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

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171–180 of 543 posts

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

#171
post #144

I find it comical that the US educates more than 90% of top engineers yet we don’t control 90% of crucial chip-making assets. We need to implement some type of conditions for anyone seeking education here in the US especially in institutions that are backed by US tax dollars. We need to stop handing out education to the very people who are dead set on competing against our national interests. In other words, stop tra…

> we need to stop handing out education …stop training the enemy

Seems a little harsh and nationalistic? Not an American so maybe I’m way off base here, but in a country where people already pay exorbitant prices for higher education, what would you propose?

Unless I misunderstood you, I don’t think banning foreigners will solve your problem.

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

#172
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Yeah, but local fabs in Europe are far, far away from Intel, TSMC and Samsung. Infineon, NXP and STM are wayy behind.

This is largely because Europe became infatuated with austerity and its industrial policy has suffered as a consequence. You want big, cutting-edge fabs? You’re going to need to spend public money getting them off the ground. TSMC’s success is in part due to Taiwan itself designating semiconductors as a key strategic economic interest years ago and making investments/tax breaks accordingly

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

#173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess its that the Japanese Company can make cars profitably anywhere but making cars for the US market in the US means there's no/less import taxes, also because the factories are huge they often get local tax breaks, and the cars may also eligible for EV/hybrid tax credits (I think Toyota have sold over 200K so there cars can no longer get this). I think making cars in Mexico for the US became less worthwhile whe…

>US became less worthwhile when Trump pulled the US out of NAFTA. lol, trump did not "pull the US Out of NAFTA" not only is that not with in the power of the president to do, it was never on the table, NATA was replaced with USMCA, and only made a few small changes, for Automotive that means 75% of the vehicle components must be made in MX, US, or Canada, up from 64% under NAFTA Nothing in the law would impact making…

OK - but he signed a deal with Mexico that replaced it and didn't the new deal mean that more parts had to be from the US and half the car factory workers needed to pay $16 an hour - which would make Mexico less attractive?

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

#174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Don't want to start a fight, but honestly, I only ever hear those types of arguments from people who don't use Apple hardware. People who do, in large majority, do it for two reasons: - build quality; - it mostly just works.

"- build quality"

When I worked as an Apple laptop repair tech, that was almost nonexistent. 2/3 logic boards shipped in to be used for repairs on customer computers were faulty.

"- it mostly just works"

Imagine a laptop perpetually-stuck on OSX 10.2.4 that can't ever upgrade or it borks the system - that was my experience dealing with Apple laptops years ago as a repair tech. School system iBooks and PowerBooks were the worst offenders, and Apple had no discerning way to let you know which image belonged on which hardware, so we were always having to reimage laptops in hopes we picked a proper image for them.

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

#176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>US became less worthwhile when Trump pulled the US out of NAFTA. lol, trump did not "pull the US Out of NAFTA" not only is that not with in the power of the president to do, it was never on the table, NATA was replaced with USMCA, and only made a few small changes, for Automotive that means 75% of the vehicle components must be made in MX, US, or Canada, up from 64% under NAFTA Nothing in the law would impact making…

OK - but he signed a deal with Mexico that replaced it and didn't the new deal mean that more parts had to be from the US and half the car factory workers needed to pay $16 an hour - which would make Mexico less attractive?

> didn't the new deal mean that more parts had to be from the US and half the car factory workers needed to pay $16 an hour

Both were proposed changes that were not adopted in the final version.

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

#178
post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>typically cheaper labour. While a factor, labor costs alone are the primary reason. In reality is more about the wider regulatory burden on a company, including environmental controls That said it does not explain why a Japan Company can make cars profitably in the US but a US Manufacturer can not. If it was only labor why would Toyota not have a factory right next to GM's in Mexico and import cars from Mexico to t…

I thought Japanese car factories in the US were all non-union (as opposed to the US brands)? Toyota does have a Mexico factory at least according to Wikipedia.

Correct, the Honda/Toyota plants in the USA are non-union.

Interestingly enough the “Clean Energy for America” bill pushes for additional tax incentives on EV's built by companies using union labor:

More specifically, the proposal says that electric vehicles assembled in the United States would qualify for a $10,000 tax credit while EVs that are built at facilities whose production workers are members of, or represented by, a labor union would be eligible for the full $12,500 credit.

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

#179

Poor Taiwanese people... their security insurance has just been cancelled. I wonder how many days after the first successful batches of chips coming out of the Arizona fab will China invade Taiwan. I do hope not, but realistically: with high-end chips being made on US soil, the US will have very little interest in protecting Taiwan, apart from maybe blocking China from also acquiring the tech.

People really blow out of proportion the importance of TSMC. Taiwan is valuable to the west because of its strategic location. TSMC could disappear tomorrow and the US will still have to defend it. The day Taiwan fall is the day the US loses its dominance.

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

#180
post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do we even want cutting edge fabs in Europe? We have no companies that design cutting edge logic chips here. Literally none. Why invest 20 billion dollars (or what is the price of a cutting edge fab these days?) to create supply without demand? Or do we seriously expect that US companies will generate significant demand even though TSMC and Samsung are already building heavily subsidized fabs in the US ?

> or what is the price of a cutting edge fab these days? Intel says they're going for two factories of 20 bln indeed [1], Samsung for 17 bln in Taylor, Texas [2], and Micron claims to go for 100 bln (over time) in Clay, New York [3]. > Why invest 20 billion dollars [...] to create supply without demand? Why do we have to pay about 5 dollars per month for a VPS with only 1 vCPU, 1 GB RAM, and 10 GB storage? I'm certai…

Re your last point: cloud specs are already far beyond that. Cloud companies just pocket the difference. Cloud lets hosting companies benefit from Moore’s law, not you.

Look at the machine you can build for one months’ typical AWS cost for a medium size SaaS company.

Cloud also charges insanely high rates for bandwidth.

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