9 ms·
Genuine question- How does Govt picking winners and losers going to help? Intel is no Too big to fail Bank. Why save Intel of all chip manufacturers? Wouldnt
by cuttothechase 1y ago
Genuine question-
How does Govt picking winners and losers going to help?
Intel is no Too big to fail Bank. Why save Intel of all chip manufacturers? Wouldnt it be like 25 years too late, with Intel and its heydays !?
Would Govt now ensure parity by investing in "marquee" entities across different industrial domains?
- jen20 1y ago> How does Govt picking winners and losers going to help? By ensuring that the US retains at least the ability to manufacture second tier CPUs vs complete reliance on Asia? This doesn't seem unreasonable.
- bigyabai 1y agoThe US can't employ poverty-tier labor to enable competitive margins, though. American businesses and global trade partners already largely reject Intel's foundry services.
- wahnfrieden 1y agoHaven’t you read Curtis Yarvin’s vision for America? Our leaders, VCs, and owners have
- bigyabai 1y agoI don't care how nihilist or kafkaesque you want to take the conversation - the math won't check out. You can't sustain a third-sector economy on second-sector jobs while importing first-sector goods. The entire financial system in America won't survive that sort of transition, it would be the Great Leap Forward of the 21st century.
- Avshalom 1y agoOne of the things about the Great Leap Forward is that it happened. Just because a path of action will obviously lead to mass death and suffering while accomplishing nothing doesn't mean it won't be taken.
- lanstin 1y agoThis point of view seems to bear repeating these days as the US leadership seems to be re-purposing Lysenkoism and its methods for the pro carbon burn movement and the anti-biological research movement.
- adastra22 1y agoDoesn't matter. All of the US's advanced weaponry systems now use "state of the art" electronic systems, which in the context of defense only means "not decades out of date." Two or three generations old is perfectly fine. The military does not need the latest and greatest CPUs and GPUs going into the iPhone 17 or whatever, but it does need the equivalent of the chip in the iPhone 12 or iPhone 8 or whatever for integration into next generation weapons systems. But if all of our advanced weaponry used chips from Taiwan or Korea, for example, then the strategic implications for war in East Asia would be radically different. People are right to say that China could engage in war over Taiwan for chips, but for the wrong reasons. It's not that they want access to the fabs (they'd love it, but they're not stupid and they know the fabs and know-how would be destroyed in the war), but it would deny the US defense industry access to those fabs. If US missiles or drones use chips from TSMC, and TSMC is in occupied territory or a war zone... the US can't make more missiles or drones. And no matter how powerful your starting position is, you can't wage war without the ability to replenish your stockpiles. It's the bitter lesson Germany learned in both world wars. China wants hegemony in Asia, and to remove the influence of the US, Japan, and their allies within what they perceive as their exclusive sphere of influence. How to achieve that? Invade Taiwan, which eliminates western access to TSMC one way or another, effectively blockading western defense industry from the core things they need to resupply their militaries in a war. Like WW1 all over again, a "preemptive war" becomes the game-theoretic optimal outcome, and the world suffers. How to counter that? The US and its allies need to make sure they have access to chip fabrication facilities that can produce near-state-of-the-art chips, even at inflated prices that are not commercially viable in peacetime, as well as the necessary strategic minerals like germanium and lithium. Only then does calculus swing the other way in favor of peace. Hence Biden's effort to get TSMC to build SOTA fabs in Arizona, and when that failed/stumbled, this investment in Intel.
- Spooky23 1y agoThe China narrative is pure nonsense. You always have guys like Gordon Chang pushing alternating stories about the coming collapse of China, followed by a scary hegemonic whatever.
- 1y ago
- t-3 1y agoLabor is not the key factor driving chip prices or performance. Fabs are highly automated and filled with extremely precise machinery. The maintenance and upkeep of machinery, the yield per wafer, and consumer demand drive the prices. Labor is basically a rounding error.
- dpbriggs 1y agoAchieving that doesn't need to take the form of a 10% stake in a flailing company.
- jalapenod 1y ago[flagged]
- fishgoesblub 1y agoI don't expect a good reason given the history of this Administration, but a reason in my mind to save Intel is there's only 3 license holders for x86 CPUs. Intel, AMD (American), and VIA (Taiwanese). A dead Intel leaves a single American company that is able to make x86 processors, and a monopoly for actually good x86 CPUs. But somehow I suspect there's no logical reason for this besides lining the pockets of those in the Administration.
- kaladin-jasnah 1y agoWhat about Hygon?
- fishgoesblub 1y agoI haven't heard of them until this comment, but reading through Wikipedia, and a techpowerup article, I'm not seeing that they actually own a license to manufacture x86 cpus freely. It seems like they were able to due to it being a partnership with AMD. I could easily be wrong though.
