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One of the areas I'd really hoped the US semiconductor investment act passed a few years ago would focus on are the 'jelly bean' chips / components. By this po
by mjevans 2y ago
One of the areas I'd really hoped the US semiconductor investment act passed a few years ago would focus on are the 'jelly bean' chips / components.
By this point those need to be bog standard, RELIABLE TO SOURCE, commodity components. Like screws, staples, washers and semi-processed materials like rock-board, rolls or spools of metal / thread / cloth etc.
There should be more than one manufacturer, and geographic diversity within a country and among allies to mitigate risk factors like natural disasters and (may we never have to worry about it) attacks by enemies.
It's not just the shiny new leading edge and RnD; the full stack needs to be robust and provide competition to keep everything healthy. That's what a regulated market should offer, value from existing players, and when that fails either helping new entrants compete and see success in the market, or standing up a new government business to sell off (recoup investments, though I'd prefer it took profits and _all profits_ were deducted from the citizen tax base) after it's established.
- icegreentea2 2y agoThe CHIPS act did include specific funding for mature (>= 28nm) nodes. It definitely wasn't the bulk of the funding but it was there. Initial estimates were that about a quarter of funding would go to supporting legacy/mature nodes, and at least 2 billion (of the initial 39 billion) was directly earmarked for legacy/mature nodes. https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R47523 https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R47523
- mjevans 2y agoI don't offhand recall that being news headlines; but that might just be the bias of news reporting / filtering.