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America’s semiconductor boom [video]
- AxiomaticSpace 1y agoThis is just anecdote, but my roommate's dad works in construction management specifically for semiconductor fabs, and he was working for about a year on one of Intel's new fabs in Arizona up until a few months ago when the entire project was suddenly scrapped. IIRC he got the sense it was someone high up in intel that decided to pull the plug on it.
- maplant 1y agoI mean, not to sound rude, but of course it would be someone high up who would make that decision. It’s not like a grunt could decide to scrap a whole new fab
- vivalahn 1y agoI could be wrong but I’d assume what the OP is trying to say is that the leadership of these companies does not want these fabs to actually open and work. That something transpired maybe between them and govt.
- bee_rider 1y ago[flagged]
- AxiomaticSpace 1y agoYea fair. What I was trying to say was that it seemed like a decision that was less the construction/development team saying "this plan isn't workable for xyz reason and we need to reconsider our approach" and more someone high up saying "we are cancelling this and we won't say why".
- dboreham 1y agoI left the semiconductor industry 30 years ago but back then every company had "a fab that hasn't been completed in Arizona" that people would talk fondly of perhaps opening one day if business picks up. Seems like not much has changed.
- itsnowandnever 1y agoI always thought it was funny that for my entire lifetime people have talked about Arizona being perfect for fabs because it's dry there and not subject to tremors meanwhile Taiwan where 60% of all chips are produced (and 90% of the most sensitive ones) is tropical and has earthquakes fairly frequently.
- ansk 1y agoI can only imagine what the Taiwanese can do in Arizona. Truly a synergy for the ages.
- foobarian 1y agoMaybe that's why yields there are better? [1] [1] https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/semiconductors/tsmc-arizona-fab-delivers-4-percent-more-yield-than-comparable-facilities-in-taiwan https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/semiconductors/ts...
- dwd 1y agoOnce you're in a air-conditioned environment the outside world doesn't matter. More likely he compared the 4nm yield to the 3nm yield in Taiwan?
- eru 1y agoThe moisture of the outside world might not matter. But aircon doesn't protect you from earthquakes, alas.
- Gracana 1y agoYep, you need to install a ground conditioner for that.
- high_na_euv 1y ago
- ojbyrne 1y agoNew CEO started in March, I vaguely recall him cancelling fabs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lip-Bu_Tan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lip-Bu_Tan
- x3n0ph3n3 1y agoSo are they going to give back the money they got from the feds to build them?
- eclipticplane 1y ago[flagged]
- re-thc 1y agoThe govt got shares instead already
- WillPostForFood 1y agoIntel didn't cancel any fabs in Arizona, one just came online. They killed plans Fabs in Poland and Germany, and the Ohio fab is on hold. You don't get the money up front, so nothing to give back.
- eru 1y agoThough the relevant governments in Poland and Germany probably spent a lot of time and effort (and money). Only some of them they will get back. But I guess that's a risk they knew they were taking.
- rsynnott 1y agoI doubt there was much; the sort of outright subsidy the US sometimes does is usually classed as unlawful state aid in the EU (there are exceptions; in particular member states were allowed to bail out/nationalise their banks in the financial crisis. But subsidies to random foreign companies would generally be illegal; see the Apple tax case).
- ggm 1y agoFabs need pretty solid foundations IIRC, the systems don't like vibration. So this won't have been a cheap build. I also believe the construction methods for clean room is like a VOC purge on steroids. Whatever else goes into this build would have a huge impact on potentially reclaiming it for VLSI.
- tonyhart7 1y agowell, intel is loser on semiconductor boom
- pjob 1y agohttps://www.wsj.com/tech/intels-chips-act-requirements-waived-after-u-s-government-takes-stake-e0ec5cdb https://www.wsj.com/tech/intels-chips-act-requirements-waive... https://archive.is/nhLyB https://archive.is/nhLyB
- echelon 1y agoIs America's semiconductor boom real? How much capacity are we building? What processes? What types of semiconductor products? High end? Middle? Low? How much capacity? Can we substitute or replace Taiwan in the future in the event of conflict? I can't watch the video right now, but I'm curious about its claims. Or any additional HNer context.
- phendrenad2 1y agoThis video has lots of details, but conspicuously absent is exactly WHAT chips are being made in Arizona. I guess it's still a closely-guarded secret for some reason.
- coliveira 1y agoIt's not the high-end type. Otherwise they would announce it.
- IronyMan100 1y agoI think it's N5/N3 or so, current state of the art.
- fungi 1y agohow competitive will american made cpu's be? will american consumers just end up paying n * more for same product that the rest of the world gets from taiwan?
- bee_rider 1y agoI don’t think the mix of engineers we’ve been producing is right for this. We need a whole generation of folks at a higher hardware:software ratio. Check back in a decade to see if we’ve seriously started.
