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Intel to Acquire Tower Semiconductor for $5.4B

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Re: Intel to Acquire Tower Semiconductor for $5.4B

#71

Post by [deleted] »

smoldesu wrote: post #40
graderjs wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what I thought people would feel, and why I said I thought it would be downvoted. But thanks for letting me that's what you think anyway! I don't like to admit it because of how silly and weak I think it looks, but, yep I did feel it was unfair and I was showing a little bitterness there--correctly identified, ginko!--I felt sad about it, like "why no upvotes for me?"--but also posted it with a goodnatured thi…

You're not exactly Babe Ruth calling the shot on this one. If you post something that isn't intellectually gratifying and purely petty, then yes, you're going to be downvoted on Hacker News. If you posted something along the lines of "Here's the version that isn't paywalled" or "this article has a more interesting analysis", people wouldn't have dogpiled you. Instead, you buried the lede and mentioned some pseudo-exp…

[deleted]

Re: Intel to Acquire Tower Semiconductor for $5.4B

#72

Post by graderjs »

smoldesu wrote: post #40
graderjs wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what I thought people would feel, and why I said I thought it would be downvoted. But thanks for letting me that's what you think anyway! I don't like to admit it because of how silly and weak I think it looks, but, yep I did feel it was unfair and I was showing a little bitterness there--correctly identified, ginko!--I felt sad about it, like "why no upvotes for me?"--but also posted it with a goodnatured thi…

You're not exactly Babe Ruth calling the shot on this one. If you post something that isn't intellectually gratifying and purely petty, then yes, you're going to be downvoted on Hacker News. If you posted something along the lines of "Here's the version that isn't paywalled" or "this article has a more interesting analysis", people wouldn't have dogpiled you. Instead, you buried the lede and mentioned some pseudo-exp…

Interesting...

"Babe Ruth's called shot."

Heh, no not in this case :). I thought it was going to get downvoted quickly, but it didn't. edit: I see that finally it has hit 0, after many hours. So, I guess I was, similar to, Babe Ruth calling the shot, here. Heh :)

It was a real experiment, not pseudo.

Agree about the intellectually gratifying, and your alternative suggestions are good. I was considering something like that too (thought I posted in a reply, but I edited it out).

It wasn't purely petty, as I said, sportsmanlike. Is feeling something unfair, or feeling sad about something, petty? I don't think so, I think it's just normal...but like I said, I feel it's embarrassing to admit in this case, because it seems silly to me. But I guess...well I do care about it, so I guess it can't be that silly.

It wasn't fighting...not at all.

And I don't think people 'dogpiled' -- just sharing their perspective and/or trying to teach me something. And I learned something. So that's good. 'Dogpiled' is interesting, haven't heard that term before...

Wouldn't say I buried the lede, because there were only 3 parts to the post: link, scoop and experiment, and enough people saw it to get it many more upvotes...

Heh, you do seem to find a lot to disagree about, misrepresent, or take issue and criticize there (not sure exactly how to describe what you do above)...could it maybe be you who was looking to fight? I honestly don't feel like that, so please let's not continue. Peace, please? I would love that :)

Re: Intel to Acquire Tower Semiconductor for $5.4B

#73

Post by mmmBacon »

spupe wrote: post #2

Intel has a clear strategy of becoming a big player in the semiconductor industry in the next decade. I honestly think it will work. Many people have observed that it is a cash-intensive industry with tiny margins, but once these huge investments have been made and there are only two or three companies that can dominate the market for five to ten years, you can extract huge value before any competitor catches up.

Where do you get that the profit margins are tiny? TSMC has a net profit margin of 38%; that’s higher than Google (27%).

