5 ms·
Nvidia has produced the first Blackwell wafer on US soil
- aiauthoritydev 1y ago[flagged]
- GenerocUsername 1y ago[flagged]
- pengaru 1y agoDon't forget this gem either: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAVE_act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAVE_act
- CharlesW 1y agoBackground: The CHIPS and Science Act, which is the key legislation behind the major incentives and on-shoring of semiconductor manufacturing in general and this achievement specifically, was signed into law by Biden on August 9, 2022. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CHIPS_and_Science_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CHIPS_and_Science_Act
- meragrin_ 1y agoBackground: TSMC Arizona was announced in May 2020. https://web.archive.org/web/20201020184623/https://www.anandtech.com/show/15803/tsmc-build-5nm-fab-in-arizona-for-2024 https://web.archive.org/web/20201020184623/https://www.anand...
- lucasRW 1y agoThis was announced in 2020 under Trump's administration.
- roboror 1y agoThis is the culmination of years of work, not months, as the article suggests. I prefer the actual press release.
- xnx 1y agoOfficial source press release: https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/tsmc-blackwell-manufacturing/ https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/tsmc-blackwell-manufacturing/
- echelon 1y agoThis is incredible news! I never thought this would happen, or that if it did, we'd be a few generations behind. Now let's onshore or friendshore everything else we need! Rare earths, mid-tier processors, chemical precursors, pharmaceuticals, steel, robotics/mechatronics, solar, drones, ... Why even stop there? Kill the Jones Act, get back to building naval drones and ships of all kinds, ...
- jrk 1y agoIt is a few generations behind: Blackwell is still on N4, which is an N5 variant. Meanwhile TSMC has been shipping N3 family processes in large volume products (Apple) for more than 2 years already, and is starting to ramp the next major node family (N2) for Apple et al. next year. NVIDIA has often lagged on process, since they drive such large dies, but having the first major project demo wafer on N4 now is literally 2 generations behind Taiwan.
- AlotOfReading 1y agoIt's a couple process generations behind, but Blackwell is literally nvidia's most current generation. They don't ship N3 until the next generation. When was the last time current gen, competitive GPUs were fabbed outside Asia?
- rsynnott 1y agoCan't be _that_ long ago; AMD were still using GlobalFoundries (Germany and New York) for most stuff until 2018 or so IIRC.
- AlotOfReading 1y agoForgot about AMD's brief GPU flirtation with glofo. ATI used TSMC. I think it was only Polaris that ever shipped anything from NY. That's admittedly a couple of legendary value cards though.
- contrarian1234 1y ago
- dialogbox 1y ago[flagged]
- sroussey 1y agoMore fun to just make Taiwan into a US State
- ofrzeta 1y agoSo "This is the vision of President Trump of reindustrialization" but it's been in the works for "a few short years"?
- margalabargala 1y ago[flagged]
- parineum 1y agoThis is a great place for a bit of both sidesism. The Biden admin could have given Trump credit for operation warpspeed and hailed the vaccine as a great achievement for him.
- nl 1y agoJoe Biden himself did exactly that > Biden receives Covid-19 vaccine, praises Trump's 'Operation Warp Speed' https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna1251890 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna1251890
- margalabargala 1y agoBiden publicly praised the Trump administration for Operation Warpspeed at the time.
- lucasRW 1y agoYes, the Phoenix fab plant was indeed kickstarted under Trump's first term.
- ofrzeta 1y agoThanks for the heads-up.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- Krasnol 1y ago[flagged]
- Caius-Cosades 1y agoWhat other options are there for Nvidia? EU as a whole is largely non-viable due to the schizophrenic nature of EU regulations. AI development has been made de-facto illegal in EU, auto industry is being ran to the ground, so there are hardly any customers for GPU's. Now mainland China certainly would be an interesting option, but State Department would throw a shitfit.
- esperent 1y ago> the schizophrenic nature of EU regulations Wait until you hear about US regulations. Are tariffs on or off again in the last five minutes?
- bootsmann 1y agoMost of the monopolies in the GPU supply chain (ASML, Zeiss etc.) are European companies. The “EU has no AI” narrative is mostly pushed by VCs so they can keep raising funds from European investors.
