Intel chief Pat Gelsinger: Too many chips made in Asia • Hacker News Board

Re: Intel chief Pat Gelsinger: Too many chips made in Asia

#201

Post by TeeMassive » Thu, Mar 25, 2021, 4:20 AM UTC

sigstoat wrote: post #68

TeeMassive wrote: post #44

This have been bothering me for a while. What would happen if for any reasons the biggest fabs are destroyed? It would take years to get more than half of a century of accumulated knowledge just from patents, and that's not even counting industrial secrets and all the economical machine needed to support such an industry. There have been projects focused on securing Humanity's technological knowledge in case of a wor…

> What would happen if for any reasons the biggest fabs are destroyed? it "just" takes some years and heaping piles of money to replace them. though probably more if you're trying to replace them all at once, as there aren't a lot of folks who make the equipment to rebuild the fabs. > It would take years to get more than half of a century of accumulated knowledge just from patents, and that's not even counting indust…

> it "just" takes some years and heaping piles of money to replace them. though probably more if you're trying to replace them all at once, as there aren't a lot of folks who make the equipment to rebuild the fabs.

You can't buy an economy. You'll need a petrochemical industry for example for all the insulators and other substances that go into the making of chips and you'll need mines for precious metals or recycle them from scratch and of course an energy industry. Just those few examples are their own are giant economical pyramids on their own rights, and would be very hard to replace even if most relevant university graduates made it alive to this point.

> sounds like you're more concerned about loss of the personnel and records, rather than the buildings.

I don't know you say this, I was more focused on the process as a whole on a macro scale.

> i mean, "world peace" is generally concerned with preventing it from being destroyed in the first place.

I never mentioned war in particular. Could be a solar flare, an asteroid, a plague (and look how we were prepared for this one).

Re: Intel chief Pat Gelsinger: Too many chips made in Asia

#202

Post by supernova87a » Thu, Mar 25, 2021, 4:32 AM UTC

Waterluvian wrote: post #15

America should use the "we need to spend spend spend to revitalize the economy" to domesticate more industry.

What is the point of "spend spend spend" without a strategy and top-down direction to it?

All we seem to care about in the US is "jobs". Generic jobs. Working class low wage jobs. Whatever jobs gets the public off a politician's back.

Not a lot of focus on whether those are useful jobs in long run, or strategically important jobs. Or we seem to end up after "spend spend spend" with some new financial derivative products, people employed to buy/sell them to each other (paid handsomely), and people who are left on the sidelines who didn't get to participate mostly.

At least other countries (I'm looking at Asia), less free and dictatorial they may be, decide what industries to make a strategic national priority and go after it.

Re: Intel chief Pat Gelsinger: Too many chips made in Asia

#203

Post by ojbyrne » Thu, Mar 25, 2021, 4:46 AM UTC

vimy wrote: post #143

Taniwha wrote: post #121

Earlier 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.

The next war will be fought with AI. It's essential the West stays ahead in chip technology, one of the few advantages we still have. It could be the difference between winning or losing a war with China. > tangling their economy up more with that of the West so that they have more reasons not to go to war This strategy failed, China wasn't interested in becoming like the West. We're in a new cold war, it's time peop…

I can’t decide whether to respond with either the (purported) Albert Einstein quote: “I do not know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”

Or Robert E Lee: “it is good that war is terrible, otherwise men would grow fond of it.”

Your fondness seems obvious though. I think I will go with a current colloquialism: “Just stop.”

Re: Intel chief Pat Gelsinger: Too many chips made in Asia

#204

Post by finiteseries » Thu, Mar 25, 2021, 4:49 AM UTC

totalZero wrote: post #138

tantalor wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 n…

Pan-American anything often boils down to just good ol’ NAFTA + Colombia.

Brazil and Argentina feed China, benefit from China’s presence re: the US, and Buenos Aires is as far away from Miami as London is. Throw in the guay’s cause geography, and Bolivia because Bolivia, most of South America’s productive land isn’t counter arguing.

Because any reasonably committed extent of that economy ends at the Amazon, it’s just NAFTA + Colombia + Peru + Chile. Colombia’s a great get and arguably already in progress, but Chile is tiny and Peru is far.

The rest is some of the most picturesque, violent, non trivially developed (expensive!) tropical geography on earth that’s been in the pits for centuries even by extractive colonial standards for a reason, with the Caribbean part anchored by Cuba and Venezuela.

Total population addition less than Mexico, spread across a region the size of Australia, with the “easy” wins a 1000 miles away tucked into the Andes.

Re: Intel chief Pat Gelsinger: Too many chips made in Asia

#205

Post by TeeMassive » Thu, Mar 25, 2021, 4:51 AM UTC

yourapostasy wrote: post #114

TeeMassive wrote: post #44

This have been bothering me for a while. What would happen if for any reasons the biggest fabs are destroyed? It would take years to get more than half of a century of accumulated knowledge just from patents, and that's not even counting industrial secrets and all the economical machine needed to support such an industry. There have been projects focused on securing Humanity's technological knowledge in case of a wor…

> ...I can't think of any project entirely focused on building from scratch and kick-starting the industrial motor of modern civilization. That's a national defense-scale ambition, and it is akin to asking, "what are the minimal constraints to reproduce X tech tree with Y years steady state sustainability?" You're basically asking what it takes to establish an independent human colony without support from home. The L…

I wasn't aware of the long now project, I'll look into it.

