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Senate passes bipartisan bill to subsidize U.S.-made semiconductor chips

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Senate passes bipartisan bill to subsidize U.S.-made semiconductor chips

#111

Post by nerpderp82 »

Alupis wrote: post #25
01100011 wrote: post #16

Such a monumental scam and a gross theft from taxpayers. Companies making billions of dollars in profits don't need free money. I could be onboard with a subsidized loan, but handouts are not needed. FWIW, I work at a company that stands to benefit from this bill. Does the US need to secure reliable semiconductor supply chains free of China? Sure. This is not the most cost effective way to do it.

Clearly, handouts are needed to force/incentivize these companies to build new fabs in the continental US. Otherwise they would have built them under their own gumption by now. When there is no clear benefit for the company to fab chips in the continental US, and a lot of clear negatives (cost, regulations, etc) - you have to do something to outweigh the cons. If the US had been an amazing place to fab chips already,…

Fabs are only a small part of the supply chain. Any one of the thousands of critical components that go into maintenance or manufacturing put the whole thing at risk. Just dumping money on industry will not solve this. Having a dirt to package solution with everything domestically produced would and it doesn't need to be the latest process node, that is ridiculous and folks that advocate for that don't see the forest for the trees.

Re: Senate passes bipartisan bill to subsidize U.S.-made semiconductor chips

#112

Post by BeetleB »

ZetaZero wrote: post #95
Alupis wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, chips just become 20% more expensive in the US and the consumer loses... and the US still doesn't gain supply chain security. I don't think tariffs will work when the alternative requires massive outlay of capital and decades to recoup. Not to mention, there is no reality where manufacturing these chips in the US costs less than Taiwan, for example. There is no reason to build a fab in the US with the current eco…

Intel had profits of $20B last year. They could easily build a new modern fab every year if they wanted to. But it makes more sense for them to spend tax payers money instead.

> They could easily build a new modern fab every year if they wanted to.

And they are, and have always been.

Re: Senate passes bipartisan bill to subsidize U.S.-made semiconductor chips

#113

Post by jmyeet »

Anyone remember how the capital-owning class and their pet politicans were blaming inflation on Covid stimulus checks (eg [1])?

I want you to remember that when you see bills like this one.

Why? Because most of the Covid relief didn't go to individuals. It went to companies. In many cases, the stimulus was to avoid layoffs. Companies laid people off anyway (eg [2]) and used the money for share buybacks. Some governments used the money to build prisons (eg [3]). Biden, before testing positive for Covid, was intending to announce the use of Covid money for increased police funding [4].

My point is that very little of that Covid stimulus made it to consumers but it had a dramatic impact on temporarily eliminating or reducing poverty [5].

Yet giving people money is often viewed as a moral hazard.

Yet we're so willing to give away hundreds of billions to companies while not expecting them to take any sort of haircut on record profits in an era of massive inflation.

Also, let's not forget what happened to Wisconsin and Foxconn [6].

[1]: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jeff-bezos-joe-biden-inflation-...

[2]: https://publicintegrity.org/inequality-poverty-opportunity/c...

[3]: https://www.splcenter.org/news/2022/07/01/alabama-diverts-40...

[4]: https://apnews.com/article/biden-police-pennsylvania-wilkes-...

[5]: https://www.vox.com/22600143/poverty-us-covid-19-pandemic-st...

[6]: https://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/lake-county-news-sun/...

Re: Senate passes bipartisan bill to subsidize U.S.-made semiconductor chips

#114

Post by Bayart »

lettergram wrote: post #26

I disagree that subsidizing R&D to a few companies is going to make us more competitive. Look at GE or Boeing, it didn’t work out. What works is a free market. Raise import costs on CPUs and you’ll incentivize building in the US and more companies to form. It costs $0 tax dollars and brings in revenue and high paying jobs. Similar to what we did with car manufacturing.

Industries that heavy in frontloaded capital expenditures (like chip manufacturing) fare better with government support.

Re: Senate passes bipartisan bill to subsidize U.S.-made semiconductor chips

#115

Post by cwkoss »

dangrossman wrote: post #44
ParksNet wrote: post #39

Banning Proof of Work cryptocurrencies from being traded on licensed exchanges would achieve the same improvement of chip availability, as well as saving a huge amount of electricity, for $0. I guess sensible measures like this don't boost the share portfolios of politicians' spouses though.

