they send their workers to fab chips in plants that got sweet cost/tax breaks, and that they don't care at all about polluting the local environment.
- tylerfontaine 3y agoNope, I'm in Texas and not Arizona. We've already got two wafer plants here. The largest projects are expansions on those, so these companies are pretty familiar with the available workforce at this point.
- jagged-chisel 3y agoIs this perhaps just sour grapes from TSMC because they actually need to train the new workforce?
- quantumwannabe 3y agoThe hilarious thing is that when TSMC was founded they had to train EVERYONE. Taiwan had zero chip fabrication talent. All of the specialists at the time, even the founder of TSMC, were in the US. For them to complain that it's impossible to train a workforce is laughable and is most likely just racism/nationalism.
- kotaKat 3y agoI'm excited to see what happens with Micron in Clay and seeing how far they're committing (and putting their money where their mouth is already) gives me a lot of hope to see it through.
- fidotron 3y agoWhile I have some sympathy for the policy makers attempting to do this they do appear to be oblivious that to the outside world, especially their allies, the meta-lesson is any critical industry will eventually be onshored by the printing of hundreds of billions to price you out if necessary. This isn't a recipe for long term peaceful co-operation. It's ridiculous to criticise China on one hand, and then emulate every move they've made ten/twenty years later.
- FredPret 3y agoHow is it ridiculous to build redundancy when the entire global economy has a single point of failure on an island just off the shore of a sworn foe, which they also would love to invade? If it hurts someone's feelings, they need to grow up - the situation is untenable and onshoring is the correct strategy.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- merman 3y agoSo if we criticize China we should do nothing? It’s not clear how you can be sympathetic that something should be done and against the obvious thing that should be done.
- isykt 3y agoWill you explain what “emulate every move they’ve made ten/twenty years later” means? I don’t understand this comment.
- throwaway4good 3y agoBreach of WTO rules, free trade principles, market distorting industrial policies.
- justapassenger 3y agoGeopolitics are not after school specials about friendship being only thing that matters in life. Critical industries are, well, critical. Securing redundancy for critical things is risk management 101, even on much smaller scale than geopolitics.
- vel0city 3y agoJudging by all the construction I see at the fabs around me, the people I see moving in to get the new jobs working at the fabs or related businesses, I'd say its pretty real to me and those around me. https://www.ti.com/about-ti/company/ti-at-a-glance/manufacturing/sherman.html https://www.ti.com/about-ti/company/ti-at-a-glance/manufactu... https://news.ti.com/blog/2022/09/29/tis-new-300-millimeter-wafer-fab-in-richardson-texas-begins-initial-production https://news.ti.com/blog/2022/09/29/tis-new-300-millimeter-w... https://dallasinnovates.com/finisar-considers-3-billion-semiconductor-expansion-project-in-sherman/ https://dallasinnovates.com/finisar-considers-3-billion-semi... https://www.dallasnews.com/business/jobs/2022/12/07/sherman-is-a-contender-for-finisars-new-3-billion-semiconductor-project/ https://www.dallasnews.com/business/jobs/2022/12/07/sherman-... https://www.samsung.com/us/sas/Taylor https://www.samsung.com/us/sas/Taylor > Texas has led the country in semiconductor exports for 11 straight years, and has shown a commitment to expanding the industry. https://www.texastribune.org/2022/07/26/texas-chips-act-semiconductors/ https://www.texastribune.org/2022/07/26/texas-chips-act-semi...
- tylerfontaine 3y agoHeh. We must live close to each other. I made the same comment with fewer (read: no) sources. Definitely a lot of heavy construction.
- vel0city 3y agoYeah when I saw your comment I figured you were from North Texas. Hello from Richardson.
- bob1029 3y agoI've been thinking about moving out to that area. Building these fabs will do amazing things for the local community & economy. It is also likely the most resilient part of the TX power grid...
- gorjusborg 3y agoCareful. The cost of a fab makes it very difficult for competitors to start up. Working in a field with only a few competitors seems attractive, but you risk specializing in skills that only few businesses worldwide can leverage. I used to work in semiconductors and transitioned to software when I realized how precarious that was.
- isykt 3y agoThe world’s largest deposit of ultra pure quartz, which is needed for the very high end processors, is in North Carolina. The renaissance is real, or is about to be.
- CoastalCoder 3y agoIs it difficult to refine less-pure quartz? I just assumed they had processes for eliminating any and all contaminants.
- isykt 3y agoIt is only done in China, Japan, the United States, Germany, and Italy. Since some of the newer semiconductors are shaped at 99.9999999999% (literally, 10 9s) pure, only a few places in the world can do the purification. China, and only China, can do 99.9999999 (Seven 9s) at scale, which is good enough for solar panels.
