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A Texas semiconductor boom on the horizon?

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Re: A Texas semiconductor boom on the horizon?

#11

Post by nwiswell »

delfinom wrote: post #2

It's debatable if it'll be much of a boom anywhere in the US. Most uses of chips are in cheap consumer junk overwhelmingly made overseas for bottom dollar. Second after that is actual serious uses for cars, not $1 electronics and more. And once you get into that category you have a finite market that is pretty much mature in terms of consumer reach. For all intensive purposes, the "EV demand surge" is over and existi…

> Most uses of chips are in cheap consumer junk overwhelmingly made overseas for bottom dollar

I don't understand your point. While true, those chips are made at historical process nodes using antiquated equipment. The plan isn't to buy antiquated equipment and try to compete. Friendly nations with low cost of labor and low geopolitical risk (ie., other than Taiwan) are perfectly capable of meeting our demands for old chips, given sufficient ramp time.

The lion's share of the value in semiconductors is at the leading edge. These are the chips that are used in phones, laptops, PCs, servers, GPUs, et cetera. The United States has never been interested in competing on volume.

We already are the world leader in producing (including manufacturing!) the cutting edge equipment that makes leading edge chips -- that is what we have denied China access to. The open question is whether we can "onshore" the actual manufacturing of leading edge chips again.

Strictly speaking, Intel has always kept their most cutting edge manufacturing onshore (Oregon), but I understand that has more to do with IP and cycle time reasons than cost.

An additional note: it is not necessary that a leading edge fab built today becomes a trailing edge fab in 5 or 10 years. There is a lively secondary market for used equipment specifically because of demand for the commodity chips you mentioned, so given that US labor costs are high, the old equipment would likely be sold and shipped to a low cost nation, and the US fabs repopulated with new equipment.

Re: A Texas semiconductor boom on the horizon?

#12

Post by bsaul »

justrealist wrote: post #6
delfinom wrote: post #2

It's debatable if it'll be much of a boom anywhere in the US. Most uses of chips are in cheap consumer junk overwhelmingly made overseas for bottom dollar. Second after that is actual serious uses for cars, not $1 electronics and more. And once you get into that category you have a finite market that is pretty much mature in terms of consumer reach. For all intensive purposes, the "EV demand surge" is over and existi…

The point is economic industrial independence for the US once Taiwan lights up. You're kind of missing the point.

not sure why you got downvoted, that seemed like a pretty reasonable thing to consider.

Re: A Texas semiconductor boom on the horizon?

#13

Post by dehrmann »

MengerSponge wrote: post #9
hooverd wrote: post #4

Faster calculators incoming?

I have a student who uses a TI-84. She's a high schooler taking university courses. Hers has a backlight and a USB-rechargeable battery, but it's basically the same machine otherwise. The downstream costs of how we do standardized tests are bonkers .

We're probably better off doing away with calculators for standardized tests.

There's a nice profit margin on those calculators, but there's also a floor price for electronics at play because at some point, making outdated chips, LCDs, PCBs, etc. doesn't actually get cheaper. So graphing calculators will always cost $30-$100.

While they're wildly outdated, it doesn't make sense to arm kids going into standardized tests with Chat GPT, or even Wolfram Alpha.

Standardized test math is pretty simple. Either design the test so a scientific calculator is enough, or better, keep the numbers small enough that it doesn't matter and have answers as simplified expressions, e.g. 6*sqrt(2).

Re: A Texas semiconductor boom on the horizon?

#14

Post by chrisco255 »

radicaldreamer wrote: post #10
MengerSponge wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a student who uses a TI-84. She's a high schooler taking university courses. Hers has a backlight and a USB-rechargeable battery, but it's basically the same machine otherwise. The downstream costs of how we do standardized tests are bonkers .

With LLMs being able to run locally on consumer hardware, I think we’re headed back to hand written tests pretty soon.

Yeah, even before LLMs, the more advanced TI calcs like the TI-nspire can have Calc and Physics apps loaded on them that make tests trivial to cheat on.

Re: A Texas semiconductor boom on the horizon?

