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Germany doesn't design high end SoCs or x86 processors so why would they build a fab for them?
by imtringued 4mo ago
Germany doesn't design high end SoCs or x86 processors so why would they build a fab for them?
- alephnerd 4mo agoBad take. Design capacity doesn't imply fabrication capacity, as can be seen with Israel and India's comparative dominance in the chip design industry. Design capacity (basically programming and logic design) is orthogonal to front-end fabrication (basically material science and chemical engineering) which is orthogonal to back-end/OSAT (basically materials science and metrology). Only the US and Taiwan have domestic E2E capacity in all 3.
- petra 4mo agoDesigning a secure platform is possible within the EU[1]. [1]They need to use US EDA tools, And manufacture masks but maybe there are tricks they won't need to trust them - like inspecting critical parts of the masks.
- ahartmetz 4mo agoSiemens has bought together a bunch of EDA tool makers, most notably Mentor Graphics. It doesn't really bring the know-how to Germany, but at least some kind of control over it.
- IshKebab 4mo agoIt's not just high end CPUs that use the latest processes. Power, Performance and Area is important to all chips, including microcontrollers, FPGA, etc.