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EU Signs €145B Declaration to Develop Next Gen Processors and 2nm Technology

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Re: EU Signs €145B Declaration to Develop Next Gen Processors and 2nm Technology

#191

Post by rmrfstar »

rualca wrote: post #130
iagovar wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The EU has the tech, but that's not enough. I won't say the whole budget will be wasted away, but I hold no hope of something useful coming out of it. The EU has ASML, NXP, Infineon, maybe STM (not sure) and a ton of little shops, but all of them are far away from the major players. And they are moderately confortable in their niches. This is a very high risk endeavour, even with EU money. And as far as I know, none…

> The EU has ASML, NXP, Infineon, maybe STM (not sure) and a ton of little shops, but all of them are far away from the major players. They don't need to become major players for this program to be a major success. Both India's and China's push for a native self-sufficient industrial capabilities have been a huge success in spite of not delivering a cutting edge processor. Moreover, AMD showed that right now the key…

"Sovereignty" is an important concept that dropped out of American discourse in the 1990s. No self-respecting country relies on foreign cryptography to protect its diplomatic communications.

Similarly, no self-respecting country in 2030 will rely entirely on foreign integrated circuits. FPGAs will play an important role for small countries, but large groups like EU can afford to go big.

Re: EU Signs €145B Declaration to Develop Next Gen Processors and 2nm Technology

#192

Post by Krasnol »

thu2111 wrote: post #181
golfer wrote: post #174

Serious question: Why is the EU so far behind in tech company influence/leadership compared to the US and Asia? Europe has successful tech enterprises, but surely is capable of so much more on a global scale.

That's a deep question that is asked nowhere near enough. And when it is asked, my experience has been it's mostly been Americans doing the asking. Here's a story. I was once visiting Silicon Valley for work and getting dinner with a friend who lives there. I'm a Brit who lives in central Europe. On the way over I'd bought a copy of Der Spiegel, which likes to write tabloid-esque articles about the Power Of Tech Firm…

> For instance creating a company that never makes money isn't a problem in the US thanks to a mix of this culture and bottomless VC money. Whereas that would be perceived as failure by family and friends in Europe.

I guess that's related to the US dept culture too. Not having money but borrowing it for all kinds of things and with that stacking dept upon dept is quite normal in the US while over here at the continent you usually want to pay it back asap.

So not having money or working for a company which doesn't generate any must feel much better in the US.

I would be terrified. I also wouldn't work for some startup which won't pay be but instead preach something about family values for example. Earning money and owning stuff that I buy feels great. Wouldn't want to miss it.

Re: EU Signs €145B Declaration to Develop Next Gen Processors and 2nm Technology

#193

Post by xondono »

simias wrote: post #14
rapsey wrote: post #5

Just a giveaway to the best politically connected companies. Like all such EU initiatives.

Such a tiresome and self-defeating mindset. If the EU does nothing it's useless, if it does something it's just corruption. Of course politics and lobbying will play a role when we're talking about hundreds of billions of euros, but that doesn't mean that it can't end up being a net positive for the union. Ask for transparency and keep tabs, don't assume that it's already lost.

Because what the EU countries need to do is to get out of the way.

Re: EU Signs €145B Declaration to Develop Next Gen Processors and 2nm Technology

#194

Post by alexhutcheson »

nirv wrote: post #165
skrebbel wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ASML is impressive for sure, but having the litho doesn't mean you can make good chips. As a mediocre analogy, you don't expect to be able to write good novels because you got your hands on a printer. I think much of the relevant general-purpose chip design knowledge we had (ARM) left the EU this morning. I don't yet see any other chip company (eg NXP etc) suddenly be the next Intel or AMD yet (let alone the next App…

RISC-V Foundation just moved[1] from the USA to Switzerland in late 2019 due to geopolitical concerns. Also, the European Union is heavily betting on the RISC-V for its future hyperscale HPC systems[2][3][4]. I would believe that next-gen European CPU budget declaration is part of this dynamic. And I really hope it will work out. [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-china-semiconductors-... [2] https://www.euro…

The foundation just coordinates the standards process and sets rules for using the trademark. It has a tiny budget and few staff. All substantive R&D is done by its members, which are companies of various size with headquarters in various countries: https://riscv.org/members/

Changing where the foundation is incorporated doesn’t change where this R&D happens.

Also Switzerland isn’t in the EU.

Re: EU Signs €145B Declaration to Develop Next Gen Processors and 2nm Technology

#195

Post by DSingularity »

himlion wrote: post #149
geogra4 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does that change with the China eu trade deal?

I don't think the US will allow that. They probably have enough leverage.

I think they squandered that recently. We will see with Biden but the Trump administration basically encouraged Brexit and repeatedly adopted anti- EU positions in key geopolitical issues (Syria, NATO, Iran, Israel, and Ukraine). These things come with a cost and the EU will try to rectify this. Enhancing Chinas CPU tech by a few generations might be worth it if it can advance EU interests and ensure future good-faith from a supposed ally.

