7 ms·
Taiwan has a law barring the export of technology more than one generation behind: https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2024/11/08/2003826545 https://
by ryao 2y ago
Taiwan has a law barring the export of technology more than one generation behind:
https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2024/11/08/2003826545 https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2024/11/08/200...
The article mentions that Arizona was set to ramp 4nm, which is presumably what they have now.
- rayiner 2y agoWhy doesn’t the U.S. have laws like that?
- jazzyjackson 2y agoBecause keeping the bleeding edge in manufacturing to ourselves is not vital to our survival as a sovereign state
- yieldcrv 2y agoyeah but stopping China from invading China isn't either
- kayewiggin 2y agoChina is in the beginning of a 30 year Great Depression, in no shape to invade Taiwan. Consumer spending in Beijing and Shanghai fell 20% y/y in November. Real estate prices have collapsed 50%, even in some parts of Beijing and Shanghai. Trump has filled the cabinet with mostly anti-China hawks, indicating large tariffs coming next year. Capital outflow from China increased to $45B in November, largest monthly deficit ever. China is pretty fucked.
- Paradigma11 2y agoThat does sound like a fabulous time to start a jingoistic war to flame the nationalistic sentiments and declare any dissenters traitors to the nation.
- azernik 2y agoIt is for Taiwan
- yieldcrv 2y agoand not going to be our problem for much longer, 2028-2030 can’t come fast enough the US is selectively getting involved in worldwide conflicts to deter China from invading China, and its awkward, with arduous contrived rationales to maintain its people’s support and once we get stateside semiconductors at low enough nanometers we wont have to do any of that any more I cant wait good thing there are 185 other countries that could care if they really did. this wont be controversial to point out, in the future. it will be a time period that made little sense.
- azernik 2y agoThe law in question that prohibits exports of the latest process node is Taiwanese, not American. So yes, it matters what their interests are. Regardless of whether you think it's a state, it is an entity with agency that makes its own rules that its companies (like TSMC) follow.
- ebruchez 2y agoI am not sure if it is worth answering but here it goes anyway: 1. Taiwan is not China, any more than Ukraine is Russia, except if you believe all the propaganda coming from the mainland (or Russia). Ask any Taiwanese, and while many consider and appreciate a solid Chinese cultural heritage, they consider themselves independent and want nothing to do with China (except business). Newer generations of Taiwanese are even more independently-minded and consider themselves even more Taiwanese than the previous generations. 2. Even if for some reason you truly think that it is the same country or should be the same country, it is immoral to wish that a peaceful, independent, democratic, and open society like Taiwan's should be brutally attacked and absorbed by a war-mongering, authoritarian/dictatorial, opaque country. (Things could be different if mainland China was democratic, but it isn't, and won't be for a long time.) 3. Even if for some reason you are ok with the above, odds are that the difficulty and complexity of an attack on Taiwan would end up being extraordinarily costly for China (and Taiwan of course). It could lead to all sorts of escalations in the region, sanctions, the collapse of trade with China from the US and other countries, nuclear proliferation (see Ukraine considering developing nuclear weapons if they don't get security guarantees), and who knows what else.
- rayiner 2y agoWhy is “vital to our survival as a sovereign state” the criterion?
- gavindean90 2y agoBecause it is for Taiwan
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- alephnerd 2y agoSemiconductor fabrication was viewed as a commodified cost center until COVID related supply chain instability. Furthermore, packaging and testing was largely outsourced and the domestic semiconductor industry imploded in the 2010s with IBM Micro and AMD's failures. The same thing happened to Japan when they began offshoring Memory Fabrication to South Korea and Taiwan in the 1990s-2000s. That said, from a NatSec perspective legacy processes (28nm, 48nm) and compound semiconductors would be much more critical (and a significant amount of funding has been devoted to that).
- ryao 2y agoJapan is trying to rebuild its leading edge capability with Rapidus using IBM technology. Interestingly, IBM still does the research needed to make a fabrication plant. They just don’t want to assume the risks from deploying it in production anymore as far as I can tell.
- alephnerd 2y ago> Interestingly, IBM still does the research needed to make a fabrication plant Yep. They still own the IP from the IBM Microelectronics days. Much of the breakthroughs in EUV were done in Upstate NY (especially at SUNY Albany, SUNY Polytechnic, and RPI), and a lot of that was co-owned by IBM, ASML, and TEL. > They just don’t want to assume the risks The capex - and pretty much. Semiconductor Fabrication is high cost, low margins, so it's difficult to spin up without industrial policy.
- ryao 2y agoIt is a shame that the 450mm transition did not occur. It would have been better for all parties as it should have lowered the cost of fabrication.
- alephnerd 2y agoYep! I lay the blame squarely on the failed NY Nanotechnology Initiative which turned a massive head start in fabrication R&D into corrupt pork barrel politics. Albany deserves it's own special section of hell.
