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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

#401

Post by speed_spread »

gentleman11 wrote: post #380
gen220 wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wasn't just intel, it was every semi-conductor manufacturer in the valley (hence the inability to find other work). They closed because it was cheaper to build in other countries, or to outsource from contractors who build in other countries (where organized labor doesn't exist). The U.S. lost thousands of high-paying (and tax-paying) labor positions and atrophied the skills that went with them. Intel profited fro…

How long until all those new workers are laid off again as intel goes back to overseas fabs?

Add the numbers get bigger and the risks increase, the number of "cheap labor" countries where investments in large tech infrastructure are safe is shrinking every year. Maybe South America? Intel has (had?) a fab in Costa Rica...

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

#402

Post by ulfw »

throwawaymaths wrote: post #386
ulfw wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What governments that aren't your allies? Chips are produced in Taiwan, in Korea, in Japan. In that order. Which of those governments is not allied with the US of A?

Read carefully :P close allies. Those allies are far allies. Sea lanes and supply chain risk is a real thing.

Is this some kind of joke? So who but Canada is your 'close ally' then?

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

#403

Post by hx8 »

rapsey wrote: post #9
hx8 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Due to the licensing agreements Intel and AMD have a duopoly on all modern x86 chips.

Who cares? You can buy performant arm64 laptops and servers. HPC is GPUs.

Not all software is compatible with arm64. Specifically I would be worried about attempting to run Windows applications not compiled for arm64, for which there are many. The compatibility layer Windows ships comes at a significant performance impact.

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

#404

Post by throwawaymaths »

ulfw wrote: post #402
throwawaymaths wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read carefully :P close allies. Those allies are far allies. Sea lanes and supply chain risk is a real thing.

Is this some kind of joke? So who but Canada is your 'close ally' then?

It is a joke but it's also true. The entire Japan South Korea Taiwan situation is at a high risk, if actual conflict breaks out, Taiwan is out, and SK and Japan become trickier on shipping insurance costs alone, assuming they choose not to get involved (they probably will)

Obviously Mexico is also a close ally.

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

#405

Post by postpawl »

gen220 wrote: post #347
rhelz wrote: post #132

WRT to lack of a skilled workforce, here is an interesting anecdote. I remember back in the late 90's, Intel had to fire most line workers in their FABS, and hire people with Ph.D.'s in solid-state physics. I actually knew one of these people who were fired: She was our housecleaner. And--like the supper-smart garbage man of the Dilbert Cartoons, she was very smart. Smarter than me. I know because she helped me solve…

It wasn't just intel, it was every semi-conductor manufacturer in the valley (hence the inability to find other work). They closed because it was cheaper to build in other countries, or to outsource from contractors who build in other countries (where organized labor doesn't exist). The U.S. lost thousands of high-paying (and tax-paying) labor positions and atrophied the skills that went with them. Intel profited fro…

> nice job, if you can get it

TSMC is paying around $23/hour to manufacturing technicians in Arizona. They’re also sending people to Taiwan to get trained and apparently it’s brutal enough that most people drop out of the program.

Asianometry did a video on this recently: https://youtu.be/Nk-lBok9_TU

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

#406

Post by whimsicalism »

WWLink wrote: post #385
gen220 wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wasn't just intel, it was every semi-conductor manufacturer in the valley (hence the inability to find other work). They closed because it was cheaper to build in other countries, or to outsource from contractors who build in other countries (where organized labor doesn't exist). The U.S. lost thousands of high-paying (and tax-paying) labor positions and atrophied the skills that went with them. Intel profited fro…

Honestly it blows my mind they were able to give control of one of the most important industries in the world over to a foreign country like that.

[flagged]

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

#407

Post by whimsicalism »

nyokodo wrote: post #94
icyfox wrote: post #79

Right now one of the biggest blockers in on-shoring semiconductor fab at any kind of reasonable price-point and timescale is the lack of a skilled workforce. This legislation has dual objectives: train new people to get into sophisticated manufacturing AND to build out the actual infrastructure itself. That almost guarantees it won't be the most efficient way to actually get these chips on American soil. Whether we l…

> 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 because of actions being led by the US. It is not some inevitable process that we have to pre-empt, rather it is actively precipitated by our actions.

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

#408

Post by HarHarVeryFunny »

sevagh wrote: post #364
HarHarVeryFunny wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems that what happened to Intel was a lot worse than just missing Andy Grove's paranoia... - They missed the mobile market - They missed the gaming market - They missed the AI/ML market - They got multiple generations behind TSMC and Samsung in the fab business - They lost a whole bunch of market share to AMD, including datacenter The NY Times article is paywalled, so I can't read it, but I have to wonder what k…

Actually, Intel has been consistent with their specialized CPU DNN libraries and whatnot for years. MKL and the likes are pervasive in modern deep learning stacks. Pretty sure they've captured as much of the AI/ML business as CPUs possibly can. Also, by gaming do you mean gaming consoles or gaming PCs? Because Intel is popular in gaming PCs also.

Sure, but those are CPU libraries, but what has grown NVIDIA into a $2T company wasn't building CPUs - it was building processors specific to this new and exploding field of ML/AI, which grew out of them building processors (GPUs) specific to the growing field of realtime PC-based gaming...

Is the problem that Intel saw themselves too narrowly as in the CPU business rather than as in the compute business? I've no idea - it'd be interesting to hear the inside story of how all these missed opportunities went down.

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

#409

Post by chpatrick »

WWLink wrote: post #385
gen220 wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wasn't just intel, it was every semi-conductor manufacturer in the valley (hence the inability to find other work). They closed because it was cheaper to build in other countries, or to outsource from contractors who build in other countries (where organized labor doesn't exist). The U.S. lost thousands of high-paying (and tax-paying) labor positions and atrophied the skills that went with them. Intel profited fro…

Honestly it blows my mind they were able to give control of one of the most important industries in the world over to a foreign country like that.

Brain drain is a bitch

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

#410

Post by TuringNYC »

WWLink wrote: post #385
gen220 wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wasn't just intel, it was every semi-conductor manufacturer in the valley (hence the inability to find other work). They closed because it was cheaper to build in other countries, or to outsource from contractors who build in other countries (where organized labor doesn't exist). The U.S. lost thousands of high-paying (and tax-paying) labor positions and atrophied the skills that went with them. Intel profited fro…

Honestly it blows my mind they were able to give control of one of the most important industries in the world over to a foreign country like that.

>> Honestly it blows my mind they were able to give control of one of the most important industries in the world over to a foreign country like that.

The engines of capitalism only look 1 quarter ahead. And the politicians who support them only look up to the next election. Unless you are majority or largely controlled by your founders, who care about building a good legacy.

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