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TSMC's US builds won't make America great at chips again, says Gelsinger
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- QuadmasterXLII 2y agobalderdash. Tech designed by the US, sold in the US, but manufactured in china led to utter dominance of manufacturing for china. This would work just fine in reverse. Possession is 9/10ths etc
- curt15 2y agoFactories and equipment are useless without people. Is the US also prepared to poach top TSMC engineers from Taiwan?
- ahmeneeroe-v2 2y agoWe have people in the US. The US should be making generational/multi-generational investments in ourselves (just like Taiwan & China did). Yes, we may not be able to out-compete TSMC in 2025, but I feel good about our 2045 and 2065 competitiveness.
- electriclove 2y agoIt’s a start. Better to start building something now than putting it off in hopes of some ideal scenario
- sponaugle 2y agoWhat Pat said is 100% correct. The actual manufacturing of EUV ICs is incredible difficult, only eclipsed by the difficulty of figuring out HOW to do it. Doing the fabrication here in the US is great, but the much more difficult and key skill is the 'figuring how to do it'. Modern EUV is unbelievably complicated, and there are a continuous supply of new engineering problems that at first glance often don't even appear to be solvable. In many cases you have an idea and it take 2-3 weeks to determine if it made any difference, and the feedback loop just gets slower after that. The steps in EUV requires some extreme engineering, and it is that core engineering talent you want to develop. The fabs are complicated, but the recipe is the key. (Note I worked at Intel in the 90s, funny enough in Pat's group)
- ahmeneeroe-v2 2y agoThis is a complicated problem so the US won't be able to figure it out? We do complicated manufacturing here that many countries cannot do.
- itishappy 2y agoNot without investing in figuring it out: > "If you don't have R&D in the US, you will not have semiconductor leadership in the US," Gelsinger said, according to a report this week in the Financial Times.
- ahmeneeroe-v2 2y agoIt is a worthwhile first step. Yes we won't regain leadership without making follow on steps, but that is hardly newsworthy.
- itishappy 2y agoFair enough. More of a reminder to pay attention to how TSMC approaches R&D in the states, since a part of the $165B investment is for a proposed R&D facility. If they focus on optimizing existing processes (as has been suggested) and keep the development of new processes in Taiwan, then that's a signal that we're not on a path to success (at least in Pat's eyes).
- sponaugle 2y agoAgree on the newsworthy.. quotes like this are not super valuable... however the concept is that without real R&D the actual manufacturing is not as valuable. Of course it is better than no manufacturing, but in EUV, the real magic is in the process development.
- rightbyte 2y agoA suboptimal amount of would be engineers works for spyware companies I guess. And the mind share is with top of the pyramid financial engineering fluff not actually doing stuff. When I worked with machine engineering there was this gloomy prospect of all these "lifers" who would reach retirement age some day and be replaced by an consultants burning out every 6 months.
- knowitnone 2y agoSeems like a common theme here. Push manufacturing to another country - that country becomes adept, dominates, and branches out. Primary country can't compete, complains, and put up tariffs to try to bring manufacturing back that it chose to give up to begin with.
- ruszki 2y agoI’m total layman here. What was the result in other cases?
- jeroen79 2y agoThe best thing for amercia to be great again is a new president who doesn't fuck up all foreign relations and trade.
- ahmeneeroe-v2 2y agoYes let's keep up foreign relations where we pay for people to arm themselves against us (china). Or we pay for the defense of people who won't pay to defend themselves (EU).
- NicoJuicy 2y agoUS for a long time literally didn't want Europe to build a military/nuclear power ( and compete... ) Learn history :)
- ahmeneeroe-v2 2y agoNo this is wrong. Europe has nuclear power, weapons, and navies. And Europe has an obligation to spend on its own defense (which they have not fulfilled in some time).
- ojl 2y agoTwo countries in Europe have nuclear weapons (several have nuclear power though). Sweden for example had a nuclear weapons program that was shut down in the late 60s (guess which country strongly wanted us to shut it down). I think most European countries cut down too much on the defence after the Cold War, but it seems we are about to fix that. But it’s not like the US gave away fighter jets and other weapon systems for free. Several European countries spent lots of money buying US planes and other stuff.