- edverma2 1y agoDoes America need to produce the talent or can they import it?
- epistasis 1y agoThe talent is already here, the employers just need to pay better.
- __MatrixMan__ 1y agoAnd attract them away from what? What are these skilled people doing? Does a photolithography skill set enable you to moonlight at some other gig such that they're here and keeping their skills fresh and we're just not noticing?
- georgeburdell 1y agoI was a fab tool owner. My last paycheck in a semiconductor position was in the mid-200s. I went into software and make double that in the same metro. Same level of responsibility. I don’t even work in machine learning. To take your photolithography example though, I know someone who went litho tool owner -> camera team at Apple -> Meta reality labs. FAANGs want semiconductor process engineers just so they can spend all day yelling at underpaid Asian vendor semiconductor process engineers who are doing the actual work.
- phendrenad2 1y agoThis is actually a good video (I say actually because this youtuber sometimes has surface-level reporting on things, but this one is quite a bit better). It's investigative on-the-ground reporting of the TSMC plant in Arizona, and the recent SemiCon West conference.
- darquomiahw 1y agoWhat's TSMC's headcount down in AZ? I ask because Intel has laid off or retired around 40k employees in the past two years and they still need to cut a little more to please the new boss.
- alephnerd 1y agoIme, most of those cuts were employees working on legacy nodes and processes - especially at Beaverton.
- Daub 1y agoIf you haven't already, I encourage you to subscribe this guys channel - Asianometry. How he finds the time to reserach in such detail such a wide range of tek-related subjects is beyond me.
- bl4ckneon 1y agoHe probably has a team who helps him. He makes bank so not unrealistic
- edg5000 1y agoI think he still has a dayjob actually, or at least until recently. So I'm not sure wether he has staff.
- Dban1 1y agoMr Gemini and Mrs Claude
- thawawaycold 1y agohe's started making videos way before LLMs were able to aid in researching content. He's just good at doing what he does, no tricks there.
- dev1ycan 1y agoIf you know about a topic well, his videos are not as accurate as he may try to make you believe
- switchbak 1y agoThat’s a good point, he did a video in my space recently and while it sounded impressive it was clear he only had a surface level understanding of the domain. Still impressive, but I find it hard to trust folks that represent themselves as experts on topics they’re not really experts in.
- 1y ago
- idoco 1y agoI love Asianometry! The semiconductor history videos are incredible. The level of quality on that channel just blows my mind. It’s one of the best examples of the revolution happening in high-quality, independently produced content. I actually first heard about it from the Acquired podcast, which is another great example of that same trend.
- noir_lord 1y agoHis unix videos are excellent as well.
- 0xDEAFBEAD 1y agoI found an interesting thread on the /r/semiconductors subreddit discussing what it is like to work at TSMC https://reddit.com/r/Semiconductors/comments/1m96m4f/my_experience_working_at_tsmc_arizona_for_4_years/ https://reddit.com/r/Semiconductors/comments/1m96m4f/my_expe...
- mlindner 1y ago> They sent Taiwanese over to clean up because they just couldn't handle all the American blue-collar workers. Translation: Unions got in the way of actually efficient construction so they had to bypass them with their own people. Unions in the US, in general, are extremely luddite as any new technology improvement that's better is treated with hatred because it removes jobs from the union's control. This is how the longshoremen have basically permanently prevented any technology improvement at our ports because they refuse to accept any automation and lobby heavily to prevent it. In general though that post just comes off of "disgruntled former employee who doesn't understand high-intensity work cultures".
- regentbowerbird 1y agoI disagree with your assessment, the poster is obviously disillusioned but they just detail their point of view. You can't just write off safety violation and toxic environment as "high-intensity work culture". You also just work in your own anti-union discourse without any basis in the actual text.
- NemoNobody 1y agoCapitalism is Luddite at a fundamental level - if their isn't competition, there is absolutely no reason to innovative, change, or maintain a quality level - so, in a capitalist economy all participants are always incentivised to grow as large as possible, above all other things, bc at some point, they really will become "too big to fail" - whether in a small monopolized niche or a massive but dominated industry, that is always true, without fail as profits are always most important. It works with everything in a capitalist system too - all production, resources, and outputs of a society that allows unchecked greed, will grow until it stops due to market consolidation (not always nefarious either). Google search as an example, we all picked it first, then they got greedy - even if they were saints that always was going to play out like that, bc of capitalism. Once a market is controlled by a few players - ALL TRUE GROWTH STOPS and bare minimum, most cost effective to profit ratio "limited/controlled/planned" growth follows. Hard drives for my adult life are my singular example. Lots of tech is like that actually. Capitalism without competition will naturally evolve into full on Feudalism and Serfdom if it is allowed to.