- kaladin-jasnah 1y agoFrom my vague understanding I thought that Hygon is able to build atop Zen 1 IP that AMD gave Hygon, although they can't get anything newer because of restrictions on doing business with China. Hygon still seems to be making x86 CPUs: https://www.techpowerup.com/336529/hygon-prepares-128-core-512-threaded-x86-cpu-with-four-way-smt-and-avx-512-support https://www.techpowerup.com/336529/hygon-prepares-128-core-5....
- kardianos 1y agoWhat is missing is that Intel has US based foundries and US based talent.
- craftkiller 1y agoWhy would the ISA matter to the government? I could see this being about Intel's physical manufacturing capabilities, but the ISA should be pretty irrelevant. Recompile what code you can, run the rest via qemu-user-static.
- j4hdufd8 1y agoYeah why not fund a new foundry startup?
- wmf 1y agoThat's extremely risky, like 100 to 1.
- j4hdufd8 1y agoSure tough business but, risky compared to what? Intel?
- eYrKEC2 1y agoYeah. Risky compared to Intel. Intel manufactures chips _right now_. They have lost their process edge, but if I have to put chips into a drone tomorrow, I'm betting on Intel rather than any bag of scrappy kids. The risk that they _can't_ produce chips is the same risk as that of Hillsboro Oregon getting carpet bombed -- which is of course not 0%.
- nostrademons 1y agoNote that there are several drone microcontroller manufacturers based in the U.S. right now - ModalAI, ARK Electronics, Rotor Riot, etc. The thing about drones is that they actually don't require much computational power compared to modern consumer computing. It's just math - control systems, calculus, trig, waypoints, etc. All of these were solved problems in the days of the Apollo Guidance computer, and will run comfortably on chips from 2 decades ago. The STM32F722 microcontroller that is one of the most common hobbyist drone chips is built on the 90nm process node, runs at 216MHz, has 512K of SRAM, and costs about $5/chip. FWIW, it's made in France and Italy rather than China, and STMicroelectronics owns its own fabs rather than outsourcing to TSMC or Chinese companies. If you want to do things like computer vision on the drone, the computational requirements are quite a bit higher, but you can still run something like YOLO at orders of magnitude less computational power than what you've got in a Pixel 9 or iPhone 16. ...which makes me wonder if a better strategy for the military would be to fund a wide variety of domestic chip manufacturers operating at decades-old process nodes (eg. the 65nm process node from 2005 seems to be at about the sweet spot), rather than try to prop up the one American company that can compete on cutting edge 7nm process nodes. Particularly since the experience of WW2 was that simple, robust designs that could be easily licensed to other suppliers and mass produced (eg. the Hawker Hurricane, Grumman F6F Hellcat, Grumman/GM TBF Avenger, Liberty ship, escort carrier) were much more effective at turning the tide of battle than designs that were on the cutting edge of technology (eg. the Vought F4U Corsair, Gloster Meteor, Japanese Shinano aircraft carrier). The latter were often better in absolute performance, but arrived late, in small numbers, and with teething troubles that made the former carry the bulk of the battle. The Liberty Ship, for example, used reciprocating steam engines that were 50-year-old technology in WW2, but they were "good enough" and dead simple to make.
- linguae 1y agoThe only charitable answer I could give is national security reasons for having domestic chip production, and even that could be accomplished in ways that don’t require the federal government having an ownership stake in Intel. For example, I don’t think the federal government has ownership stakes in Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, despite those companies’ dependence on the military.
- Spooky23 1y agoThere’s a legal precedent that’s no doubt being abused. The Lima tank factory and Watervliet arsenal, for example are owned by the US government.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- turbo_wombat 1y agoYou are asking why save Intel of all chip manufacturers, and the answer is because there aren't any other major chip manufacturers in the US. AMD no longer has a fab. TSMC dominates the global market and basically has no competition. In the event that Taiwan is invaded, the US would suddenly have a huge problem getting access to any kind of high end chips, be they CPUs or GPUs. This would be a major problem economically and militarily for the US. Some caveats: Due to the chip act, TSMC does now have fabs Arizona, though I'm not sure what their capacity is. TI, and some others building lower end components also have fabs I believe. For x86, high end ARM, and GPU's, virtually all of that is manufactured by TSMC right now, mostly in Taiwan.
- internetter 1y ago> TSMC does now have fabs Arizona, though I'm not sure what their capacity is. 180,000 wafers a year. Globally they do 17 million. They announced first profit yesterday.
- SJC_Hacker 1y agoIn the event that Taiwan is invaded, the EVERYONE would suddenly have a huge problem getting access to any kind of high end chips, be they CPUs or GPUs. China would not takeover TSMC intact. Even if they did, they would not be able to operate it for quite some time (years), if ever.
- Hikikomori 1y agoThis government? Bribe them on the side.
- Hikikomori 1y agoI take that back. It's the old one you bribe on the side, this one you can bribe in the open.
- miohtama 1y agoThere is only 1 winner and 1 loser: Intel. It's the only chip manufacturer "left" in the US. The argument is national security: the US expects China to invade Taiwan and this will kill TSMC in the process. Whether this will happen or not can be debated, but this is what the government expects.
