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This award isn't about innovation, the best way to do things, or job requirements. This about supply chain security and national defense. So many of our compon
by mfer 3y ago
This award isn't about innovation, the best way to do things, or job requirements.
This about supply chain security and national defense. So many of our components are made overseas and under governments who are not close allies. This is in order to operate things in our country.
When you have the FABs in the US and under US control you can handle international foreign policy and the security of the nation differently.
- okasaki 3y ago> under governments who are not close allies. I wonder why...
- chiefalchemist 3y agoFair enough. But then the question is: How did this happen in the first place? If the Pentagon is playing out scenerio after scenerio after scenerio, how did we allow ourselves to be so embarrassingly venerable? And now the taxpayer is on the hook for $8.5B and growing? There's a certain smell to all this.
- rhelz 3y ago> How did this happen in the first place? By not pursuing protectionist public policies. > the taxpayer is on the hook for $8.5B $8.5B is a big price tag, but whether the government should spend it or not depends on whether or not the investment pays off.
- pwthornton 3y agoThis is way bigger than trade policies. Intel was the world leader in chip-making until fairly recently. Steve Jobs wanted them to build the iPhone chips because they were a generation or two ahead of any other fab in the world. Today, Intel is no longer leading the world in chip fab process. Intel at the time wasn't interested in fabing ARM chips, and the rest is history. Intel and American fabs fell behind for a number of reasons. Some of it is tied to our education system and the kinds of people we are training. Some of it is probably related to Intel turning their nose up at the iPhone chip making, losing billions upon billions of money they could have put into R&D. Some of it is a story of American corporate culture not innovating enough.
- smallmancontrov 3y ago> the kinds of people we are training I was a physics student who took a nanofab class, fell in love, and desperately wanted to go down this path... until I learned about how complete and utter dogshit the wages were. I kept in touch with two classmates who stuck with it a bit longer. The free market had to beat them over the head a bit longer to get them to let go, but it eventually succeeded. Intel was absolutely printing money for investors the whole time, of course, and now that the material consequences of their poor management have come home to roost they are getting bailouts. Yay, capitalism! Our education system over-produces qualified scientists, but if semiconductors are a road to not having a house or family and if it pays 5x better to sell ads or stocks... you get what you pay for. I hope this has changed but I wouldn't bet on it.
- rhelz 3y ago> Intel at the time wasn't interested in fabing ARM chips, and the rest is history. Fun fact, in the late 90's, Intel was the biggest manufacturer of ARM chips. I was there at the time, and I wrote lots of software to aid in their design. What happened to Intel was twofold: The first problem was that Robert Noyce, Andy Grove, And Gordon Moore died. Each one was a once-in-century intellect, and it took Intel a while to be able to find somebody who could remotely fill those shoes. The second problem was Intel was making so much money on x86 chips, that dedicating any fab capacity to anything else--including chips for Apple's iPhone, would for years have had such a huge opportunity cost, that the shareholders would have sued, and with cause. Because literally (not metaphorically) anything they would have manufactured instead would have had a drastically lower profit margin, and the stock would have tanked. I suspect that the only reason Intel made a foray into ARM chips in the first place was to head off anti-trust accusations, and once the political heat was off, they dropped them like they were hot. By the time the market shifted, almost a generation of mediocre management had left Intel less paranoid, and therefore, less likely to survive.
- markhahn 3y agoIt's also interesting that Intel made some specific bad technical choices. (ie, not investing in EUV, assuming SAQP would work forever, ignoring the consequences of everything being power-limited...) This kind of decision is hard, because it's a technical-economic tradeoff, and the latter is more voodoo than math. And that's not even addressing whether you get surprised by things like the LLM boom...
- chiefalchemist 3y ago> By not pursuing protectionist public policies. Perhaps. But the more likely correct answer is: The MIC doesn't make chips. They couldn't and wouldn't push for something that didn't deepen their pockets.
- jart 3y ago> How did this happen in the first place? Texas Instruments didn't give guys like Morris Chang enough opportunities to advance. That's why TSMC was founded.
- quantum_state 3y agoSimilar mistake is being made right now by restricting sales of chips. It forces people to make their own. It is just a matter of time the consequence comes … like many other decisions made by some big wigs before …
- coliveira 3y agoYes, they have just forced China to make their own chips, and they will make them cheaper and in higher volume than anyone can do...
- coliveira 3y agoThe pentagon is run by politics just like the rest of the country. The US wanted to move industry to other countries, so the Pentagon just played the party like they're used to do, and got the promotions and bonuses. Everything else is a second thought.
- faktory 3y agoWhile I agree with you I would say that supply chain is upstream of chip-production. The mining industry needed those money not Intel. It's the mining industry that's been neglected the last 20 years or so. It will take at least 10 years to get anything resembling chinese supply chain in place.
- kurthr 3y agoThe chip supply chain is a lot shorter and more concentrated than the mining supply chain. If you're thinking of "rare earth" metals in particular, it's probably better to focus on the refining rather than digging out of the ground. Between South America, West Africa, and Australia there are lots of mines for most of the metals, but only refining in China (because it has been highly subsidized by both monetary and regulatory means since the 90s). Silicon refining is similarly bottlenecked even though the high quality input material is mostly US sand.
- faktory 3y agoWe HAVE have to focus on the rare earth part or you are basically just giving China the whole thing as they control more then 90% of refinement (and almost all of mining)
- beauzero 3y agoRefining is dirty and dangerous so it has been pushed out. Used to work for a Canadian gold mine in Montana in the mid 90's. Most of the friends I graduated with went overseas for new mines or were Environmental engineers focused on cleaning up messes from the late 1800's early 1900's.
- ulfw 3y agoWhat governments that aren't your allies? Chips are produced in Taiwan, in Korea, in Japan. In that order. Which of those governments is not allied with the US of A?
- throwawaymaths 3y agoRead carefully :P close allies. Those allies are far allies. Sea lanes and supply chain risk is a real thing.
- ulfw 3y agoIs this some kind of joke? So who but Canada is your 'close ally' then?
- throwawaymaths 3y agoIt is a joke but it's also true. The entire Japan South Korea Taiwan situation is at a high risk, if actual conflict breaks out, Taiwan is out, and SK and Japan become trickier on shipping insurance costs alone, assuming they choose not to get involved (they probably will) Obviously Mexico is also a close ally.
- Dalewyn 3y agoJapan cannot get involved unless the US is directly attacked, their constitution and laws governing use of the JSDF are very explicit in forbidding any use other than defending themselves or the US. If (when?) Taiwan gets China'd, that by itself cannot serve as a casus belli for Japan. I have no intimate knowledge with regards to South Korea's laws and will thus refrain from commenting there.
- shiroiushi 3y ago>Japan cannot get involved unless the US is directly attacked, their constitution and laws governing use of the JSDF are very explicit in forbidding any use other than defending themselves or the US. Japan can change this on a whim with one meeting of the legislature. You think Japan can't change its own laws? >If (when?) Taiwan gets China'd, that by itself cannot serve as a casus belli for Japan. Wrong. I don't know that they would, but Taiwan is a huge trading partner and great friend of Japan, in fact Japan's closest friend in the whole region. It's quite conceivable that Japan would get involved.