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Intel's disruption is now complete

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Re: Intel's disruption is now complete

#511

Post by octoberfranklin »

typ wrote: post #461
qppo wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> TMSC will make us suffer due to monopoly The fears have less to do with TSMC the company and more the fact it's a pawn in the geopolitical chess game between the US (and her pacific allies) and China. The issues with supply chains through Taiwan have little to do with whether gamers are buying their CPUs from AMD or Intel, but the fact that a critical piece of infrastructure in the Western economy is very precariou…

I agree with you. But I think it's a "can't-see-the-forest-for-the-tree symptom" that is possibly due to the typical HN demographics. It has been a decade or longer that the US relies on China manufacturing for industrial infrastructure that is as (or even more) critical as wafers. It doesn't help fix the problem by simply singling out semiconductors and keeping every other industry locked in China as-is.

All of those have second sources.

5nm silicon is, literally, the only thing that only one company can make.

Re: Intel's disruption is now complete

#512

Post by AgentOrange1234 »

kelnos wrote: post #473
ptx wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TSMC is a Taiwanese company. The world can ensure the supply of its semiconductors by ensuring Taiwan has access to weapons and guarantees of military assistance in case the CCP's benevolence wavers.

If China decides to take Taiwan by force, there is very little the rest of the world can do to stop them.

Will do? Sure. But can do? Sanctions, war, ...

Re: Intel's disruption is now complete

#513

Post by octoberfranklin »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #301
mrtksn wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People root for anything-but-intel because competition is a good thing and intel had none for very long time. I don't know where the notion of "Intel is about to die and TMSC will make us suffer due to monopoly" comes from but before having people cheer for Intel again they probably need some time to have their execs cure some disease in some poor part of the world, do a few AMAs on reddit, open-source something, don…

Tech enthusiasm and criticism has become extremely cyclical in the past decade. It’s easy to forget that we were all cheering for Facebook and the Zuckerberg success story before it became uncool to be pro-Facebook. Intel is stumbling, but up until very recently they were still the fastest gaming CPUs available. That didn’t stop gamers from criticizing them endlessly and cheering their demise. Intel went from cool to…

Dude, I was never cheering Facebook.

The most positive opinion I have ever had of it could be described as indifference.

Re: Intel's disruption is now complete

#514

Post by octoberfranklin »

sundarurfriend wrote: post #503
T-A wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, so our eggs are not all in one basket, but in two. One claimed as rebel territory by the CCP and one still technically at war with a nuclear-armed hermit kingdom.

> one still technically at war with a nuclear-armed hermit kingdom. If we're going down that route, every country in the world can be described in an equally alarmist manner.

Yeah but most of them are more than 300 miles from Xi Jinping.

Re: Intel's disruption is now complete

#515

Post by octoberfranklin »

ptx wrote: post #304
regimeld wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely agree. The world's supply of semiconductors is dependent, in some ways, on the benevolence of the CCP. TSMC is like Arakkis. We need to diversify the supply chain.

TSMC is a Taiwanese company. The world can ensure the supply of its semiconductors by ensuring Taiwan has access to weapons and guarantees of military assistance in case the CCP's benevolence wavers.

And, uh, based on the diplomatic recognition situation it's pretty clear that Teh World has considered your suggestion and very explicitly rejected it.

Re: Intel's disruption is now complete

#516

Post by octoberfranklin »

bgorman wrote: post #504
kelnos wrote: post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If China decides to take Taiwan by force, there is very little the rest of the world can do to stop them.

Nazi Germany attempted to take tiny Malta from the Britsh for two years and failed. The Japanese held many untenable defensive positions in the Pacific for months. Unless China is willing to nuke Taiwan, (what would be the point?) a military offensive to take over Taiwan would be extremely unlikely to succeed within a few months - and assuming the US/Australia/UK/Japan/South Korea provide support - almost impossible.…

None of those other islands were even remotely close to the strategic value of Taiwan.

Re: Intel's disruption is now complete

#517

Post by octoberfranklin »

aaaxyz wrote: post #286
regimeld wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely agree. The world's supply of semiconductors is dependent, in some ways, on the benevolence of the CCP. TSMC is like Arakkis. We need to diversify the supply chain.

Isn't TSMC building a fab in AZ? Anyway I'd say the "spice" in semiconductor production is rare earth elements, since the CCP controls most of their extraction (and has artificially lowered exports in the past)

No, they're saying they're building a fab in AZ.

Like Foxconn is (still!) saying they're building a fab in WI.

Re: Intel's disruption is now complete

#518

Post by ashtonkem »

notSupplied wrote: post #92
SoSoRoCoCo wrote: post #20

As someone who worked on Intel's phone chip: we definitely didn't win it. We fucked it up twelve ways to Sunday. Why: giant egos. There were turf wars between Austin, Santa Clara and Israel over who would design it, and the team that won out had long since lost its best principle engineers and had no clue how to spin the architecture to meet the design win. Otellini's hindsight hedge is pure spin: we knew the landing…

I have a theory about why turf wars like this happens: the more successful and wealthy an entity, the greater opportunity there is for a manager to take wealth instead of make it. When you’re scrappy and broke, the only path to success is to make the company successful. When the company is rich and multitudinous, an individual can gain more from politics and turf wars rather than actually trying to push an already hi…

I agree, and I'll add more to it. In a very small company, there simply isn't enough space for any individual team or segment to diverge significantly from the overall success of the company. When your company is very large, often the needs of various sub-groups might not be in alignment with overall company success, even if they're still trying to make money for the company.

A great example comes from this article. The group in charge of the Pentium product line would not be thrilled to see the Celerons launched, since that would cannibalize their sales. Obviously for long term success of Intel this was the right move, but from the perspective of the Pentium team this might be a horrible idea.

Re: Intel's disruption is now complete

#519

Post by ashtonkem »

systemvoltage wrote: post #189

The entire world has their eggs in one basket - Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company. Say whatever about Intel, I am hoping that they get back on their feet in next few years with 5nm manufacturing. Since when is competition and choice a bad thing? If you're a chip design firm and you have a 8-month backlog to get your masks made at TSMC, what do you do then? TSMC can be world's best fab but we need to address…

> Since when is competition and choice a bad thing?

Who is saying this? There is competition, and Intel is starting to lose.

> If you're a chip design firm and you have a 8-month backlog to get your masks made at TSMC, what do you do then?

Wait 8 months. This is a lot better than getting a "Lol, we don't do custom masks" from Intel.

> Intel should spin off its Fab division as a separate company, hire some top executives to rejuvinate the workforce, make it the coolest Fab company in the world to work for and leap ahead.

Yes, they absolutely should do that. The only question is if they have the guts to do it.

Re: Intel's disruption is now complete

#520

Post by pm90 »

sundarurfriend wrote: post #503
T-A wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, so our eggs are not all in one basket, but in two. One claimed as rebel territory by the CCP and one still technically at war with a nuclear-armed hermit kingdom.

> one still technically at war with a nuclear-armed hermit kingdom. If we're going down that route, every country in the world can be described in an equally alarmist manner.

This is an absurd amount of reductionism. The chances of actual military conflict in both the Korean Peninsula and Taiwan are objectively much higher than most other places around the world. Having both of the top tier semiconductor manufacturers reside in such a hotspot is absolutely a cause for concern.
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