- CoastalCoder 3y agoSorry, let me clarify: I'm assuming that the requirements are so stringent that all quartz ore needs to be purified. So I'm wondering how much the initial ore purity really matters.
- isykt 3y agoThe process is more complex and the energy more intense the more 9’s you need, because the contaminates in quartz are different depending on where it was mined. This complexity is why there’s only one place in the world that can do it at solar panel demand scale — and that’s because China dumped a ton of money into the process and doesn’t have strict pollution laws. If you can start with purer quartz, you’re way ahead of reaching scalable refinement. Here's a great video on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIRfWyyOFPg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIRfWyyOFPg
- SoylentYellow 3y agoWhat is quartz used for beyond oscillators?
- LatteLazy 3y agoGiven the issues tsmc had already had with Arizona, I personally doubt much will come of this. But who knows?
- gostsamo 3y agoSurprisingly few people engage with the main points of the article. It is pointed out how much money are spent, but the article is about how profitable those fabs will be. The author is conservative in judgments, but they ask a few questions worth considering, mainly: are the fabs big and efficient enough to offset the slower build, which is also more expensive, for lower volumes of production.
- User23 3y agoThe real question is how unprofitable will it be to remain dependent on Taiwan in the face of the inevitable conflict coming with China. US and Europe based fabs could literally lose money and require subsidies and still net out as less expensive.
- bee_rider 3y agoCompetition is inevitable, conflict, no at least I hope not. Of course, we (the US) can’t make them decide not to attack Taiwan, but our countries have managed the tricky situation so far.
- AYBABTME 3y agoI wouldn't talk of a conflict with China as inevitable. Competition is fine but no one in their right mind should wish for military conflict with China, it would be a tragedy for humanity.
- Beached 3y agowish for and expect are two different things. I wish the war in Ukraine would end tomorrow, I don't expect it will though. while China invading Taiwan is not a guarantee, it is certainly highly probable. this risk should be taken into account by the us government
- isykt 3y agoWhy do you think it’s highly probable?
- photochemsyn 3y agoAmerica's basic socioeconomic structual model is highly flawed and any company wanting to do manufacturing here will see obvious disadvantages compared to Europe or Asia. 1) Employers are responsible for employee health coverage, inflating employee costs by a significant degree. The rationale for this model among the investor class is that it makes employees dependent on their employer and limits the power of unions, but for example in Germany, there's free state-supplied health care (paid for by higher taxes on individual and corporate profits). 2) Four decades of neoliberal trade policy and corporate profit maximization have created a situation of fragile global supply chain dependence and a lack of skilled experienced labor in many manufacturing sectors. High-skill manufacturing jobs have been replaced with low-skill service jobs and the brain drain into the financial sector has left the industrial sector in second place. 3) Construction and operation of new manufacturing facilities relies on a robust domestic infrastructure system, but American infrastructure (railroads, electricity grids, ports, etc.) is woefully decrepit in many areas and lags behind China and Europe. Again the reason is nobody wants to pay for it, and the issue is not 'overregulation' it's that it would require higher taxes and corrupt government contractors divert government funds into their own pockets instead of into the projects, resulting in constant cost overruns and low-quality outputs (reminscent with what went on with Iraq and Afghanistan reconstruction contracts). It turns out worshipping at the feet of Milton Friedman & Co. wasn't such a good idea after all.
- addfgionio 3y ago>Construction and operation of new manufacturing facilities relies on a robust domestic infrastructure system, but American infrastructure (railroads, electricity grids, ports, etc.) is woefully decrepit in many areas and lags behind China and Europe. Again the reason is nobody wants to pay for it, A whole lot of people want to pay for it. The problem is that a minority doesn't, and they've been able to ruin things for the rest of us.
- AnimalMuppet 3y agoI don't think much associated with fabs ships by rail, even in Europe.
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- foofoo4u 3y agoCNBC's take on the matter [How Texas Became The American Chipmaking Hub](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDamhO7my9A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDamhO7my9A). Although the 17 minute clip is Texas-centric, it still talks about other states.
- a_wild_dandan 3y agoThis was an excellent watch. Thank you.
- markus_zhang 3y agoI think we have to wait until the buildings are out outputing merchandise and making some $$$.
- psd1 3y agoCorrect me if I'm wrong, but don't fabs need plentiful water? Why Arizona and Texas...?
- tylerfontaine 3y agoTexas is quite large and only a small part of it, relatively, is desert.
- robgibbons 3y agoMost likely, the fabs got competitive tax incentives from those states.
