The machines from ASML are just tools (very precise and high-tech tools, but still tools) for one step in the semiconductor fabbing process. They don't come with a manual describing the entire process, but are more like a software library: useless without a lot of infrastructure and process know-how and other tooling around them. That's why TSMC still has a significant process advantage to other manufacturers, even t…
if they are "just tools", why doesn't TSMC just build them themselves? I'm not hearing any major challenges here that couldn't be overcome in the EU, considering the EU is capable of building some of the machines which are state of the art. yeah, you need capital and workforce and a bunch of other things. those aren't really blockers though. I think maybe there is no point, since it would cost more than TSMC, so bett…
> if they are "just tools", why doesn't TSMC just build them themselves?
If TSMC isn’t doing anything special why doesn’t the EU just build fabs then?
> I'm not hearing any major challenges here that couldn't be overcome in the EU, considering the EU is capable of building some of the machines which are state of the art.
No it is not, which is the reason it will end up in nukes. There are a ton of well researched papers on this. Taiwan is well dug in and any invasion perpetration would be seen months in advance. To be clear, if the USA defense of Taiwan leads to the extinction of the human race, so be it. We should have destroyed nazi germany in 1939. Fīat jūstitia ruat cælum. We are not worthy to survive if we do not defend democrac…
What the hell... No, you don't destroy the human race because you don't like a form of government, that's just insane. And the Allies did destroy Nazi Germany, what the hell are you talking about. Maybe you wanted to say should've moved on to destroy the Soviet Union?
No I was clear. The US should have stopped Hitler at the start of 1939 but we waited until Pearl Harbor to get involved. It was a clear moral failing on our part. As to the USSR, the western powers were willing to risk the planet to stop them in the Cold War and I am not saying anything different here about China. If the USSR had invaded West Germany there would have been war. I am saying if China invades Taiwan it should be treated the same way. Are you saying that NATO should not have defended West Germany in the event of an invasion by the USSR because it risk the end of the human race? Tell me where do you draw the line? It was clear when it was Europe to most people yet some people seem to have an issue when the same logic is applied to non-Europeans of Taiwan.
Democracy is worth defending even at the risk to the human race. We as a race are not worth our own existence if we do not understand that.
Problem is the EU is not as "united" as the above examples. Which country gets the fab (and reaps the benefit) if the EU provides subsidies (Paid for by all)?
This is also why there won't ever be a European Silicon Valley. Paris isn't going to support any Europe-wide effort to create one that isn't located in the Hexagon, nor will Berlin support one that isn't somewhere in Germany. London pre-Brexit would not and did not support anything that might take away from Silicon Fen. While other US states encourage their own tech centers' growth, Floridians and New Yorkers and Tex…
I look at it the other way: that's why Europe is a better place to live than US
we can chose to live in Rome, Berlin, Paris, Prague, Barcelona, Vienna, Stockholm, Amsterdam, Bruxelles, Lisbon etc. etc. and find something meaningful to do, we don't need to move to the only place where all the things happen.
"European chip and auto companies, for their part, are mostly lined up against the idea. They would prefer subsidies for the older-generation chips that are heavily used by car manufacturers and are in short supply. Many of TSMC's most lucrative customers, such as Apple, are U.S.-based, while its European customer base is made up of mostly of automakers buying less-advanced chips." Oh boy... This is exactly why EU wi…
>Tesla owns VW now. One is a company that make less money selling cars than trading bitcoins and emission certificates. The other is selling more cars than anyone else. It's less than 500.000 cars a year versus 2.8 million cars with just one brand from the VW group (out of 12). Edit: According to VW's news site "Volkswagen delivered around 5.3 million vehicles in 2020". That does not include vans or trucks. Tesla lik…
>The other is selling more cars than anyone else. It's less than 500.000 cars a year versus 2.8 million cars with just one brand from the VW group (out of 12).
Plus 231600 EVs sold in 2020 across all brands. It's no longer a battle between an EV company vs an ICE company. It's a battle between an EV company vs an ICE+EV company where the EV portion alone is half the size of the first EV company.
As someone from Africa with knowledge of USA involvement in toppling some governments here, I sometimes wonder who's worst? A country I know for certain it has invaded unilaterally others (USA) or a country with potential of one day in the future for invading countries (China).
Please share the examples of the US “unilaterally invading” countries in Africa. I’m not aware of an example, but I’d love to learn something new. If you are using fuzzy rhetoric to refer to various forms of political interference (clandestine or otherwise, legal or otherwise)... I would agree. But then the comparison vs. China and other world powers gets a lot muddier. Even the comparison between world powers and lo…
You have misread the comment and mixed up two separate but undeniably true things:
1. "... USA involvement in toppling some governments here" - if we go by the 20th and 21st Centuries we have at least Egypt (1952), Angola (from 1975 onwards), Congo/Zaire (1960s, 1977, 1978, 1996) and most recently Libya (2011).