Are the kind of chips being used to mine crypto the same kind that are keeping Ford from building trucks?

Nope. Sour grapes reaction.

US should use the demand to fund an effective semiconductor industry, not shrink the pie to account for its ineffectiveness.

Re: Senate passes bipartisan bill to subsidize U.S.-made semiconductor chips

#116

Post by ren_engineer »

pm90 wrote: post #20

WaPo article, which has more details about the bill and less details about what different “personalities” are saying: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/27/senate-ch... . Overall, it looks great. We absolutely need to fund more semiconductor manufacturing. Losing that ability to China/Taiwan was just a terrible strategic mistake. The US hasn’t lost this battle (over semiconductors) just yet. While curren…

main problem is that we are rewarding companies for being disloyal and offshoring in the first place, now they win again with free money after raking in profits for decades. We should have some funding for smaller companies and R&D but also massive tariffs to force companies to bring manufacturing back

Re: Senate passes bipartisan bill to subsidize U.S.-made semiconductor chips

#117

Post by Dracophoenix »

lettergram wrote: post #55
Cuuugi wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"What works is a free market. Raise import costs on CPUs and you’ll incentivize building in the US and more companies to form." Is the market really free with tariffs?

Yes it is, there’s always been taxes. Free market typically refers to regulations, free commerce (means ability to buy and sell), etc. that doesn’t mean no taxes, particularly tariffs. The US federal government was initially only able to make revenue from tariffs. Basically you control the borders, but inside the borders there are no control (ie free market). Once you deal between nations, you cannot have a perfectly…

A tariff is a regulation. Tariffs are the interstate commercial equivalent of Pigovian taxes. When the government puts its thumb on the scale of what should or shouldn't be sold with an extra cost attached, that is not a free market.

Re: Senate passes bipartisan bill to subsidize U.S.-made semiconductor chips

#118

Post by ApolloFortyNine »

acchow wrote: post #88
bpodgursky wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh I mean yes Boeing is kind of a mess right now, but it's ridiculous to argue that having Boeing based in the US isn't an enormous strategic advantage. Can you imagine a world where US airlines had to depend on either Airbus or Sukhoi planes? Do you really think that would be better?

> Can you imagine a world where US airlines had to depend on either Airbus or Sukhoi planes? Do you really think that would be better? Are we going to pretend 737MAX wasn't grounded for a year and half after 2 devastating crashes killing 346 people? I think a world without Boeing would have been clearly better?

>Are we going to pretend 737MAX wasn't grounded for a year and half after 2 devastating crashes killing 346 people? I think a world without Boeing would have been clearly better?

I seriously think you should consider reading the history of air travel, they don't say "regulations are written down in blood" for no reason. There's been many an accident due to a mechanical fault that's eventually remedied.

Its a tragedy but you seriously have to take a breath and think a little. If you want to get into a pissing contest over aircraft manufacturers, the air France 447 (airbus plane) crash was largely caused by the inputs being averaged together. On a Boeing plane, the inputs are synced (one side pushes down, the other side goes down as well). Maybe we should eliminate airbus as well.

Re: Senate passes bipartisan bill to subsidize U.S.-made semiconductor chips

#119

Post by Buraksr »

anfilt wrote: post #108
Buraksr wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TI's fabs are mainly focused on analog, so the requirements are a bit different. IIRC we have 3 130-65nm layers for digital in our mixed signal designs which is roughly on par with a the process technology Intel used in 2005.

The majority ICs used for products and such do not need bleeding edge node sizes.

True. That is part of the reason why only 3 of maybe 30-60 layers are that small.

Analog gets some signal integrity benefits from larger transistors, and often we have fairly large fets for low rdson and high voltage tolerance.

Re: Senate passes bipartisan bill to subsidize U.S.-made semiconductor chips

#120

Post by selimthegrim »

pm90 wrote: post #20

WaPo article, which has more details about the bill and less details about what different “personalities” are saying: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/27/senate-ch... . Overall, it looks great. We absolutely need to fund more semiconductor manufacturing. Losing that ability to China/Taiwan was just a terrible strategic mistake. The US hasn’t lost this battle (over semiconductors) just yet. While curren…

Manchin objected to reversing the cancellation of state and local tax deductions was my understanding. The piece is not clear on this.
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