- sprynr 3y ago> State leaders had helped persuade the companies to open the facilities by offering big tax breaks and water and other infrastructure grants. > Intel soon announced a $20 billion expansion in Chandler, with two additional factories that would bring 3,000 new jobs to the state. Chandler also approved $30 million in water and road improvements for the new plants. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/22/technology/arizona-chips-act-semiconductor.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/22/technology/arizona-chips-... Basically just told them "Don't worry about it, we'll foot the bill for any infrastructure needed to get you your water"
- bagacrap 3y agoDon't mean to alarm you but Texas is a coastal state
- jagged-chisel 3y agoBut Texas is also the size of the four states to its east. Georgia is a coastal state. If you pull from Brunswick, GA and send it to just outside St. Louis, that distance is covered within the single state of Texas. That said, we don't pull sea water to supply water for industry - desalination is too costly.
- bagacrap 3y ago
- renewiltord 3y agoIt's interesting to see that, in the end, the domestic manufacturing guys were right but in a different way. The biggest blockers to America presently are ossified construction and manufacturing. Chip fabs delayed due to local red tape. Ammo factories cannot expand manufacturing because they are now historic buildings. Fascinating.
- adventured 3y agoThese 'problems' are all solved with more funds, which the US Government has a very, very large supply of (courtesy of the global reserve currency). Producing more ammo isn't a serious problem, it's a trivial problem that the Pentagon & Co. are in the process of resolving.
- frognumber 3y agoMy question: As an American, why should I work in IC fabrication? I'm competing with low-cost Asians who set a cap on my salary. Work conditions, income, and everything else is worse than SWE. I switched away from electronics early in my career, and it seems like a strict win. As much as I believe in on-shoring, I'm not sure those issues can, will, or should be fixed.
- PKop 3y agoThey may be forced upon us, regardless of the negatives you highlight, if globalization and free-trade brakes down and/or the international trade-value of the $ goes down making the cost-benefit for domestic sourcing more favorable.
- aj7 3y agoAns. To make a living.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- mcntsh 3y agoHonest question but won't these "low-cost Asians" not be as much of a factor on wages if the fabrications are in the US?
- lotsofpulp 3y agoDepends if there are tariffs that incentivize purchase of more expensive American chips.
- kakwa_ 3y agoFor the "can" part, looking at the numbers, it looks possible. If I take TSMC, they have: * $73b revenue * $32b income * 73000 employees (2022 numbers from wikipedia) That's a really high margin, and a really high revenue per employee. This means there is probably room to accommodate for higher wages. The concern I have revolves more around the US work culture. Employees tend to switch company frequently. Given how critical institutional knowledge is for running these fabs, this is a handicap. I also cannot shake the feeling that the lack of regulations regarding working conditions might also be detrimental. Better regulations and compensation rules regarding night shifts or on-call for example could improve things greatly and attract far more workers in this field.
- ptero 3y agoWhile not specific to chipmaking, Lyn Alden's latest public newsletter on reshoring is, as always, excellent: https://www.lynalden.com/reshoring/ https://www.lynalden.com/reshoring/ The relevant point is that while the manufacturing portion is real, successful reshoring also requires skilled labor. Skilled labor for fab production is not something US has now and it takes many years to grow; and it is not clear if the US has the desire and the will to foster this growth.
- bonestamp2 3y agoThose are good points, and there's one more. If we want supply chain security, we need to scale up the rest of the ecosystem to go from chips to a packaged products on a shelf. That goes back to your point about fostering the growth... we need to foster the rest of the vertical too.
- fnordpiglet 3y agoAn easy solution to that is open up skilled worker programs. Importing talent is something the US is generally excellent at, offering a much more dynamic culture, better quality of life, better compensation than most manufacturing hubs and having a sizable ethnic community for most cultures wherever skilled labor is needed. While not universally true by any measure enough people want permanent residency in the US that you could staff almost any nascent industry. Further funding to public universities could establish programs and import professors. Once you’ve seeded the industry mentorship, education, and opportunity fosters a domestic talent pool. Sadly these days nativism is the popular politic.
- FreshStart 3y agoAny Political backed endavour life's the memory duration of the system. Aka if politicians change every year and the average drop out rate is 1/5 your political crisis memory dilutes down to 0.5 of the politicianpopulation in 3 years. Opposition is viable to have a consensus. Of course if internal mismanagement makes abandoning a "learned beehive our" earlier a rallying battleflag, the laws making the endavour viable might evaporate sooner.
- boringg 3y agoHow much of this chipmaking renaissance can be compared to the American Factory Netflix documentary having some of the same challenges? I understand that shows the difference in culture more than anything but underneath it also speaks of efficiency which is of high importance.
- GloriousKoji 3y agoI think a few key differences compared American Factory is the Chinese glass factory effectively replaced the automotive factory, China doesn't have strong relations to the US, and the factory was framed as the project of one Chinese businessman.