#15

Post by retSava »

adamc wrote: post #7
delfinom wrote: post #2

It's debatable if it'll be much of a boom anywhere in the US. Most uses of chips are in cheap consumer junk overwhelmingly made overseas for bottom dollar. Second after that is actual serious uses for cars, not $1 electronics and more. And once you get into that category you have a finite market that is pretty much mature in terms of consumer reach. For all intensive purposes, the "EV demand surge" is over and existi…

Just an idiom note: It's "intents and purposes" not "intensive purposes". Easy to mis-hear, but something you want to remember before it makes you look ill-educated in a work memo.

It's also exactly the kind of humor I love. Intentional misuse of idioms, homonyms, intentional dangling modifiers, and the like. It's ok if people think I'm stupid, I can always prove them right!

Re: A Texas semiconductor boom on the horizon?

#16

Post by EricE »

edgyquant wrote: post #3
delfinom wrote: post #2

It's debatable if it'll be much of a boom anywhere in the US. Most uses of chips are in cheap consumer junk overwhelmingly made overseas for bottom dollar. Second after that is actual serious uses for cars, not $1 electronics and more. And once you get into that category you have a finite market that is pretty much mature in terms of consumer reach. For all intensive purposes, the "EV demand surge" is over and existi…

It may be debatable but the idea the chip surge is “basically over” is laughable. By your logic no nation should ever try to do anything economically because the economy is already done forming, the end of history is here.

Hey - no poking holes in this line of reasoning allowed. It’s a major tent pole of the global boiling religion - pesky human innovation blows too many holes on the “we are doomed - sacrifice your rights to fix it” narratives.

Re: A Texas semiconductor boom on the horizon?

#17

Post by koolala »

dehrmann wrote: post #13
MengerSponge wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a student who uses a TI-84. She's a high schooler taking university courses. Hers has a backlight and a USB-rechargeable battery, but it's basically the same machine otherwise. The downstream costs of how we do standardized tests are bonkers .

We're probably better off doing away with calculators for standardized tests. There's a nice profit margin on those calculators, but there's also a floor price for electronics at play because at some point, making outdated chips, LCDs, PCBs, etc. doesn't actually get cheaper. So graphing calculators will always cost $30-$100. While they're wildly outdated, it doesn't make sense to arm kids going into standardized tes…

VR Slide Rulers

Re: A Texas semiconductor boom on the horizon?

#18

Post by bob1029 »

> Underscoring this momentum, Samsung and UT announced a plan to formalize a years-long partnership between the two organizations to support a semiconductor manufacturing talent development pipeline.

I think this is a fantastic plan. Having an actual employer who will more-or-less take you by default is a much better value proposition for college than some other paths...

The proximity of the university campus to the existing A2/S2 lines should allow for quality field trip opportunities. I know how Samsung's management feels about strangers up on the catwalk, but that was the #1 thing that inspired me - Seeing the actual starship with my own eyes.

Re: A Texas semiconductor boom on the horizon?

#19

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

edgyquant wrote: post #3
delfinom wrote: post #2

It's debatable if it'll be much of a boom anywhere in the US. Most uses of chips are in cheap consumer junk overwhelmingly made overseas for bottom dollar. Second after that is actual serious uses for cars, not $1 electronics and more. And once you get into that category you have a finite market that is pretty much mature in terms of consumer reach. For all intensive purposes, the "EV demand surge" is over and existi…

It may be debatable but the idea the chip surge is “basically over” is laughable. By your logic no nation should ever try to do anything economically because the economy is already done forming, the end of history is here.

The primary motive is to have redundant fabs for defense critical infrastructure that is vulnerable to Chinese attack. That's why Micron is being gifted a new fab for DRAM production on the other side of the country in the midst of ongoing layoffs. Boosting production isn't the goal and CHIPS act will be a net money loser.

Re: A Texas semiconductor boom on the horizon?

#20

Post by diputsmonro »

EricE wrote: post #16
edgyquant wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may be debatable but the idea the chip surge is “basically over” is laughable. By your logic no nation should ever try to do anything economically because the economy is already done forming, the end of history is here.

Hey - no poking holes in this line of reasoning allowed. It’s a major tent pole of the global boiling religion - pesky human innovation blows too many holes on the “we are doomed - sacrifice your rights to fix it” narratives.

I'm not really sure how these are related at all. Technical innovations for electric vehicles are totally different than the technical innovations required for fighting climate change. We can be poised to make progress in one sector and skeptical about progress in another. Blindly hoping that some breakthrough will happen to fix all our problems and just barreling along carelessly is worse than what you're describing.
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