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> to restrict sales to domestic production only You think people will stop buying NVidia GPUs, AMD GPUs, PS5, XBox, Nintendo Switch, iPhone, Pixels, Samsung G

> to restrict sales to domestic production only You think people will stop buying NVidia GPUs, AMD GPUs, PS5, XBox, Nintendo Switch, iPhone, Pixels, Samsung Galaxies, and a litany of major automotive parts from Microchip/STMicro/etc. etc.? Because none of these are made in the USA. The only major chips made here are Flash/RAM by Crucial, CPUs by Intel, and some lower-tech (but still important) chips by TI. The vast majority of chips, well over 60% of the worldwide supply, is made by TSMC IIRC, and another huge chunk are made by other companies located in Taiwan. -------------- Furthermore, Taiwan is a close ally who has extremely friendly relations with USA. Yes, there's a war-risk with China here, but Taiwan fairly competes with us. I don't think anyone has a single piece of anti-Taiwan hate inside of them. Its not a protectionist thing. Its purely the "what if China attacks Taiwan" thing. Economically speaking, trade with Taiwan and USA is a good thing. Geopolitically, trade with Democracies is a good thing, and trade with a century+ old friendly nation is a good thing. ------------- Taiwan can create this tech because they are smarter than us and outcompeted us on this subject. Its not "low tech", its extremely difficult chemistry, high-end PH.d stuff here. Taiwan is basically the Vulkans from Star Trek. They're smaller, more technologically advanced, but weaker militarily. They're so obviously good allies that its unthinkable to do anything against them. We need a "just in case" plan if trade between our nations gets interrupted because chips are a strategic good, but... cutting them off would mean that they ally with someone else and that's even worse.

vel0city 3y ago
> some lower-tech (but still important) chips by TI TI makes plenty of pretty high-tech chips, just not necessarily bleeding edge digital logic processors. Their real high-tech stuff are analog devices, something far less sexy to people on HN but still incredibly crucial.
- dragontamer 3y ago
  Analog is important for cutting another 20% off of MOSFET resistances or whatever, which means even more efficient electric engines or other electric components. Yeah, important but not as much of a headline as 20% more GHz or FLOPs for some reason.
politician 3y ago
It’s an accident of history and the hubris of Intel that they passed over an opportunity to buy the last generation machines from ASML leading to TSMC taking the advantage. It’s not that they are intrinsically superior Vulkans as you’ve described. It’s a temporary distortion caused by Intel trying to rest on their laurels and drip feed advancements.
- dragontamer 3y ago
  Even *IF* Intel reaches parity with TSMC (which seems unlikely...), Intel doesn't have much experience with external customers (like Apple, Qualcomm, AMD, NVidia) like TSMC does. Even if we magically wave a wand and give Intel next-generation lithography today, they still don't have the capabilities to take orders from customers and translate them to designs. ----------- Its not Intel who needs to catch up to TSMC. Its a 3rd party fab like GloFo who needs to catch up for USA to recapture that market share. I'm happy that GloFo is getting some scraps and investment from this CHIPS act, its the right move. But I have my doubts that we'll reach the technological level of TSMC / Taiwan any time soon. But whatever we get its still better than nothing.
  - politician 3y ago
    > Even if we magically... ASML began to ship its first High-NA lithography tool to Intel late last year ,and the machine will be fully assembled in Oregon in the coming months. [1] [1] https://www.anandtech.com/show/21264/asml-to-ship-multiple-highna-tools-in-2025-expands-production-capacities https://www.anandtech.com/show/21264/asml-to-ship-multiple-h...
therealbilly 3y ago
Not really. It’s because the government of Taiwan poured a lot of money into these chip companies. Which is the smart thing to do.
- dragontamer 3y ago
  A lot of countries shoved tons of money into chips. In fact, a ton of countries have more money than Taiwan. And yet, it's Taiwan who won. We gotta give them props for that, and we can also thank the gods that it was a close ally of the USA who got so good at it.

vel0city 3y ago

> some lower-tech (but still important) chips by TI TI makes plenty of pretty high-tech chips, just not necessarily bleeding edge digital logic processors. Their real high-tech stuff are analog devices, something far less sexy to people on HN but still incredibly crucial.

dragontamer 3y ago
Analog is important for cutting another 20% off of MOSFET resistances or whatever, which means even more efficient electric engines or other electric components. Yeah, important but not as much of a headline as 20% more GHz or FLOPs for some reason.

politician 3y ago

It’s an accident of history and the hubris of Intel that they passed over an opportunity to buy the last generation machines from ASML leading to TSMC taking the advantage. It’s not that they are intrinsically superior Vulkans as you’ve described. It’s a temporary distortion caused by Intel trying to rest on their laurels and drip feed advancements.

dragontamer 3y ago
Even *IF* Intel reaches parity with TSMC (which seems unlikely...), Intel doesn't have much experience with external customers (like Apple, Qualcomm, AMD, NVidia) like TSMC does. Even if we magically wave a wand and give Intel next-generation lithography today, they still don't have the capabilities to take orders from customers and translate them to designs. ----------- Its not Intel who needs to catch up to TSMC. Its a 3rd party fab like GloFo who needs to catch up for USA to recapture that market share. I'm happy that GloFo is getting some scraps and investment from this CHIPS act, its the right move. But I have my doubts that we'll reach the technological level of TSMC / Taiwan any time soon. But whatever we get its still better than nothing.
- politician 3y ago
  > Even if we magically... ASML began to ship its first High-NA lithography tool to Intel late last year ,and the machine will be fully assembled in Oregon in the coming months. [1] [1] https://www.anandtech.com/show/21264/asml-to-ship-multiple-highna-tools-in-2025-expands-production-capacities https://www.anandtech.com/show/21264/asml-to-ship-multiple-h...

therealbilly 3y ago

Not really. It’s because the government of Taiwan poured a lot of money into these chip companies. Which is the smart thing to do.

dragontamer 3y ago
A lot of countries shoved tons of money into chips. In fact, a ton of countries have more money than Taiwan. And yet, it's Taiwan who won. We gotta give them props for that, and we can also thank the gods that it was a close ally of the USA who got so good at it.