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> Atkinson says that while the CHIPS Act is a start, the United States is likely to need additional funding, support, or incentives if the goal is to see compet

by KK7NIL 2y ago

> Atkinson says that while the CHIPS Act is a start, the United States is likely to need additional funding, support, or incentives if the goal is to see competitive leading-edge semiconductor fabs owned by U.S. corporations. “We’ve hit a double in the first inning, and that’s pretty good,” he says. “But the problem is everybody in Washington thinks we’re done.” This is the problem. Asia has seen semiconductor manufacturing as a strategic investment and so setup long term benefits, subsidies and education programs. They also have leadership that stays in power long enough to see these plans through. Meanwhile the US has been enjoying the easy gains of SW companies juiced up on low interest rates (which leads to inflation, which favors industries that require very little capex). Finally people are realizing that we still need HW companies but all we get is a one off band-aid solution, just enough for the industry to survive until the next election. It really is like the old joke that Asia is playing go while the US is playing chess (strategic vs tactical thinking).

riku_iki 2y ago
> if the goal is to see competitive leading-edge semiconductor fabs owned by U.S. corporations. I think another efficient goal would be to invite politically friendly asian companies to build fabs in US. Not clear if US companies can catch up at this point.
- KK7NIL 2y ago
  > Not clear if US companies can catch up at this point. I'm biased as I'm working on 18A at Intel but I'm very optimistic for this node. We could leapfrog TSMC (this is all public information). And in the last few years Intel speedran 4 nodes to catch up, which was quite the feat. > I think another efficient goal would be to invite politically friendly asian companies to build fabs in US. This was part of the CHIPS act too (which I think shows how scattered the US semiconductor policy is), TSMC and Samsung got money to do exactly that.
  - osnium123 2y ago
    Do you feel like Intel is a compelling employer for you and does it pay well/create a positive environment for you?
    - KK7NIL 2y ago
      It's a really large company so, has you pointed out, this is just my experience. Pros: It has provided compelling compensation in Oregon (significantly more than my previous position, but I'm junior so large jumps are normal) and work (leading edge tech in my field, plenty of external eyes looking at it). All my managers all the way up to and including the CEO are very successful engineers and understand the technical detail of what they're managing extremely well. Pat is very capable of talking about details of upcoming processes during internal meetings, for example. I also feel empowered by my manager and colleagues to point out how we could improve our methodology, although that often results in extra projects for me, requiring some sacrifice of personal time if I want to complete them all (which is what I'm looking for right now but not sustainable in the long run). I quite like OKR system and I feel like my manager really understands what I'm doing and provides useful feedback. Cons: I feel there's a bit of a "fire-fighting mentality" in parts of the foundry, especially as you get closer to the fab. There's an unspoken pride in spending your day working late to fix some issue. Many teams are constantly in meetings debugging issues caused by human error and no one seems to ask the question "how can we automate this so it doesn't happen again?" because they're HW not SW people. A lot of my automation side projects require buy-in from other teams and there's been some friction in showing them the value of their cooperation ("this is how we've always done it" kind of attitude). Thankfully I have more senior engineers and managers who have a vision to fix these issues so it's going in the right direction. I believe this is not unusual in HW manufacturing. If you get placed in a team that has a bad methodology and has a manager that has no vision on how to completely revamp it, then it's going to be a real slog. If you're thinking of accepting a position at Intel Foundry, feel free to drop contact and we can talk further about my experience here.
      - osnium123 2y ago
        If you don’t mind me asking, what is your role in particular? Are you a module engineer, a metrology engineer or are you in design enablement? Also, is Intel Foundry currently hiring given all the cuts and layoffs? I hope your job is safe amid all the turmoil!
osnium123 2y ago
One thing that Asian governments have insisted on is export discipline. Companies could only get grants, loans, etc if they exported their goods. The idea is to force domestic producers to be good enough to be competitive internationally. How does one make sure that the US chip manufacturing industry stay competitive without this sort of export discipline?
- KK7NIL 2y ago
  That policy made sense for Asia because they got their start through technology transfer agreements. This policy ensured that these agreements weren't just thinly veiled attempts to bypass import tariffs and were actually commercially viable in the global market. > How does one make sure that the US chip manufacturing industry stay competitive without this sort of export discipline? If we keep low tariffs on SK and Taiwan, I don't see how a domestic manufacturer has any choice but to compete in the global market, removing the need for this export requirement. This is part of why US semiconductor manufacturers have had a hard time competing with Asia, especially in commodity semiconductors (i.e. memory and packaging the first to get off-shored).

