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TSMC to make 4nm chips in Arizona for Apple, AMD, Nvidia

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Re: TSMC to make 4nm chips in Arizona for Apple, AMD, Nvidia

#81
post #55
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? Is the USA going to sell their chips to China? Because when Taiwan gets invaded the Fabs will be destroyed and/or made inoperable with no way to get them functional again.

> Because when Taiwan gets invaded the Fabs will be destroyed and/or made inoperable with no way to get them functional again. You can't know that. Taiwan might plan to do this, which China surely anticipates, thus in any invasion plans would be made to stop it - paratroopers dropping on top to seize control quickly during the night, covert operatives swooping in to take out critical personnel in charge of sabotage,…

China is decades behind and will stay so because the industry is not standing still either.

The chip machines need maintenance which the Chinese cannot do themselves. They don't have the knowledge. They'd need ASML (European company) for that.

Re: TSMC to make 4nm chips in Arizona for Apple, AMD, Nvidia

#82

My first job out of school was final test for a semiconductor in Phoenix that had a small fab in Gilbert. I remember we took a rabbit suited tour there as part of the new hire orientation, it was pretty neat. The one thing though that stuck with me is how much water a fab needs on a daily basis. I can’t remember the exact number, I just remember thinking how stupid it was to build fabs in Phoenix. But then again, the…

I wonder if they can reuse the water? I don’t know enough to know if this is PR speak or real.

https://www.globalwaterintel.com/news/2022/44/tsmc-leans-mor...

Re: TSMC to make 4nm chips in Arizona for Apple, AMD, Nvidia

#83
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We're experiencing the hard way how's like depending on the energy and resources of warmongering criminal dictators I'm not sure we're learning, though. At the moment, it seems that we are not only still buying the energy and resources from said warmongering criminal dictators (thus funding their war of aggression), but also setting up institutions to patrol gas pipelines, so that said dictator cannot blow them up…

> (thus funding their war of aggression) I see this repeated as a matra, in a way of Carthago delenda est. But it is not true. Said warmongering dictators do not need dollars or euros to wage any war. The entire chain of the war machine is in local currency, backed by local resources. They do not need anything there, that has to be bought for dollars or euros. They are not some third would countries that have to buy…

> Said warmongering dictators do not need dollars or euros to wage any war.

And how do they pay for “things”?

Re: TSMC to make 4nm chips in Arizona for Apple, AMD, Nvidia

#84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Already being planned by Intel. They're building a new leading edge fab in Magdeburg, Germany [1]. This is backed by the new European Chips Act [2]. Wheels have started turning very quickly with regards to home-grown semiconductors in 2022. [1] https://www.intel.co.uk/content/www/uk/en/newsroom/news/eu-n... [2] https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_22_...

How leading edge will Intel's Germany fab be when it's finished? 10nm++? While TSMC will be on what, 1nm by then? Intel's PR link doesn't go into details on this.

Intel's "10nm+" (non-EUV) processors compete rather fiercely with AMD's "5nm" (EUV) processors. The latter are weirdly not 2x better, not even close, on any metric. Hm.

Re: TSMC to make 4nm chips in Arizona for Apple, AMD, Nvidia

#85
post #32

Hopefully we'll do something like that here in the EU too. We're experiencing the hard way how's like depending on the energy and resources of warmongering criminal dictators; it would be wise to start moving away from technological dependence on China asap.

There's an "EU Chips Act" happening as well: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/09/a-revitalized-semicon... It makes sense. ASML are in the Netherlands, as are NXP. ST are in France. Germany has quite a bit of semiconductor production for the automotive industry. It'll be slow and expensive to get there though. There's not many places in the EU where you could simply drop a Shenzen in, demolishing historic buildings…

> ST are in France.

Yeah, about that:

"STMicroelectronics N.V. commonly referred as ST or STMicro is a Dutch multinational corporation and technology company of French-Italian origin headquartered in Plan-les-Ouates near Geneva, Switzerland"

The lengths French and Italian corporations will go to to avoid taxes and red tape in their home countries, it's almost poetic. Even Airbus is now headquartered in Leiden, Netherlands instead of it's original place of Blagnac, France.

