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Intel chief Pat Gelsinger: Too many chips made in Asia
131–140 of 233 posts
Re: Intel chief Pat Gelsinger: Too many chips made in Asia
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
EUV is hard, but isn't part of the reason why only ASML can make those machines because of the CRADA they have with DOE as a member of the EUV LLC? I believe this agreement was why ASML wasn't allowed to sell their solution to China recently. I bet Intel will have no trouble buying EUV to bring in-house - especially if that serves US strategic interests.
ASML only makes a few machines every year, you can't just buy them off the shelf IMHO banning sales of ASML's product to China is chest thumping protectionist nonsense - if you're worried about the rise of China's military then you should be tangling their economy up more with that of the West so that they have more reasons not to go to war rather than driving them to be self sufficient.
> if you're worried about the rise of China's military then you should be tangling their economy up more with that of the West so that they have more reasons not to go to war rather than driving them to be self sufficient.
Military power, like all other things, is based on economic might. If you want to slow the rise of China's military while it remains a totalitarian system then allowing further economic integration between the West and China is a silly idea compared to using sanctions to decouple two economies over time.
Though the rise of China's military is definitely not the reason why economic decoupling and sanctions should be deeply considered.
It would take years (even decades) to duplicate ASML machines. At least in the absence of unprecedented tech transfer (most likely through hacking and HumInt work). It's no where near a foregone conclusion that banning ASML exports won't slow down SMIC's attempts to build leading edge nodes that get used to supply China's military.
Re: Intel chief Pat Gelsinger: Too many chips made in Asia
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
ASML only makes a few machines every year, you can't just buy them off the shelf IMHO banning sales of ASML's product to China is chest thumping protectionist nonsense - if you're worried about the rise of China's military then you should be tangling their economy up more with that of the West so that they have more reasons not to go to war rather than driving them to be self sufficient.
I don't think they're worried about China's military so much as China's independence from the rest of the semiconductor supply chain. When you give China a machine, it's only a matter of time before they reverse engineer it and make something slightly worse but much cheaper. This kind of theft is backed by the government. So the expectation that they will remain forever dependent upon ASML is wishful thinking.
But surely that should be ASML's choice?
Re: Intel chief Pat Gelsinger: Too many chips made in Asia
#134He's entirely right. I think this is the best move Intel has made in decades.
He's also talking out of both side of his mouth. Yesterday we learn this[1] and this "Galsigner says" story unironically fails to point it out. [1] Intel to Outsource Some Key CPU Production for 2023 Chips to TSMC https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-to-outsource-some-ke...
First, Intel has bought several businesses and some of them (Altera for example) have a pre-existing relationship with TSMC.
Second, every wafer that Intel fabs at TSMC is a wafer that AMD cannot fab at TSMC. Intel plays defense on pricing and supply by producing with TSMC.
Not to mention the greater market awareness that Intel gains by being a client of its competitor.
Re: Intel chief Pat Gelsinger: Too many chips made in Asia
#135American fabs have focused on too many feel good measures to competitively compete with the Asian fabs. The new TSMC Arizona HR director came from Intel and one of the first questions out of his mouth was about TSMC's commitment to diversity. TSMC doesn't have a commitment to diversity...it has a commitment to hire the best and brightest to bring value to their end customers.
Pure and simple that is how you succeed.
Re: Intel chief Pat Gelsinger: Too many chips made in Asia
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think they're worried about China's military so much as China's independence from the rest of the semiconductor supply chain. When you give China a machine, it's only a matter of time before they reverse engineer it and make something slightly worse but much cheaper. This kind of theft is backed by the government. So the expectation that they will remain forever dependent upon ASML is wishful thinking.
But surely that should be ASML's choice?
ASML machines include a large amount of technology from the US, and so can be controlled under US export control laws.
A country is free to develop all those technologies locally and not face US export control, but that's such a difficult task that nobody has achieved it.
