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EU countries team up for semiconductor push

reuters.com

131–140 of 665 posts

Re: EU countries team up for semiconductor push

#131
post #12

How will they be keeping talent? I heard workers in IT are paid low compared to other jobs and especially compared to similar jobs in North America, what stops them. from just going to US/Canada?

I work in IT in the US, and if someone offered me a job with a visa in Europe, with the potential for permanent stay. Even if it was 1/2 my current salary I would probably take it, depending on the country it was in.

Re: EU countries team up for semiconductor push

#132
post #111
post #8

This is a great decision! I never understood why Europe under-invested in semi considering the talents they have and the strategic nature of it. Intel is dying a slow death, ARM is leaving UK's control, and TSMC is slowly taken over by China. The tables are turning.

Most competitive chips in the world are produced by machines made in the Netherlands at ASMI/ASML The US companies do what they do best: innovate business models and find ways to vendor lock in and own the market. But who's been doing all the research keeping moore's law alive? Lithography? For a country as small as the Netherlands, you can wonder if we could afford from a geopolitical point of view to be producing a…

> It does make it baffling why Intel is unable to produce 5nn chips with the same ASML machines TSC is using. It must be management failing Boeing style.

ASML machines do not produce chips, they're just ones doing the etching. There is a ton around what you do with it, and how all the rest of the chip is produced.

They don't come with pre-programmed transistor gate templates. Each fab company has its own libraries of extremely specialized designs, doing different optimizations and tradeoffs. As mentioned plenty of times before, the consensus seems to be that Intel tried to pile up too many new improvements, which backfired. TSMC took a more incremental and safe approach. You have to appreciate that a defect that impacts high-volume yield today could have its roots in a design that was put on the roadmap years before.

> As for the rest of Europe. Im sure they can politically do this. But where will the money end up?

If H2020 is anything to go by, the majority of that money will be salaries of people working on big research projects. At worst the project outcome is useless. I don't see how any of the way these projects are structured benefit the pocket lining of managers.

Re: EU countries team up for semiconductor push

#133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know. My mother was an immigrant to the US. I've also seen family members go broke and commit suicide after being unable to afford medical care that would otherwise would have been provided to them in more humane countries. Apologies if this colors my view of America's "humanity."

It's always about health insurance. It's the one defining characteristic of nations. The narrow mindedness is incredible.

I'm not sure what you're talking about, but watching someone who worked very hard their whole entire lives be blamed for their misfortune, humiliated, and denied access to treatment by the American system of benefits (not just healthcare, this included disability and other services) doesn't result in narrow-mindedness. It results in an accurate appraisal of what is happening to poor people in this country every day. You can find plenty of news stories, just post-pandemic, about people treated similarly by unemployment benefits systems that were designed to be punitive instead of helping people in need.

If those realities are uncomfortable for you and you want to dismiss them, that's perfectly fine, but these stories are out there in plain sight, across the US, for you to observe.

Re: EU countries team up for semiconductor push

#134
post #10

What will actually happen: some countries will spend a trivial amount of money in a PR stunt with not coordination between the countries and result in no advance for the EU countries participating. Source: All other industries in Europe.

Actual source: https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/news/member-st... “ Press release7 December 2020 Member States join forces for a European initiative on processors and semiconductor technologies ” Appreciate your cynicism but maybe Brexit along with competition from China, the Far East and the United States will focus European minds. Let's not forget the many EU-wide research and development initiatives t…

Europe is actively selling its crown jewels to foreign countries.

See: Acquisition of Alstom by GE in France.

Re: EU countries team up for semiconductor push

#135

So, what would a new bleeding edge modern architecture and instruction set look like if one could start from scratch? I assume general computing so cell phones and servers are the target.

Here is how it could look: https://www.crowdsupply.com/sutajio-kosagi/precursor

RISC-V bleeding edge?

Re: EU countries team up for semiconductor push

#136
post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate on "UK's sabotages"?

But certainly, the UK has been against any kind of concerted efforts by the EU which might go further than the single market for as long as they were a member. They lobbied heavily to be left out of the common agricultural policy and tried to diminish as much as they coud, were against Maastricht and were not a member of the Eurozone, pushed heavily for enlargement ensuring they would be no political cohesion in the…

I agree. The UK never really wanted to be part of the EU. It only wanted to cherrypick the best parts and nothing else. Once they decided to leave I wasn't thinking a single thought about the EU crumbling but rather "good riddance". Other than the northern Ireland dilemma it is a win win situation.

Of course the UK will take a hit in the short term but failing to prepare for that is on them. It was their decision.

Re: EU countries team up for semiconductor push

#137
post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most competitive chips in the world are produced by machines made in the Netherlands at ASMI/ASML The US companies do what they do best: innovate business models and find ways to vendor lock in and own the market. But who's been doing all the research keeping moore's law alive? Lithography? For a country as small as the Netherlands, you can wonder if we could afford from a geopolitical point of view to be producing a…

>Most competitive chips in the world are produced by machines made in the Netherlands at ASMI/ASML AFAIK, ASMLs fancy EUV tech comes from a Bay Area company they acquired a while ago and not from the Netherlands.

Do you have a reference? AFAIK it's 2 other German companies that are key in the production of EUV photolitography machines; Zeiss for the lenses and Trumpf for the lasers.

I see reference for a company bought by ASML in California, HMI. They were bought in 2016 but the development of EUV technology predates it by many years so I find it unlikely that it had an important role in it.

Re: EU countries team up for semiconductor push

#138

Unfortunately, does anyone even takes the EU serious nowadays in tech? The more I follow the European tech scene, the more disappointed I become. EU's biggest tech company aside of ARM is Spotify... Almost every second startup I read about in https://www.eu-startups.com/ is a fintech/budgeting app which is trying to "disrupt" banking. Revolut is the biggest player, yet they are literally throwing money to achieve a m…

> EU's biggest tech company aside of ARM is Spotify

How about SAP, Capgemini, Atos, Deutsche Telekom, Telefónica, Vodafone, ASML?

Not hip enough for you?

Re: EU countries team up for semiconductor push

#139
post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most competitive chips in the world are produced by machines made in the Netherlands at ASMI/ASML The US companies do what they do best: innovate business models and find ways to vendor lock in and own the market. But who's been doing all the research keeping moore's law alive? Lithography? For a country as small as the Netherlands, you can wonder if we could afford from a geopolitical point of view to be producing a…

>Most competitive chips in the world are produced by machines made in the Netherlands at ASMI/ASML AFAIK, ASMLs fancy EUV tech comes from a Bay Area company they acquired a while ago and not from the Netherlands.

If you refer to Cymer, they're doing the light source. A critical part of the system certainly, but not the whole. Then mirrors are done by Carl Zeiss in Germany. The blank photomask come mostly from 2 Japanses companies. On such complex systems there's room for many critical providers. Still, the integrated product comes from ASML.

Re: EU countries team up for semiconductor push

#140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only 14 out of 193 UN countries recognize Taiwan as an independent state. Given how Hong Kong was forced to bend the knee recently, I'd say this is a reasonable worry.

But many do provide support "unofficially". And HK was already under "one country, two systems", while Taiwan is de facto independent even if the PRC claims it.

They're just saying it's a worry.

The point is if China decide to do this, there isn't anyone who can stop them.

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