- mschuster91 1y agoASML and Zeiss however are by far not reflecting being part of the "AI shovel sellers" in their stonk market charts as is NVDA. We may have a lot of exposure via our "hidden champions" but we don't even come close in actually getting financial share out of that bubble.
- pyrale 1y ago> due to the schizophrenic nature of EU regulations. You mean like having to read the new tariffs you're subjected to every monday?
- mschuster91 1y ago
- andrewstuart 1y ago[flagged]
- imdsm 1y agoI prefer mine with milk
- rich_sasha 1y agoSurely US soil is fine..? Best, most free and definitely most democratic soil in the world.
- contrarian1234 1y agoDoes anyone have any insight on how they make it economically viable? US salaries are astronomically high compared to the rest of the world. In the tech sector that's doubly so. Everything is incredibly expensive there. Is this basically a small facility to keep some politicians happy? Or is it used to provide some supply military gear at 50x the price? Will it get shut down in a few years once everyone forgets about it?
- adgjlsfhk1 1y agosemi manufacturing is highly automated, and not much of the cost is labor.
- alex43578 1y agoIntel has a fab a few miles away, and setting aside Intel's challenges, they're producing chips just fine. Semiconductor production is massively automated and the wafers are ludicrously high revenue/margin products. This isn't like using US labor to stitch t-shirts.
- rajnathani 1y ago> the wafers are ludicrously high revenue/margin products. Agree except this point, as at least for MCUs which are of US origin and yet cost ~$1 per chip which also includes reel packaging and distribution margins etc.
- evrimoztamur 1y agoJust print more money, it's a matter of national security. If the US is in a distrustful state, it's a good investment for the government, military or non-military (e.g. global trade getting more expensive for various reasons).
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- parineum 1y agoSalaries aren't a huge part of manufacturing like people think. Once the factory is built, accounting for logistics of shipping and remote management, it's not a huge difference financially. Getting the factory built, however, takes significantly more time and costs more in both actual dollars but, more importantly, the opportunity cost lost to not producing products in that extra build time.
- ggm 1y agoThe EU was funding fab lines, several levels back up the chain IIRC? The idea being that the chips doing car comms, engine management, cruder FPGA, old ARM cores, can be done fast, and stop supply chain weaknesses for things Europe needs chips in, like cars (and tanks, and UAVs and ...) I'm not saying tiny lines aren't cool. I'm just saying the idea you can't be successful if you make cruder, older resolution chips is probably wrong: Your printer and your car don't care if the Dice is 10mm not 5mm, and the track lines are 5x wider. MILSPEC stuff probably runs cruder for other reasons. Resiliency? Verilog proofs? I also have no idea how many dice you get off a single ingot these days. 300mm wide, but how long?
- FirmwareBurner 1y ago>The EU was funding fab lines, several levels back up the chain IIRC? Yeah but much larger(16-12nm) and much less profitable nodes than what Taiwan, the US or even Japan and China have now. > I'm just saying the idea you can't be successful if you make cruder, older resolution chips is probably wrong Define success. Smallest nodes are bringing in the most profits and every country prefers more profits versus less profits, especially Europe given it's budget deficits and welfare spending. Larger nodes that aren't very profitable are good for national security but Russia and even North Korea are proof you don't need much domestic semiconductor industry to completely terrorize neighboring countries and level entire cities. WW1-style artillery shells and rifle rounds will do just fine.
- ggm 1y agoYes, I think that's true. But I also think from re-establishing a viable VLSI industry on cruder tech, Europe (like China) can move up the food chain into the smaller lines, as the tech beds in. The irony of ASML being a JV with strong European roots, but the VLSI moving to "anywhere but europe" at scale stands out. I don't buy labour costs. I think it's probably post-VLSI packaging, assembly of devices, and compliance with HAZMAT that made the moves to Asia and Latin America happen. These plants don't use a lot of cheap labour. So wage cost cannot explain the decision. There are interesting posts going back decades (crufty google doc shares, USENET posts..) talking about what the work culture at TSMC is like, about Intel management. I think VLSI is like cheese making: if you wear the wrong perfume on the wrong day, you destroy the entire output in one go. But that doesn't justify 16 hour days and toxic management.
- lucasRW 1y ago[flagged]
- throw-10-13 1y agousd is down 10% since he got elected
- petersonboots 1y ago[dead]