- floor_ 3y agoThis all feels like a prelude to a World War.
- pixelatedindex 3y agoWhy do you say that?
- floor_ 3y agoRemoving the dependence of chip manufacturing from non-Nato countries and bringing them to the United States.
- fluoridation 3y agoWas that a common factor to the previous world wars?
- Eji1700 3y agoEh. It's more a correction caused by over globalization. Too many theorists decided to claim that "no one would ever risk their economy!" and since it made lines go up globally everyone bought in. Then Russia invaded Ukraine and suddenly the hawks who'd been screaming about supply lines and logistics for years were taken more seriously. You can't simultaneously threaten military/economic action and also rely on them for major resources. Not to mention how countries like China have essentially warped the market for goods around their artificially cheap labor, and the threat of losing that plus one of the largest markets in the world is severe. Now granted, we could all still wind up in world war, but to me it looks like the standard stuff.
- BirAdam 3y agoFor the USA, war (at some level) has pretty much always been constant. Autarky also isn't new to the USA. The current on-shoring movement seems to me to be more about the USA's empire collapsing, and the military contractors getting worried about their supply lines. So, prelude to WWIII? Maybe, but it can be explained in other ways.
- Dork1234 3y agoMy take is it not the skill or even the cost of labor. The biggest issues is it is easier to find skilled people in Asia willing to work late and long hours to keep the machines running 24/7. The only way to make money is to keep these machines running as close to 100% efficiency 24/7. It isn't just one company, it is the whole chain of suppliers/manufactures with fast turn around time that gives Asia a upper hand.
- adventured 3y agoWell the CHIPS Act was $50 billion. We've got another $50 billion. And another after that. And another after that. As necessary. See: Ukraine v Russia. $50 billion ain't what it used to be (and Russia is an economic joke in scale compared to the US, we can shovel billions of dollars into that war endlessly). Its just that the US and China have gotten so massive compared to their former peers, that we can fund at a relative gigantic level quite easily. The US economy is now 50% larger than the EU economy, and six times larger than Japan. US GDP per capita is a shocking $80,000 - well over double that of both the EU and Japan (soon to be double that of France and Britain; or closing in on France and Britain combined to put it another way). $80,000 is equal to the combined GDP per capita of France + Japan. Things that are difficult for the EU to fund, like $50 billion for chips, are now comparatively easy for the US (or China) to fund. We're only funding the CHIPS Act because that sum is no longer a huge deal to the US. That's a little toy program that Biden was allowed to play with precisely because it's not that big of a deal financially. A medium deal would be $200-$300 billion (eg helping Ukraine defeat Russia across several years); a big deal is $500b-$1 trillion (infrastructure level). Germany's economy hasn't grown on an inflation adjusted basis in decades. The same is largely true of all of Europe's biggest economies. US GDP in 2008: $14.7 trillion. Now: $26.8 trillion. Germany GDP in 2008: $3.7 trillion. Now: $4.3 trillion. And that is a mirror of what has been going on in Europe broadly (with a few exceptions eg the Baltics and Ireland). Since 2008 the US has added economy equal to Germany + France + Britain + Italy. $50 billion would have been a big deal for the US, two decades ago.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- black_13 3y ago[dead]
- c_o_n_v_e_x 3y agoWhat's the end goal here? To onshore only chip production to the US? Or are we talking about onshoring entire electronics supply chains? How about all the other stuff that's required besides the dies themselves... chip substrates? packaging? Passive components? Onshore PCB manufacturers (that are actually affordable)? We build 10 to 12 layer boards with BGA x86 CPUs. There's a MASSIVE premium on trying to have complex PCBs made in the US. The last time I looked I found a lot of PCB mfgs in Mexico, but they're seemingly owned by the Chinese.
- mikewarot 3y agoI have similar concerns. If you can't source all the discrete components, PCBs, solder, masks, connectors, general hardware (nuts bolts, screws, etc), you're still dependent on a world wide supply chain. For both Digikey and Mouser, there's no way to even see or filter for Country of origin.
- benreesman 3y agoThere’s a lot of discussion on this thread about how US workers (even outside extreme CoL hubs) are just too expensive to do cutting-edge semiconductor fabrication. Why? Ease up a bit on immigration for skilled workers, subsidize however many CHIPs Acts it takes to get the motor running, export a higher standard of living for skilled workers thereby, and margins on the most elite manufacturing sector on earth stay…really friggin high? How productive does the global economy have to get before paying people well stops being a non-starter? We didn’t used to fuck around on this: Bell Labs, Western, DARPA, the Apollo Program. Shareholders got a solid, low-beta return, workers got benefits and an education for their kids, and technology improved at an explosive rate.
- jschveibinz 3y agoNational security: very real.