Germany paying $5.5B for Intel fab • Hacker News Board

Re: Germany paying $5.5B for Intel fab

#161

Post by alaricus » Tue, Jun 07, 2022, 3:47 PM UTC

Sakos wrote: post #145

alaricus wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Subsidizing an American company is not necessary for Germany's security. In fact, it undermines it.

Ideally, the EU would be trying to build its own semiconductor industry. I don't see that kind of foresight in any of our political leaders, much less mine in Germany. So the next best thing is to ensure that the current company we're reliant on builds local production.

Some of the current German leaders (like Annalena Baerbock) are too subservient to American corporate interests.

Re: Germany paying $5.5B for Intel fab

#162

Post by qiskit » Tue, Jun 07, 2022, 3:47 PM UTC

jakobov wrote: post #85

waterlaw wrote: post #43

Intel spent tens of billions on stock buybacks and now they're getting subsidies to build fabs. Why does the middle class taxpayer have to bail everyone out, with lower living standards due to taxation and inflation.

It's about national security. A fab is necessary for national security

> It's about national security. A fab is necessary for national security

How does germany funding a foreign/non-german company's fab part of national security? What about expelling a foreign occupying force? If the germans cared about national security, shouldn't they be looking in that first?

If germany was funding a german company's fab, it would be national security. What germany is doing is paying tribute to a dominating foreign empire. No different than india sending their goods to britain during the colonial period.

Re: Germany paying $5.5B for Intel fab

#163

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jun 07, 2022, 3:47 PM UTC

unfocused wrote: post #104

It's going to be a while before we are not depending on China. If you look at this 2020 Apple List of Suppliers: https://www.apple.com/supplier-responsibility/pdf/Apple-Supp... you can see the large variety of companies they they rely on for manufacturing. Plugging this into Excel, you get the following distribution: Country Count: China 156 Japan 40 US 30 Taiwan 26 South Korea 23 Vietnam 21 Malaysia 15 Philippines 1…

[deleted]

Re: Germany paying $5.5B for Intel fab

#164

Post by alaricus » Tue, Jun 07, 2022, 3:48 PM UTC

N19PEDL2 wrote: post #108

How many RISC-V research centers could be created with that money?

A lot.

Re: Germany paying $5.5B for Intel fab

#165

Post by qiskit » Tue, Jun 07, 2022, 3:48 PM UTC

alaricus wrote: post #107

jakobov wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's about national security. A fab is necessary for national security

Subsidizing an American company is not necessary for Germany's security. In fact, it undermines it.

No post body was provided.

Re: Germany paying $5.5B for Intel fab

#166

Post by mike_hearn » Tue, Jun 07, 2022, 3:48 PM UTC

Sakos wrote: post #145

alaricus wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Subsidizing an American company is not necessary for Germany's security. In fact, it undermines it.

Ideally, the EU would be trying to build its own semiconductor industry. I don't see that kind of foresight in any of our political leaders, much less mine in Germany. So the next best thing is to ensure that the current company we're reliant on builds local production.

Note that the act of giving subsidies to foreign companies automatically kills any case for investing in a truly local chip company, because you can't easily compete against that.

Re: Germany paying $5.5B for Intel fab

#167

Post by alaricus » Tue, Jun 07, 2022, 3:48 PM UTC

wongarsu wrote: post #75

alaricus wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a very bad policy. We should instead invest in local companies, not a American monopoly like Intel.

Having an established player that trains and employs workers creates a pool of experienced workers in the area. Those are exactly the kinds of people to get a local competitor started.

There are lots of local semiconductor companies (Infineon, Bosch). This money would be better spent on them.

Re: Germany paying $5.5B for Intel fab

#168

Post by bottled_poe » Tue, Jun 07, 2022, 3:50 PM UTC

cinntaile wrote: post #134

mmastrac wrote: post #2

Investing in local chip fabs is long overdue. These are incredibly important for geopolitical stability and should be distributed world-wide. We've centralized too many fabs in too few places in the search for low cost.

I don't think this is why fabs were centralized. I think this is because when you start to decrease node size, the fab costs go up astronomically so to keep the cost in check you need economies of scale and with the current manufacturing techniques you can achieve this by centralizing manufacturing.

Seems to me that most software is horribly inefficient anyway. If push came to shove we might just consider making better software?

Re: Germany paying $5.5B for Intel fab

#169

Post by jotm » Tue, Jun 07, 2022, 3:51 PM UTC

raxxorraxor wrote: post #72

mcdermott wrote: post #44

It's too late for Intel. x86 doesn't have a future, ARM64 SoC architectures like Apple's M1 (TSMC) are the future of computing. Just as fast (and often faster in many benchmarks) with only 20-25% the power consumption and heat. Even Microsoft is preparing for the shift to ARM, at Build 2⁰22 they announced project Voltera, an ARM Windows 11 PC loaded with Visual Studio 2022 and .NET 7 all for ARM to give devs a head s…

And the desktop will die as well. Even the fans of x86 say that it sucks but it still remains the main target for serious software. Microsoft first needs to recapture their developers. They still have those that target their platform with Visual C++.

Been thinking for a while - I need some serious BGA rework equipment and some training because I'd rather die in a ditch than not be able to replace any components in my computer :D

At that point, might as well start my dream recycling business where we desolder, test everything and sell them as parts. They do it in China at scale, why not Europe... Main question is, would there be enough buyers? Small repair shops are also dying...

Re: Germany paying $5.5B for Intel fab

#170

Post by Pxtl » Tue, Jun 07, 2022, 3:52 PM UTC

baybal2 wrote: post #16

mmastrac wrote: post #2

Investing in local chip fabs is long overdue. These are incredibly important for geopolitical stability and should be distributed world-wide. We've centralized too many fabs in too few places in the search for low cost.

This will not do much with Taiwan being a single source for semiconductor manufacturing supplies. Much of critical blockers for chemicals, consumables, materials will still be in Taiwan just because the semi industry is that huge there. All 300mm fabs working outside of Taiwan are just few shipments of consumables away from stalling all the time. When Russia attacks Ukraine, the 3rd world is fucked. When China attack…

Resource extraction and refinement are much lower capital-cost infrastructure than a chip fab. If, God forbid, all the eggs in that one basket get smashed, it's far more feasible for that infrastructure to be developed elsewhere.

It would still suck in the interrim, of course.