Re: Intel to Acquire Tower Semiconductor for $5.4B

#74

Post by mmmBacon »

throwaway4good wrote: post #13
lnsru wrote: post #11

When reading headline I was thinking about Intel removing its competitor. Then I searched a bit and found this: “ Tower Semiconductor Ltd. is an Israeli company that manufactures integrated circuits using specialty process technologies, including SiGe, BiCMOS, SOI, mixed-signal and RFCMOS, CMOS image sensors, non-imaging sensors, power management, and non-volatile memory as well as MEMS capabilities.” Looks like that…

So it is some kind of complement to Intel's business? By the price Intel is paying compared to Tower's revenue, it really sounds like Intel is paying a lot without being able to add anything?!

These technologies are key to certain high speed applications. As we move from monolithic devices to MCMs with lots of high-speed IO these technologies will be important.

Re: Intel to Acquire Tower Semiconductor for $5.4B

#75

Post by Shadonototra »

spupe wrote: post #2

Intel has a clear strategy of becoming a big player in the semiconductor industry in the next decade. I honestly think it will work. Many people have observed that it is a cash-intensive industry with tiny margins, but once these huge investments have been made and there are only two or three companies that can dominate the market for five to ten years, you can extract huge value before any competitor catches up.

They don't have a strategy, they react to their downfall and are rushing to find a solution

They are lucky the pandemic happened, it gave them the opportunity to take a step back and realize how screwed they are

Re: Intel to Acquire Tower Semiconductor for $5.4B

#76

Post by Fatnino »

HideousKojima wrote: post #46
Fatnino wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just how big do you think Israel is that you expect there to be a location not "near" Hamas or Hezbollah controlled territory?

"Near" and "Near but not within rocket/artillery range" are significant differences though.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_rocket_attacks_o...

Re: Intel to Acquire Tower Semiconductor for $5.4B

#77

Post by throwaway894345 »

daniel-cussen wrote: post #67
selectodude wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a lot more water in the Golan Heights, which is really why Israel decided to take it over in the first place.

Water is crucially important to fabs, true. But get real, water is important for everything in Israel, and why it had strategic value to warrant annexing it after the whole--the whole war that happened, the casus bellum of which cannot be done justice in short comments like this.

The parent said Israel took over Golan Heights for its water, not "...for its water for fabs".

Re: Intel to Acquire Tower Semiconductor for $5.4B

#78

Post by xadhominemx »

syshum wrote: post #21
nisegami wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kinda spooky how much of the cutting edge semiconductor fabs are in disputed territories...

they are purposely built their for Geo-political reasons, to ensure those area's stay "disputed"

Completely absurd comment. Israel is a minnow in the semiconductor manufacturing industry and many fabs are located in Taiwan because Taiwanese people invented the foundry business.

Re: Intel to Acquire Tower Semiconductor for $5.4B

#79

Post by cogman10 »

yvdriess wrote: post #5
the-dude wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment could have been written 50 years ago.

Compare the number of players with leading edge fabs then and now though.

Yup, the major change has been the capital to get new fabs off the ground has become unimaginable. TSMC is practically the only game in town for chip manufactures ATM, everyone else that will fab 3rd party designs is way behind.

GlobalFoundries state of the art, for example, is a 12nm process. TSMC sits at 5nm, about 4 generations ahead.

Re: Intel to Acquire Tower Semiconductor for $5.4B

#80

Post by duped »

cogman10 wrote: post #79
yvdriess wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compare the number of players with leading edge fabs then and now though.

Yup, the major change has been the capital to get new fabs off the ground has become unimaginable. TSMC is practically the only game in town for chip manufactures ATM, everyone else that will fab 3rd party designs is way behind. GlobalFoundries state of the art, for example, is a 12nm process. TSMC sits at 5nm, about 4 generations ahead.

There are trillions of dollars in capital floating around looking for a better place to park it than treasuries. Major infrastructural projects like semi fabs should be a no brainer - the risk is not that high due to evergrowing demand and the trust that governments won't let an Intel or TSMC fail.

Even just look at the VC landscape - there was $621 billion spent in venture capital globally last year, which is one of the worst ways to invest your cash.

Point being there's plenty of capital out there for giant projects like building fabs, I just don't think it's sexy enough yet or the financiers haven't taken a deep enough look while governments are expected to make the first moves.

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