Re: EU Signs €145B Declaration to Develop Next Gen Processors and 2nm Technology

#196

Post by samfisher83 »

DSingularity wrote: post #189
rualca wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The EU has ASML, NXP, Infineon, maybe STM (not sure) and a ton of little shops, but all of them are far away from the major players. They don't need to become major players for this program to be a major success. Both India's and China's push for a native self-sufficient industrial capabilities have been a huge success in spite of not delivering a cutting edge processor. Moreover, AMD showed that right now the key…

What? You are basically discount AMD design. The manufacturing and process tech are critical but not enough alone. You need good design.

When you can use the twice the number of transistors and they use 1/3 less power that is a pretty big advantage to work with.

You might have the best car design in world, but if all could use was wood vs someone else who had a crappy design, but had aluminum the crappy designed car might work better.

Not saying this is the case with AMD vs Intel, but right now Intel's manufacturing is hurting them.

Re: EU Signs €145B Declaration to Develop Next Gen Processors and 2nm Technology

#198

Post by touisteur »

lemonspat wrote: post #113
petra wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But isn't this typical to R&D ? that only 1 of N projects gets used for commercial purposes ?

I read the previous comment as: there wasn’t anyone at the end trying to help make it actually commercialized

But not every R&D project can or should lead to a commercial product right away. I work in a big corp and sometimes the tech you invested in, even if the PoC was great and all successful, doesn't fit in any final product because of thousands of other constraints.

But I also see lots of small 'mindshare' changes thanks to those 'it can be done' projects. The important steps seem to be to first unlock the first TRLs, then find PoCs on real products to inspire (and increase TRLs) tech directors and product managers that they need to invest the next millions into an big and still uncertain shift, and to underinvest in other important parts of their products. In the case of tech push you often end up with a new shiny tech that can't be used right away. So, mostly, it's about climbing the maturity ladder, and be ready for the very small openings in the product development cycle to shoe your new tech in.

In the case of customer pull or market pull, the lead time of such projects makes it too late to ask for external help, and no research grant wants to participate in 'product development' (not their job). So the tech is usually badly implemented and leaves a sour taste.

What I see as positive: if you have a great tech idea and available resources, and great academic/labs contacts, you can get the money, with little resistance (but yes, lots of admin work) with either European or national/regional grants.

IIRC the 2014 version of SPARK was designed and developed through a French civilian R&D funding project : http://www.open-do.org/projects/hi-lite/ The project was clearly a success there (although I don't know about ROI or profitability for AdaCore on this tech). Working with innovative SMBs is a great way to get funding in France and most of the projects that I've seen tend to conclude in new products... for the SMB. But the scale is low there (<4MEUR), so it also helps to accept failure ('only' 4m 'wasted'...).

Re: EU Signs €145B Declaration to Develop Next Gen Processors and 2nm Technology

#199

Post by 11thEarlOfMar »

Nokinside wrote: post #35

EU has the tech. ASML is #2 company in EURO STOXX 50 index with 5.69% weight. ASML is the world's largest photolithography systems manufacturer and the only one producing extreme ultraviolet lithography machines. These EUV scanners are expensive as hell. Last years model costs $120 million per piece and you need 10-15 of them for TSMC gigafactory. TWINSCAN NXE:3400C (7 and 5 nm nodes, >170 wafers per hour) is probabl…

If the EU treats this as a strategic capability and not commercial, the spending is much less of a consideration.

The advantage that the EU has is in fact ASML. No company can make the 5nm litho systems today, and catching up with the decades of R&D they've invested is not feasible. They are the greatest achievement of science and technology on the planet. [0]

The strategy that can work is for the EU to partner with TSMC to build a foundry in the EU that produces at the node they want to intercept (2 nm?). Then, make a business arrangement that puts European scientists and engineers into high-value roles. That would enable the EU to develop the technical skills and keep China from locking it up.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25361028

Re: EU Signs €145B Declaration to Develop Next Gen Processors and 2nm Technology

#200

Post by oblio »

thu2111 wrote: post #187
scotty79 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's how we got to the current cutting edge. Research of most important technological inventions of the past century was funded by beaurocrats. Market is only good at figuring out how to make things cheaper and in volume. Both very important things. But true scientific breakthroughs that push the business over next decades happen on taxpayers bill as distributed by beaurocrats. It sucks a bit that it's this way but…

Research of most important technological inventions of the past century was funded by beaurocrats Important defined how? The car wasn't. The mobile phone wasn't. Computers in their post-WW2 form basically weren't, for the last half decade if not more it's all been private sector. Yes, DARPA did some very early work on packet switching networks and their work became widely adopted mostly because it was free: nice. But…

Companies rarely do basic research. Yes, there are exceptions.
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