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Intel to Receive $8.5B in Grants to Build Chip Plants

nytimes.com

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Re: Intel to Receive $8.5B in Grants to Build Chip Plants

#201

Post by FpUser »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #185
singhrac wrote: post #122

I think actually the problem with this program is not the recipient (I mean, Intel is literally the only American company building fabs in the US) but the structure. The problem with US fans is that the skilled Taiwanese workforce is simply willing to work for less and more flexibly. We could easily solve that problem if we were willing to do what China is doing, which is paying Taiwanese PhDs, engineers, and technic…

> Taiwanese PhDs, engineers, and technicians to come to the US Isn't this already present in H1B and other Skilled / extraordinary persons programs?

From the position of high value employee making good living: If I get a green card I will move. If I get a visa that ties me to employer and I am at the constant threat of being kicked out then fuck it.

Re: Intel to Receive $8.5B in Grants to Build Chip Plants

#202

Post by edward28 »

dotnet00 wrote: post #173
snapcaster wrote: post #75

I understand why Intel is getting these, but would be nice to see this money go to companies that are still innovating and are somewhere in the US coalition/orbit (TSMC, Samsung, etc.)

Intel is still innovating though? What's with everyone acting like they aren't innovating just because they aren't the leading performance x86 chip manufacturer? They're still shrinking node sizes, they've entered the GPU market, they're opening up their fabs to also make chips for other companies...

Bit hard to claim they are shrinking nodes, when Intel 4 claimed to be in production in 2022, but is still MIA except for low volume laptop products. And Intel 3 still has yet to appear.

Re: Intel to Receive $8.5B in Grants to Build Chip Plants

#203

Post by metaphor »

FredPret wrote: post #182
metaphor wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you come off with a straight face attempting to compare a bunch of fabless design houses with a company that actually owns the infrastructure and processes to make tangible products, even if not the prevailing sexiest thing? You're living in a bubble if you think the biggest money printer in the world actually cares about the historical performance of your cherry-picked stock comparisons.

Not 100% sure what you mean or why you're so antagonistic. Who's the money printer in your comment? Why are my stock comparisons cherry-picked? The companies I listed make money from chips. Besides - any investor can compare any two companies for market cap, revenue, and profit, even if one makes chips and the other sells sugary drinks.

My response was nothing more than a reflection of your remark echoed from a very different perspective.

The money printer I'm alluding to is the US federal government. They own the proverbial money trees that $8.5B in grants will be plucked from.

The US federal government is also the investor. They couldn't care less that the companies you're attempting to compare against "make money from chips". If the government wants money, they print it, end of story. Furthermore, these irrelevant companies aren't getting $8.5B big bucks for the simple reason that they don't have the independent capacity to make their own semiconductor products...they're fabless design houses, dependent on other companies' infrastructure and processes...more specifically, a certain most excellent company whose bleeding edge infrastructure and processes are physically located at the doorsteps of its greatest economic adversary.

What the US federal government more immediately cares about are sufficiently advanced fab owner operators, more specifically, those rooted deeply in domestic soil...and who better to incentivize than a domestic former alpha dog who ate his own breakfast. Intel isn't leading at the margins anymore, but they're certainly not out of the game.

If you're still not seeing the bigger picture, then I'd recommend reading this recently discussed[1] short story by Arthur C. Clarke to get a relevant feel for the underlying threat landscape.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39737084

Re: Intel to Receive $8.5B in Grants to Build Chip Plants

#204

Post by Workaccount2 »

curiousllama wrote: post #165
eitally wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a silly anecdote and I have a hard time believing chip fab line workers are too much different from those in other types of high-tech (where I spent 15 years working on test automation & quality systems). Some smart folks, for sure, but almost zero roles required even actual engineering background. A lot of management had strong technical education, but the vast majority of line workers are just following simp…

Having seen a few 'high tech' places myself: there's high tech, and then there's _high tech_. Assembling a motherboard is to semiconductor fabs as flying a toy drone is to landing a Boeing 747. One you can learn in an afternoon; the other takes years to learn.

One of the most critical aspects of engineering is making it so advanced high tech things can be manufactured by the least skilled and least number of skilled people possible.

Don't confuse that with the workers not being skilled - many are, but just like good software, you want your designs to run well even when executed by the worst hardware.

Re: Intel to Receive $8.5B in Grants to Build Chip Plants

#205

Post by duped »

curiousllama wrote: post #165
eitally wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a silly anecdote and I have a hard time believing chip fab line workers are too much different from those in other types of high-tech (where I spent 15 years working on test automation & quality systems). Some smart folks, for sure, but almost zero roles required even actual engineering background. A lot of management had strong technical education, but the vast majority of line workers are just following simp…

Having seen a few 'high tech' places myself: there's high tech, and then there's _high tech_. Assembling a motherboard is to semiconductor fabs as flying a toy drone is to landing a Boeing 747. One you can learn in an afternoon; the other takes years to learn.