- ac29 1y ago> It's the only chip manufacturer "left" in the US Global Foundries, Micron, and Texas Instruments all come to mind
- coliveira 1y agoThis is a sure giveaway that the US military depends on Intel. It is the only major chip producer that has fabs in the US, and it is also the creator of the x86 architecture. That would mean that without Intel the military would become dependent on chips from Chinese Taiwan.
- robotnikman 1y agoNot just the military, but the majority of consumer devices as well. With Intel maintained, if China invades Taiwan and takes TSMC the US will still be able to make usable processors. They won't be the latest and greatest like TSMC, but they will be good enough. Maybe not the most powerful or efficient, but still rather close. My only worry is this will mean management will start resting on their laurels and things will just continue to deteriorate. Or maybe the government can convince them to get rid of the bad management and start thinking more long term and less about immediate profits.
- anonfordays 1y ago>This is a sure giveaway that the US military depends on Intel. "Giveaway?" This isn't some secret, everyone knows the military depends on x86 processors, and having a company that can produce them domestically is a national security concern.
- Waterluvian 1y agoFree market capitalism is great until you’re about to be the big Loser. And then the big dog steps in and yells for time out. I think if this was a domestic thing it would be all kinds of dumb and wrong. But as a US National Security thing, it makes sense if you’re of the mind that significant intervention is fine when it’s in your country’s best interest. The next phase is watching the U.S. government keep Intel on a palliative drip of softball contracts and tax dollars. I guess there’s a fair argument that this form of bail out could help Intel thrive again… or at least secure a domestic supply of chips for natsec reasons?
- TZubiri 1y agox86
- tester756 1y ago>Wouldnt it be like 25 years too late, with Intel and its heydays !? wtf? what do you mean, they're like less than 1 year behind TSMC when it comes to leading node
- georgeecollins 1y ago(disclosure Intel Shareholder) I don't think they are one year behind. I think it is more than one year and for a long time they have not been closing in.
- tester756 1y agoIf they actually release Panther Lake on 18A this year, so one year to fix yield should be reasonable assumption, right?
- kevin_thibedeau 1y agoThey supply components for the defense industry, where foreign production isn't a viable option. No one bank is more important than that. This is also why Micron is getting a free fab for strategic redundancy despite no clear reason why they would need 2x capacity after onshoring back to Boise.
- etempleton 1y agoThey are the only US company that can produce cutting edge chips now and realistically within the next 15+ years. It doesn’t matter that TSMC produces chips in the US. That is nice for the short term but doesn’t do much for the US in the long term if TSMC falls under China’s influence. Intel is in the midst of a dramatic turnaround and huge shift in strategy. It might fail. But if they succeed it puts Intel and the US in a much stronger position in terms of technology and military leadership.
- biophysboy 1y agoIt mattered for China to have Apple/Foxconn/etc assemble phones in China. By this same logic, won’t TSMC have more tacit knowledge to offer America than Intel, even if their independence is short-lived?
- etempleton 1y agoWhy would TSMC or Taiwan want to give that information to the United States? There is a strategic reason why TSMC does not build their latest nodes and processes in the United States and why their R&D happens in Taiwan. They want / need The United States to protect Taiwan and their interests. It opens up strategic options for the United States if Intel or another US based company can produce cutting edge chips in the ballpark of TSMC.
- JustExAWS 1y agoWhat other US based chip manufacturers are there?
- beefnugs 1y agoBecause Dump personally pictures being able to instruct all personal computers to "dont do woke" The end result is more like all the rich people take their cash and jump off the top of the pyramid as it crumbles
- SkyPuncher 1y agoThis isn't a generalizable problem. There just aren't many companies that would be in a comparable situation to Intel. Intel is: * Critical to national security * An advanced, industry that's extremely hard to spin up * Essentially, one of two companies in it's industry. Very few other companies meet all of those criteria.
- cuttothechase 1y agoWhat beats Boeing or Apple then so as to put Intel over the top of these guys?
- fourg 1y agoIntel wanted the 9 billion in CHIP Act money that was being withheld and was willing to make a deal for 10% equity in order to get it.
- acomjean 1y agoAll I can think here is the government forcing back doors (like the failed Clipper chip) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_chip https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_chip The thinking might be the government needs a local industry for security. Think submarine manufacturing. Not a huge private market for that, but best to keep local so the supply can’t be cut off. Though usually the government isn’t the best stewards of companies. When I worked for a large government contractor someone joked “yesterday’s technology tomorrow”. Some of that is for reliability, but it wasn’t cutting edge in a lot of ways.
- thisisit 1y agoMost of the answers are going to be national security. That is the reason used by third world countries to nationalise companies.
- burnte 1y agoUS wants to maintain chip manufacturing presence and expertise within the borders, so saving everyone would achieve the goal but at a higher cost, so they're just focusing on the US ones in trouble.