I might have looked positively at this if the bureaucrats would have actual skin in the game and would be judged by the outcome in 5-10 years. But in the likely case that this will fail and most of the money will be drained through lobbyism etc., nobody will talk about it and they will come up with the next thing they can throw money at to come across as being super innovative. Disclaimer: I used to work at a company…
Government spending isn't the problem, it's who gets the money. In the US I see it all going to established players. Which is fine for stuff like finding a COVID-19 vaccine. But is a total disaster for promoting innovation. I have a computer engineering degree and have watched nothing of interest happen in semiconductor manufacturing for over 20 years. Yes we have blue LEDs now. Yes we have fast video cards. But if y…
EU Signs €145B Declaration to Develop Next Gen Processors and 2nm Technology
251–260 of 496 posts
Re: EU Signs €145B Declaration to Develop Next Gen Processors and 2nm Technology
#252Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
> 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 [0] Those are some huge claims, which could have previously been said for many currently outdated technologies.
Just as an example, the dimension of the features their tool prints are smaller than the wavelength of light that is actually doing the printing.
[0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1100162/randd-costs-of-a...
Re: EU Signs €145B Declaration to Develop Next Gen Processors and 2nm Technology
#253Re: EU Signs €145B Declaration to Develop Next Gen Processors and 2nm Technology
#254Earlier quoted context omitted.
Like what?
Do aircraft carriers count in this context? They’re reasonably expensive to produce.
The USS Ford is said to cost around 13 billions. I wouldn't call that "reasonable" :)
https://usadefensenews.com/2020/11/13/meet-the-us-navys-13-b...
Re: EU Signs €145B Declaration to Develop Next Gen Processors and 2nm Technology
#255Earlier quoted context omitted.
You mean like CERN? Yeah what a waste of everybody’s time that was ...
There are a fair amount of people who think the LHC was not a wise use of resources since it did not give any clues to a new theory beyond the existing "Standard Model" https://www.quantamagazine.org/what-no-new-particles-means-f... It's obviously easy to say this in hindsight and it wasn't necessarily obvious when this started, but it definitely cost more than it had to because it was an EU project that had to hand…
Re: EU Signs €145B Declaration to Develop Next Gen Processors and 2nm Technology
#256Earlier quoted context omitted.
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, t…
Re: EU Signs €145B Declaration to Develop Next Gen Processors and 2nm Technology
#257Earlier quoted context omitted.
What did I just wrote about leadership and it's importance?
One might wonder if the EU has leadership capacity to be able to maintain domestic strategically important industries. Generalising from 40 years of EU history, I have little confidence. The top US and East Asian processor and semiconductor companies all are extremely successful in the marketplace, in addition to consuming government subsidies. Fostering a competitive market has not been the EU's forte. Indeed the EU…
It raises to prominence after becoming a Google wholly owned subdiary. I have repeated multiple times in other comments that DeepMind's success is at least built on top of Google's tech and capital.
Interesringly, Google's tech infrastructure were blueprinted by a lot of pioneers and two of the most well known are Urs Hozle and Luiz André Barroso both are of Eu descentdent.
There is no evidence that whatever DeepMind did can be done with another EU partner. Or even anyone who is not Google, largely thanks to Larry and Sergey's personal tastes and experience. I doubt Msft or Amazon have the right culture for DeepMind.
The whole alphabet thing was engineered to allow independency. So that, among other things, a more pure research org can work without the ever encroaching of the profit driven hands inside Google. Mind you, DeepMind absolutely put itself above Google, or at least firmly distance itself from Google, GCP once proposed to use DeepMind brand in marketing materials, and was sharply rejected citing "conflicting brand images".
Re: EU Signs €145B Declaration to Develop Next Gen Processors and 2nm Technology
#258Earlier quoted context omitted.
Has the UK even got a trade deal with the US yet?
No it hasn't, and the type of deal it is going to get looks likely to be different under Biden than under Trump. I think your point is relevant regarding ARM-Nvidia, as semiconductor technology has tended to be the subject of trade barriers, and is seen as a strategic national asset.
Re: EU Signs €145B Declaration to Develop Next Gen Processors and 2nm Technology
#259EU 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…
From my experience with gov trying to do tech investment it’s going to go into the pockets of late career overpaid ‘executives’ with ‘industry experience’ and tons of (also overpaid and underqualified) contractors doing the same thing. Not the brilliant engineers you imagine are going to run it.
I mean I hope it goes to the engineers and smart dudes (who doesn’t want another successful semi competitor and 2nm?) and not the ones who know how to play the political game the best but I’m highly highly skeptical.
We’ll see in a few years I guess.
And I say that fully understanding ASML and the value they currently provide. But let’s hope who ever doles this out understands it as well as (maybe) half the people in this thread.
But even ignoring that giant elephant in the room, it adds the critical question why should ASML care to give special treatment to this one project? They are already killing it globally. Just because they operate in EU and this offers shit loads of money to potentially fleece?
Re: EU Signs €145B Declaration to Develop Next Gen Processors and 2nm Technology
#260Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
> 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?). that's hardly in Taiwan's geopolitical interest. perhaps if the EU made some serious political concessions to Taiwan.