2. "A country I know for certain it has invaded unilaterally others (USA)" - so numerous and well known it's pointless to bother listing them.
The chilling implication behind some Taiwanese downplaying the threat is that they think it'll be relatively bloodless. That is, they plan to surrender once China feels comfortable enough about its naval balance against the US to pull the trigger. Taiwan under new management doesn't affect their retirement. The king is dead, long live the king. After all, its their lives they'll be needlessly throwing away if America…
The US sent an Aircraft Carrier battle group to the region because of these tensions: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-southchinasea-usa/u-s-car... (Jan 24, 2021) A single US aircraft carrier is accompanied by a strike force of (IIRC) dozens of other ships, one or more submarines, anti-ship cruisers, anti-aircraft cruisers, and anti-submarine cruisers, logistics, etc. They carry a large number of aircraft and those…
I'd say the US is only partially sensitive to those islands in the south China sea in how they impact maritime navigation for their navy. Key to understanding the SCS dispute is that in comes in two parts. One is who the islands, the actual land, belongs to. Second is how the land impacts maritime rights over the surrounding waters in terms of control over navigation and natural resources. The US has taken no explicit position on the land and only defends a subset of maritime rights useful to itself. It has supported none of the land claims of the other parties, hasn't pledged support to defend the islands of the Philippines, arguably it's closest historical ally in the dispute, it hasn't done anything to stop China's island construction or seize them before they were fortified, and it hasn't done anything to protect local fishermen from being pushed out of fishing grounds by the Chinese coast guard. The only thing the US has done is maintain its right to sail its navy wherever it chooses and dare all the countries in the region, not just China, to stop them. Arguably these half-hearted exercises and the US's refusal to take a side in the territory dispute is why a lot of other countries in the region are lukewarm about aggressively staking their claims. The US is fighting for a narrow set of interests that benefits itself but will not fight for the interests of other claimants that have no direct benefits to the US Navy. If the Philippines decides to build an airstrip on one of their islands and China starts intercepting their construction crews or even goes as far as amphibious landings the Philippines has little faith that the US won't just frame this as a problem they instigated themselves.
Tesla are good electric cars, the best in their categories, but Europe has no problem to produce good electric cars that are the best in their categories too. The VW group is doing particularly well these days, with the ID4 or the Taycan for example.
I was on the market for a new car this year in Europe and was happily surprised that every European brand now, not just VW, is offering a fully electrical model, at least, and several traditional models are offered as plugin-hybrids as well. Audi has the e-tron[1] already, and plans to have every model it sells come with a fully electric version before 2030[2]. BMW has been selling the i3 fully electric model since 2…
I see ID.3s and ID.4s every day. Renault Zoe are quite common. Sometimes you get to see an e-up.
Teslas are exceedingly rare. I remember being excited about them in 2017 but nowadays I don't care anymore.
Of course because I am living in Germany it feels like half the cars on the road are VWs so VW dominance is not surprising, at least that is how I feel it subjectively.
> if the next Korean president will be a gullible populist (which is now a close probability.) Is it? Anti-CCP sentiment is super high in Korea now. And it seems like the right-wing parties are capitalising on that.
The right is also pro-business. Lowering heat on China in exchange for concessions for Korean business is what I am afraid.
Lots of business to pursue without scaring your military allies and feeding the ravenous dragon on your front porch.
It's a little bit more complicated. TSMC wants subvention for building the fabs, but the chips that will be produced will be sold elsewhere. So the EU gains nothing from it but costs. The EU needs a european chip manufacturer and developer not a subsidiary of Intel or TSMC
Guess what by putting a factory doing the newest node you educate a whole new generation of engineers that can build and run those next fabs.
That explains why global foundries stopped building leading edge fabs.
It only sounds good in the news, in practice it is a money pit, not a competitive advantage. You only do it because of national security.
I don't think EU cuts deals with specific companies. What would TMSC expect here? That EU gave them money straight up? I don't know how this would work, but maybe I am missing something. If anything, EU would create a generic fund to subsidize any such investment coming from any company interested, but at EU level, it would definitely take time. Or they can talk to individual countries about subsidies, just like they…
The USA (or states do), China does, even my little country of New Zealand does (our tax dollars fund Hollywood blockbusters). If the EU doesn't they are only going to miss out.
You realize you completely missed the point of my post?