Making PhD engineers operate/maintain/monitor a wire bonding machine seems expensive.

I worked in an R&D fab (albeit, as an intern, many years ago) with an abnormal number of PhDs around (the fab was essentially a small scale test bed for new products and processes - everything tested there first before scaling up overseas). I think we had a 5:1 ratio of techs to engineers. This was in a fab that basically did nothing but R&D and low volume manufacturing for defense.

It's comparable to any kind of high-tech manufacturing where you have engineers designing/testing stuff (and designing the tools to make and test the stuff in the first place) while there have to be techs/mechanics/machine shop workers to actually do the work of making it. It's inefficient and expensive to put the engineers on that task, while they'll still need to do it from time to time.

Re: Intel to Receive $8.5B in Grants to Build Chip Plants

#206

Post by adolph »

Esras wrote: post #188
up2isomorphism wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe too much money is exactly the problem? I rarely see people tackling hard problem for money, because it is not an efficient way of making money.

Too much money in what context? It can be an extremely effective motivator for solving a business problem - hire smart people to work on it, they'll happily go work for double their pay.

A baby can't be made in one month just because you had the money to hire 9 surrogates.

Many processes do not scale just because a money spigot turned on. What most often does scale as quickly as monetary availability is fraud, waste and abuse.

Re: Intel to Receive $8.5B in Grants to Build Chip Plants

#207

Post by curiousllama »

nickff wrote: post #192
curiousllama wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having seen a few 'high tech' places myself: there's high tech, and then there's _high tech_. Assembling a motherboard is to semiconductor fabs as flying a toy drone is to landing a Boeing 747. One you can learn in an afternoon; the other takes years to learn.

You cannot learn to assemble a motherboard using modern manufacturing equipment in an afternoon. Pick-and-place operation is a week-long course alone (specific to that machine, and assuming you are already familiar with the process), and there are at least a screen printer and reflow oven involved as well.

Yea fair lol - def an exaggeration. (And my experience is def not first hand, here)

But still - a lot easier than semiconductors

Re: Intel to Receive $8.5B in Grants to Build Chip Plants

#208

Post by Symmetry »

dotnet00 wrote: post #169
no_wizard wrote: post #106

Wouldn't GlobalFoundries (HQ in New York and supposedly on the "Trusted Foundry" list) have made more sense, since they fabricate chips for multiple different companies, where as Intel only makes them for Intel? Boosts a competitor, opens up fab capacity for all and moves the needle on the intentions behind the CHIPS act, all at once.

Intel has also been opening up their fabs to other customers in the past few months.

NVidia is actually doing a trial run of a non-critical product at Intel right now, and I'm guessing could possibly do more if it works out well.

Re: Intel to Receive $8.5B in Grants to Build Chip Plants

#209

Post by Workaccount2 »

asabjorn wrote: post #179
upheaval7276 wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re likely being downvoted for posting an opinion piece with zero supporting evidence.

Then the right response is, e.g. “Do you have any evidence that the CHIPS act require DEI?” Yes, see the relevant sections here: https://x.com/bonchieredstate/status/1766467529151557788?s=4... “Do you have any evidence that DEI distributes outcomes to favored activist identities?” A summary: https://youtu.be/n0fpeiFNWMY?si=eiCnRL0LX8RhOlxI Happy to provide evidence from woke literature if you are interested in eviden…

You could just link to the relevant sections of the bill.

Re: Intel to Receive $8.5B in Grants to Build Chip Plants

#210

Post by s1artibartfast »

TremendousJudge wrote: post #183
nyokodo wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Whether we look back in 20 years and think "wow glad we took that hit upfront" is anyone's guess Globalization is breaking down quickly. Chips are crucial to national security and our economy. The supply chain for advanced chips is heavily dependent on East Asia which is a geopolitical powder keg and a demographic time bomb. The only thing more expensive than whatever we end up with is chips unavailable at any pric…

>Globalization is breaking down quickly Is it? I don't know if there's a concrete way of measuring "amount of globalization", but I'd guess that right now we're probably the most globalized we've ever been. "More things that you use are made outside your own country" has only been growing, and with the advent of full remote companies that also includes much more software than before -- it used to be that only huge co…

Global trade as a percentage of global GDP peaked somewhere around 2011 and has been steadily declining.

If you look at the US in particular the relative value of imports and exports is down about 30% from the peak 10 years ago. That's a big change for such a short duration

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