- NicoJuicy 2y agoFrance and the UK have it despite the US not wanting it too. Luckily! > And Europe has an obligation to spend on its own defense Yes, since the US wants to pivot to Asia. That's fairly recent on the timescale :) > which they have not fulfilled in some time Did you know the US, unlike the others, includes pensions as "military spending"? But yeah, now ... They will raise it to the required 2 % (which a lot already do)
- rdj 2y agoI don't know his intention or whether The Register just framed his words to align with a political viewpoint. Perhaps it's nothing more than one industry person taking shots at their rival... but I'm having a hard time reconciling his current statement with his previous statements, specifically about the CHIPS Act and US manufacturing. "Gelsinger added on the CHIPS Act: "Supply chains move because they're advantaged. So in that sense, I see chips [making], plus some of the economic inducements, as being a formula that I fully agree with looking forward. But we can't go backward on what we put in place for the CHIPS Act. We need to continue to restore manufacturing. We need long-term research and development." (https://www.msn.com/en-us/technology/tech-companies/former-intel-ceo-pat-gelsinger-chips-act-is-needed/ar-AA1BCdYR https://www.msn.com/en-us/technology/tech-companies/former-i...)
- hajile 2y agoTSMC was heavily sponsored by the Taiwanese government with the goal of making Taiwan so valuable that other countries would feel required to defend them against China. It is against their interests to outsource too much or outsource cutting-edge nodes. This is exactly what we see. The recent Arizona fab is N4 which is just N5 with some refinements. N5 was sampling iPhone chips in 2019 and N4P has been available since 2020-2021. That's a half-decade ago. N3 started up in 2022, but won't be in the US until 2028 some 6 years later. By 2028, TSMC plans their Taiwanese factories to have produced 2nm, 1.6nm, 1.4nm, and 1nm. If the US wants cutting edge chip manufacturing, it 100% is NOT coming from TSMC.
- greedo 2y agoThere's also a strategic imperative for chip production in the US that isn't cutting edge; lots of stuff depends on basic ICs that were in short supply during COVID and having more production of stuff that doesn't need to be 2nm is a good thing for the US.
- hajile 2y agoThere's generally a strong preference for those basic chips to use planar nodes. This limits them to 28nm for TSMC and 22nm for GlobalFoundries (22FDX+ fab is actually in Dresden, but they announced plans to add a second 22FDX+ fab in New York). I do agree that more fabs in the US is better than fewer though.
- mmmBacon 2y agoI think Pat should moderate his comments. He failed and in spectacular fashion. Moreover he was extremely influential in the US government, the CHIPs act is really an Intel bailout. Intel should have been allowed to fail, its fabs spun off and many of its unprofitable ancillary products shut down or sold (Networking anyone?). Despite that he’s not entirely wrong but he’s also not saying anything that’s of practical use. True semiconductor R&D won’t return to the US without investment in educating people in semiconductor technologies in US graduate schools. Funding for this type of research has mostly gone into more esoteric materials and processes and hence many people who emerge from these programs are a poor fit for modern industrial semiconductor manufacturing tech. Countries like Singapore and Taiwan do a much better job giving their graduate students a more practical education that better prepares them for industry. In a sense US is too academic and not vocational enough (I see this across the board in HW). The fact is that advanced nodes being produced in the US is a gigantic step in the right direction. Decades of commodity HW and SW dominance have gutted the talent base for HW tech development in the US. It’s going to take a decade and smart US government policy (not the Chips act) at least to recover to where we can even begin to have this kind of R&D again in the US.
- BeetleB 2y ago> Intel should have been allowed to fail, its fabs spun off and many of its unprofitable ancillary products shut down or sold If Intel had failed, the fabs would have shut down, not been spun off. Intel's fabs are the primary reason Intel has poor financials - continually running on a loss. Intel's Product division makes a profit - always has - and can survive. The Bailout is all about propping the fabs, not the products. Letting Intel fail really does equate to losing semiconductor capability in the US. There's no other US company that comes even close to Intel's fabs. The market is harsh to Intel - it's essentially saying "There's no room for number 2"
- mmmBacon 2y agoYeah, no. Firstly nobody can use Intel’s fabs because they can’t really provide a PDK the way TSMC can. So Intel’s fabs are fundamentally not competitive as it stands because they are almost impossible for anyone but Intel to use. Who cares what their equivalent process is if it can’t be commercialized? A break up would force them to get their act together as a commercial fab. The fabs are substantial capital and would have been spun out in the same way IBM spun out their fabs into Global Foundry. Someone with knowledge of how can turn these things profitable. The bailout props up a failing mismanaged entity and encourages its moribund status quo. Moreover the US taxpayer shouldn’t foot the bill for Intel’s mismanagement. The era of x86 dominating compute is clearly over and hence your last point is anachronistic.