by KK7NIL 2y ago

riku_iki 2y ago

> if the goal is to see competitive leading-edge semiconductor fabs owned by U.S. corporations. I think another efficient goal would be to invite politically friendly asian companies to build fabs in US. Not clear if US companies can catch up at this point.

KK7NIL 2y ago
> Not clear if US companies can catch up at this point. I'm biased as I'm working on 18A at Intel but I'm very optimistic for this node. We could leapfrog TSMC (this is all public information). And in the last few years Intel speedran 4 nodes to catch up, which was quite the feat. > I think another efficient goal would be to invite politically friendly asian companies to build fabs in US. This was part of the CHIPS act too (which I think shows how scattered the US semiconductor policy is), TSMC and Samsung got money to do exactly that.
- osnium123 2y ago
  Do you feel like Intel is a compelling employer for you and does it pay well/create a positive environment for you?
  - KK7NIL 2y ago
    It's a really large company so, has you pointed out, this is just my experience. Pros: It has provided compelling compensation in Oregon (significantly more than my previous position, but I'm junior so large jumps are normal) and work (leading edge tech in my field, plenty of external eyes looking at it). All my managers all the way up to and including the CEO are very successful engineers and understand the technical detail of what they're managing extremely well. Pat is very capable of talking about details of upcoming processes during internal meetings, for example. I also feel empowered by my manager and colleagues to point out how we could improve our methodology, although that often results in extra projects for me, requiring some sacrifice of personal time if I want to complete them all (which is what I'm looking for right now but not sustainable in the long run). I quite like OKR system and I feel like my manager really understands what I'm doing and provides useful feedback. Cons: I feel there's a bit of a "fire-fighting mentality" in parts of the foundry, especially as you get closer to the fab. There's an unspoken pride in spending your day working late to fix some issue. Many teams are constantly in meetings debugging issues caused by human error and no one seems to ask the question "how can we automate this so it doesn't happen again?" because they're HW not SW people. A lot of my automation side projects require buy-in from other teams and there's been some friction in showing them the value of their cooperation ("this is how we've always done it" kind of attitude). Thankfully I have more senior engineers and managers who have a vision to fix these issues so it's going in the right direction. I believe this is not unusual in HW manufacturing. If you get placed in a team that has a bad methodology and has a manager that has no vision on how to completely revamp it, then it's going to be a real slog. If you're thinking of accepting a position at Intel Foundry, feel free to drop contact and we can talk further about my experience here.
    - osnium123 2y ago
      If you don’t mind me asking, what is your role in particular? Are you a module engineer, a metrology engineer or are you in design enablement? Also, is Intel Foundry currently hiring given all the cuts and layoffs? I hope your job is safe amid all the turmoil!

osnium123 2y ago

One thing that Asian governments have insisted on is export discipline. Companies could only get grants, loans, etc if they exported their goods. The idea is to force domestic producers to be good enough to be competitive internationally. How does one make sure that the US chip manufacturing industry stay competitive without this sort of export discipline?

KK7NIL 2y ago
That policy made sense for Asia because they got their start through technology transfer agreements. This policy ensured that these agreements weren't just thinly veiled attempts to bypass import tariffs and were actually commercially viable in the global market. > How does one make sure that the US chip manufacturing industry stay competitive without this sort of export discipline? If we keep low tariffs on SK and Taiwan, I don't see how a domestic manufacturer has any choice but to compete in the global market, removing the need for this export requirement. This is part of why US semiconductor manufacturers have had a hard time competing with Asia, especially in commodity semiconductors (i.e. memory and packaging the first to get off-shored).