- anigbrowl 2y agoFree market doctrine, plus the investor class wanting to be able to reap the benefits of outsourcing without being concerned about strategic issues. Occasional proposals to this effect have historically been denounced as protectionism, industrial policy (practically socialism!) and 'picking winners and losers'. I am surprised you're unaware of this.
- selimthegrim 2y agoWe had to give Japan something in the 90s to keep them on side.
- alephnerd 2y agoJapan itself largely began offshoring fabrication in the 1990s. It was Japanese OSAT players like Hitachi that sparked the Penang packaging cluster in Malaysia in the 70s-90s and Japanese Memory firms like NEC+Hitachi that started South Korea and Taiwan's fabrication industries. Taiwan didn't truly become a leader in the cutting edge fab space until the 2010s when US, SK, and Japanese players dropped the ball, and Apple chose TSMC in the 2010s due to their patent litigation with Samsung (nixing South Korea).
- brcmthrowaway 2y agoSo much of TSMC's dominance now is due to the influx of Apple cash in the 2010s boosting R&D spending, which in turn is because millenials bought a shit tonne of Apple devices because they were convinced by marketing.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- wtallis 2y agoTSMC's dominance is at least as much Intel's fault as it is Apple's. And even if Apple hadn't been funneling so much money to TSMC, the smartphone industry as a whole still would have been a cash cow for TSMC. Intel sure wasn't going to be in the running as a smartphone SoC designer or as a foundry for somebody else's smartphone SoCs. In an alternative history where Android thoroughly beat out iOS even for high-end/high-margin smartphones, Samsung's foundry business probably would have been a bit better off, but overall it would still be TSMC as the leading foundry, just with Qualcomm as the launch customer for new nodes rather than Apple.
- alephnerd 2y ago
- _DeadFred_ 2y agoBecause we already have enough current/ex superfund sites. (see the Santa Clara section here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Superfund_sites_in_California https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Superfund_sites_in_Cal...)
- nrp 2y agoWe do for a wide variety of products and IP: https://www.trade.gov/us-export-controls https://www.trade.gov/us-export-controls See also the US sanctions on SMIC.
- kube-system 2y agoIt does. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_Administration_Regulations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_Administration_Regulati... And in fact, the machines that make these chips are restricted by US export law: https://www.asml.com/en/news/press-releases/2024/asml-statement-on-updated-us-export-restrictions https://www.asml.com/en/news/press-releases/2024/asml-statem...
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- hollerith 2y agoOther US agencies that regulate exports (quoted from the "exceptions" section of the above wikipedia article): >The Department of State: the ITAR administered by the Directorate of Defense Trade Controls relate to defense articles and defense services on the US Munitions List and section 38 of the Arms Export Control Act >The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) >The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), which controls the export and re-export of commodities related to nuclear reactor vessels, per the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 The Department of Energy (DOE), which controls the export and re-export of technology related to the production of special nuclear materials, per the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 >The Department of Defense (DoD) and Department of State Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program: items that are sold, leased, or loaned by the DoD to a foreign country or international organization under the FMS program are subject to the Arms Export Control Act instead of the EAR.
- dylan604 2y agoRegarding chips, if your best is generations behind someone else's best, nobody want's to buy your old and busted anyways.
- fooker 2y agoThe US had famously tried and failed to do this for software techniques like cryptography.
- ojbyrne 2y agoI think you meant "less than one generation behind." Or as the article you linked to says: "Taiwanese law limits domestic chipmakers to producing chips abroad that are at least one generation less advanced than their fabs at home"
- ryao 2y agoI did. My apologies for the typo.
- wincy 2y agoI thought the machines that make this stuff come from ASML in The Netherlands? How does this work, couldn’t we buy the machines from ASML?
- bri3d 2y agoAs I post every time this question gets asked: no. ASML build fancy printers. Buy an ASML machine and you can now etch nanometer-scale features into something. That’s a great party trick. You still need to know what features to print and how to make the materials you print your design on. The ASML part (lithography) is a hard part but it’s not even close to the biggest hard part. Thus, why semiconductor processes are differentiated in the first place.
- MangoCoffee 2y agoPlus, ASML's EUV machines for TSMC are different from those for Samsung or Intel. Each order is tailored to the buyer's specifications. TSMC's manufacturing process using ASML EUV machines is different from Intel or Samsung. People think you just buy an EUV machine, and you can start printing money. Far from it.
- ryao 2y agoPresumably, one could license IBM’s 2nm research, buy the equipment and try doing 2nm fabrication. That is what Rapidus is doing.
- codedokode 2y agoThis is stupid. They should amend it to ban export of less than 3 generations behind.
- edgyquant 2y agoThis seems like the exact kind of law that would not standup to extreme pressure from a determined US president
- nxobject 2y agoI wonder how the economics will end up – sure, American fabs won't have cutting-edge processes, but in the end there's a stable market for older processes that are critical to industrial capability (e.g. automotive and sensing, high-reliability processors, etc.) One node behind still remains very good value without the visicssitudes of relying on the unstable market for leading-edge products.