Re: Intel chief Pat Gelsinger: Too many chips made in Asia
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
Asia is a hyper broad term that could include areas from east to Russia to just west of Turkey except Middle East. Some thinks Central Asia is not or whatnot. “Continent” refers to single contiguous land encircled by seawater, that aren’t islands, at least as I think of the word. > where you're getting your geography It’s 7:45 now where I am.
> “Continent” refers to single contiguous land encircled by seawater, that aren’t islands, at least as I think of the word. To the best of my knowledge, you are literally the only person who uses that definition. By that definition Asia, Europe, and Africa would be a single continent. North and South America would be a single continent. What school did you go to that they taught you there are 4 continents in the enti…
> 4 continents
Isn't that six? Eurasia, Africa, Australia, North America, South America, and Antarctica, with India noted as "sub-continent" and Asia sometimes distinguished within Eurasia by mountain ridges.
Re: Intel chief Pat Gelsinger: Too many chips made in Asia
#138I'm all for redistributing fab capacity geographically. But I thought it became concentrated in Asia because of the lower cost for high quality engineers due to LCOL. How will Intel change this equation to make it profitable in other geographic regions?
Cost of living is 20% lower in San Jose, Costa Rica (location of Intel manufacturing plant) compared to TSMC in Taiwan.
There are some problems with doing business in Latin America. Corruption (which manifests itself as bureaucracy that can commonly be accelerated by greasing palms) and taxation are both fairly high in many places. It's not all about how much you pay your workers.
In my opinion the potential for a greater Pan-American economy is the number one counterargument to Chinese global dominance. We have almost everything we need, right here in the Americas.
https://www.tmf-group.com/en/news-insights/business-culture/...
https://www.tmf-group.com/en/news-insights/articles/2018/jun...
Re: Intel chief Pat Gelsinger: Too many chips made in Asia
#139As he says here, the decision not to take risk and jump to EUV with TSMC and Samsung was the mistake that started this downfall and it snowballed. The decision happened somewhere in the pathfinding stage into 10nm. When Gerald Marcyk was running Intel components research back in the 2001 Intel was already considering using EUV lithography for the 45nm technology node that would come out 2007. It turned out that the s…
EUV is hard, but isn't part of the reason why only ASML can make those machines because of the CRADA they have with DOE as a member of the EUV LLC? I believe this agreement was why ASML wasn't allowed to sell their solution to China recently. I bet Intel will have no trouble buying EUV to bring in-house - especially if that serves US strategic interests.
They not only have no truble in buying it they likely have one or two systems.
But this systems are not easily produced neither fastely so between ordering them and getting them over a year might pass.
More importantly just having them doesn't allow you to actually use them properly. They are in a way quite a "raw" tool and the exact details of how you use them make major differences. And even if you know the best way to use them, that still doesn't mean you know the best way to create chips with them. Because chip layout (in it's details) has to be designed to fit the production process. Not doing so will lead to bad yield and or bad max. perf clock etc. Sometimes just improving how you layout some things while still using the EUV system the same way can make a major difference.
So it's not easy at all to switch.
I'm still positive they will long term manage to do so.
But it will take some time.
Which is why some parts which are not to much of their core business but can largely profit from TSCMs manufacturing process will be produced by them. And maybe as a bonus they will learn a trick or two from TSCM.
Re: Intel chief Pat Gelsinger: Too many chips made in Asia
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
EUV is hard, but isn't part of the reason why only ASML can make those machines because of the CRADA they have with DOE as a member of the EUV LLC? I believe this agreement was why ASML wasn't allowed to sell their solution to China recently. I bet Intel will have no trouble buying EUV to bring in-house - especially if that serves US strategic interests.
ASML only makes a few machines every year, you can't just buy them off the shelf IMHO banning sales of ASML's product to China is chest thumping protectionist nonsense - if you're worried about the rise of China's military then you should be tangling their economy up more with that of the West so that they have more reasons not to go to war rather than driving them to be self sufficient.
> if you're worried about the rise of China's military then you should be tangling their economy up more with that of the West so that they have more reasons not to go to war
That's not really how things work. You become powerful first through economic hegemony, and then you can assert military might.