The point is that it's not totally from scratch and there's a very good proportion that can be passed on easily and a lot of trial & errors and research doesn't have to be done again.

Mathematics can be learned with only books, important concept such as calculus doesn't have to be rediscovered. Major scientific discoveries don't have to be reinvented. Hard learned mistakes can be learned from History without making them. Prospected resources location can be saved and are static by nature.

Also assuming that nothing whatsoever will remain is unlikely. Any such project should provision a set of plans to accommodate multiple level of destruction from the Bronze Age to pre-WW2 technology.

Having some kind of roadmap with essential milestones like making concrete and the Haber process will save a lot of time. Disseminating the information in different ways such as stone tablets (like the Voyager Golden Record) to micro films could be done in a large scale for redundancy and could also be done for relatively cheap.

Re: Intel chief Pat Gelsinger: Too many chips made in Asia

#206

Post by ojbyrne » Thu, Mar 25, 2021, 4:54 AM UTC

someperson wrote: post #132

Taniwha wrote: post #121

Earlier 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.

> 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…

I think the key counterpoint to your argument is “like all other things.” That’s the thing you’re calling a silly idea: wealth, trade, immigration, etc. I think it’s unclear which side wins, but getting Goebbels out of the White House certainly seems like a step back towards the “silly idea.”

Re: Intel chief Pat Gelsinger: Too many chips made in Asia

#207

Post by samus » Thu, Mar 25, 2021, 4:56 AM UTC

m463 wrote: post #110

ngngngng wrote: post #10

I'm stoked. I've been a bit of an Intel hater lately but more competition is good for everyone. Though I'm guessing other people are excited about these directions as well because their stock is pretty high at the moment.

There have traditionally been cycles and we all win. I remember years back when AMD became competitive with intel and then intel turned around and came out with fast cpus, and we had all kinds of choices. I think the PC is a really good thing we don't want to lose it. When we have competition it is better for customers with more choices, and employees who actually have to compete, and there are standard interfaces ne…

> there are standard interfaces new companies can develop for.

Not so much in x86/x86_64 though. This ISA is a minefield of patents if you want to do anything state-of-the-art. AMD and Intel have mutual licencing agreements with each other, which prevents any upstarts from competing with them. Any competitors will have to license ARM or invest into RISC-V.

Re: Intel chief Pat Gelsinger: Too many chips made in Asia

#208

Post by mjevans » Thu, Mar 25, 2021, 4:58 AM UTC

ironmagma wrote: post #165

outworlder wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've just learned that the ESP32 is manufactured on a TSMC 40mm process. That's essentially caveman tech. All those foundries based on old processes should be churning out at least equivalent (if not more capable) chips. Heck, forget ESP32, is there a ESP8266 equivalent that's entirely made in the USA? Would love to use that instead - for many reasons.

Hard for me to read the level of hyperbole here, but does that mean it’s something that could conceivably be manufactured in a home?

40nM is about 13 years old at this point, and has been replaced superseded several times.

https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/40_nm_lithography_process

Probably the only reason that line is still running would be validated long term stability products, or niche hardware designed with special application compatibility (E.G. radhard, higher end mil / aerospace concerns, maybe automotive).

Semiconductor tooling is rather expensive and I imagine that updating this to a more modern line would require overhauling and re-balancing many systems. It might help someone not familiar with the industry to imagine each technology node as an entirely new model of car.

Re: Intel chief Pat Gelsinger: Too many chips made in Asia

#209

Post by samus » Thu, Mar 25, 2021, 5:03 AM UTC

yongjik wrote: post #88

> "Having 80% of all supply in Asia simply isn't a palatable manner for the world to have its view of the most critical technology," Mr Gelsinger said. Eh, the whole set of FAANG plus Intel itself is based on American West Coast, and this guy's take is that so many chips being made in East Asia is not "palatable" for the world? There's nothing wrong with saying "That's a large pie they're eating and we want a bigger…

China has realized the truth of your counterargument long ago. Alibaba, Baidu, WeChat, Weibo, the list goes on.

Re: Intel chief Pat Gelsinger: Too many chips made in Asia

#210

Post by mjevans » Thu, Mar 25, 2021, 5:08 AM UTC

formerly_proven wrote: post #83

dragontamer wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

USA has some of the lowest cost of energy / electricity in the world and one of the best rail-freight systems in the world. Our passenger rail sucks and our people are expensive. But significant manufacturing remains in the USA (yes, we manufacture more today than ever before, despite the hoopla about outsourcing). There's a reason for that: USA has some pretty good advantages if you know what to look for.

I (we... us Europeans) often make fun of the US but when shit hits the fan the US often seems to be quite a bit better at actually getting stuff done .

America has a ton of capacity and we've got no true shortage of good (qualified) people.

Profit / rent-seeking and protectionism are the downfalls of my country (America). I identify that as the root fault of all of our social ills and inability to get work done outside of crisis and people with the right kind of crazy middle-finger to typical business interests drive to be the real life versions of our best superheros. I really do hope Elon Musk gets our species to building-across-the-street backup replication level.