Re: TSMC to make 4nm chips in Arizona for Apple, AMD, Nvidia

#86
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty sure. https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/4346

There is also the inflation reduction act that is very enticing to European industry giants that are facing hardship or downright insolvency due to their own governments stupid energy sanctions game. In fact NOW suddenly Macron and Scholz find it unfair that the US is snatching these company's. I can't say I have much sympathy for Europe. Well played US. I wonder to what extent you can get subsidies from both acts. I…

> due to their own governments stupid energy sanctions game

As if the US would have just kept buying 40% of its imported gas from Russia, were the roles reversed.

Re: TSMC to make 4nm chips in Arizona for Apple, AMD, Nvidia

#87

Hopefully we'll do something like that here in the EU too. We're experiencing the hard way how's like depending on the energy and resources of warmongering criminal dictators; it would be wise to start moving away from technological dependence on China asap.

Already being planned by Intel. They're building a new leading edge fab in Magdeburg, Germany [1]. This is backed by the new European Chips Act [2]. Wheels have started turning very quickly with regards to home-grown semiconductors in 2022. [1] https://www.intel.co.uk/content/www/uk/en/newsroom/news/eu-n... [2] https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_22_...

I always find it odd that companies always want to be build things outside of their home state

TSMC -> US

Intel -> EU

Toyota -> US

Honda -> US

Ford -> MX / Canada

GM -> MX / Canada

Re: TSMC to make 4nm chips in Arizona for Apple, AMD, Nvidia

#88
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (thus funding their war of aggression) I see this repeated as a matra, in a way of Carthago delenda est. But it is not true. Said warmongering dictators do not need dollars or euros to wage any war. The entire chain of the war machine is in local currency, backed by local resources. They do not need anything there, that has to be bought for dollars or euros. They are not some third would countries that have to buy…

> Said warmongering dictators do not need dollars or euros to wage any war. And how do they pay for “things”?

In roubles, for example.

Its not like those who are paid in roubles would have any use for any other currency. Everything they need can be paid for in roubles, turtles all the way down.

Sure, you won't get iphone, porsche or gucci wares for that, but those are not necessary to wage the war.

Re: TSMC to make 4nm chips in Arizona for Apple, AMD, Nvidia

#89
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's an "EU Chips Act" happening as well: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/09/a-revitalized-semicon... It makes sense. ASML are in the Netherlands, as are NXP. ST are in France. Germany has quite a bit of semiconductor production for the automotive industry. It'll be slow and expensive to get there though. There's not many places in the EU where you could simply drop a Shenzen in, demolishing historic buildings…

Also, there are laws to protect the environment in Europe. We’ve conveniently outsourced the dirty work to China etc.

How did we outsource it? We still have semiconductor manufacturing in EU. It's just way behind the cutting edge, and not because it's cleaner than the one in US or Taiwan.

Semiconductor manufacturing is dirty business. I live in the EU next to one such fab and whenever local environmental concerns are raised about the fab, since nasty chemicals are sometimes found in the river the plant uses, the official response is always "the exact process is confidential, we cannot allow external inspectors inside, but we can pinky swear we conform to all regulations via self audits" and the government rolls with that as the unofficial response is "stop bothering us about the environment or we relocate production to Asia and you're left with a bunch of unemployed engineers and tax hole in your city coffers".

Re: TSMC to make 4nm chips in Arizona for Apple, AMD, Nvidia

#90

Hopefully we'll do something like that here in the EU too. We're experiencing the hard way how's like depending on the energy and resources of warmongering criminal dictators; it would be wise to start moving away from technological dependence on China asap.

Actually, Europe is doing pretty good due to having a monopoly on making chip making machines via ASML in the Netherlands which relies heavily on Carl Zeiss in Germany.

Fun fact by the way, at some point Japan and Europe were very close in state-of-the-art semiconductor manufacturing while the US didn’t have the capabilities anymore because it was outcompeted by Japan. At that point, the US donated funds and 20 years of research to ASML since it was better than letting Japan win the race, according to Chip War by Chris Miller.

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