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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

#421

Post by pbiggar »

34679 wrote: post #68

I feel sorry for any startups looking to innovate in this space. It's hard enough competing against established players without them getting billions in free money. Intel has had the resources to build out fabs in the US for decades. Instead, they've chosen to build elsewhere, and now they're rewarded for it? They recently announced their $20b facility in Ohio is being "put on hold": https://www.tweaktown.com/news/96…

Imagine announcing you're going to build a plant in Israel in the middle of Israel committing a genocide of the Palestinians in Gaza. Evil company

https://bdsmovement.net/Press-Release-BDS-Launches-Boycott-I...

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

#422

Post by missedthecue »

btbuildem wrote: post #244
lenerdenator wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The goal of a corporation is to generate value for shareholders, and we don't give any incentives for them to do otherwise.

I ask again, who are these "shareholders" and why do we continue to play along with this monumental scam?

They're 0.5% of the S&P index. So if you have a million dollar negg egg you've got about $5000 with the company.

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

#423

Post by coliveira »

typ wrote: post #416
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…

It's wasn't just the semi-conductor manufacturers either. The PRC had the supply chain from the bottom up (to some extent funded by the western consumers and corporations), whereas the US is trying to get reindustrializd from the top down, without first building a solid fundamental. To make the tough jobs easy, you must have the easy jobs done well first.

Exactly. That's why this has everything to go wrong. You cannot create the talent and the supply chain needed for this with $8B. The US needs to solve much more fundamental things like their schools and the local supply chain to even have a shot of creating a successful chip business again.

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

#424

Post by pbiggar »

Meanwhile, BDS just announced a boycott of Intel

> “Ethical responsibility and international law aside, by insisting on investing tens of billions of dollars in Israel, a ‘war zone,’ only miles away from occupied Gaza, Intel is putting its leaders’ fanatic ideological commitment to Israel over financial and fiduciary responsibility. Why else would Intel freeze plans to expand its chipmaking manufacturing in Ohio while throwing those billions into Israel, a state committing genocide?

https://bdsmovement.net/Press-Release-BDS-Launches-Boycott-I...

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

#425

Post by fireflash38 »

Spooky23 wrote: post #398
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…

Hardware people get boned. I worked at a non-semiconductor tenant company in a semiconductor research campus/facility. Parking lots tell the story. There was a pecking order for the lots, which made it easy to classify. The best off working people were the trades guys. The plumbers and electricians were high-skilled and well paid. Like guys commuting 2,000 miles and buying a second $90k F-250 to drive around town in.…

I don't think you can draw conclusions from that, considering you have absolutely no idea who is in massive debt for those vehicles. Especially with tradesfolk because the vehicle is a business expense.

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

#426

Post by rhelz »

demondemidi wrote: post #361
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…

Well, I was there in the late 90's and don't recall that anecdote. Most of the people in the fab shuttle the lots from station to station. Some even look at porn and get high while waiting (that's my anecdote, clean room alarms went bananas when he lit up). And robots that zip around the ceiling and drop down in dangerous areas do the rest. Mind citing your anecdote? I realize I wasn't in every fab, but it's not rock…

chuckle Asking for further justification is always fair play, and I don't mind being checked....but I'm kind of a loss as to what to cite. It wasn't something I read in a book, it was lived experience.

But, I mean when you say:

> clean room alarms went bananas when he lit up

you might have answered your own question...that stuff may have flied when we were at 180 nanometers, but lets face it, there's only so far down the road of Moore's law you can travel with people who smoke in a clean room...

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

#427

Post by tacocataco »

supportengineer wrote: post #212
FredPret wrote: post #123

We're living through the silicon age and Intel has made a total dog's breakfast of it. Stagnant revenues, falling profits. Both should have been growing geometrically. Just compare these companies: https://valustox.com/INTC https://valustox.com/AMD https://valustox.com/AVGO https://valustox.com/AMAT Even Qualcomm has seen good growth: https://valustox.com/QCOM This is how it's done: https://valustox.com/NVDA EDIT the…

>> dog's breakfast Native English speaker here, I've never heard this expression before?

Dogs get whatever is left over.

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

#428

Post by jasonwatkinspdx »

jp42 wrote: post #168
FredPret wrote: post #123

We're living through the silicon age and Intel has made a total dog's breakfast of it. Stagnant revenues, falling profits. Both should have been growing geometrically. Just compare these companies: https://valustox.com/INTC https://valustox.com/AMD https://valustox.com/AVGO https://valustox.com/AMAT Even Qualcomm has seen good growth: https://valustox.com/QCOM This is how it's done: https://valustox.com/NVDA EDIT the…

Intel can save a lot of money by getting rid of incompetent folks in higher management, closing a lot of projects/teams that do not add value, a lot of middle management, simplifying processes that slow down the teams that are actually doing job, changing culture where working 10hr/wk is not tolerated. They need to do some variation of what Elon did to twitter. I have seen many of these things first hand.

> They need to do some variation of what Elon did to twitter.

What nonsense. Since Elon's purge Twitter has had and endless number of persistent issues that frankly are amature hour level bugs.

He filtered developers by demanding they bring a printout of source code and explain it to him, when it's clear if you've ever seen him talk in detail about software he actually understands almost nothing about the process and details of writing code. This is both an ineffective and unfair way of deciding whether or not to fire someone.

He also lost about half of Twitter's advertisers in a matter of weeks.

I believe in fairness and honesty, so I will say Elon is exceptional at selling investors and customers on a technological vision. Saying his mindset and approach would have made Intel far more successful in recent decades is preposterous.

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

#429

Post by sfilmeyer »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #233
sfilmeyer wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that dynamic is the same in construction and in semiconductor manufacturing. Certain parts of the chip-building supply chain just plain don't exist in the USA, and so no one in the USA currently has those skills. It's not like there are lots of folks with the skills in the USA but they're all leaving the industry for higher paying jobs.

The reason there are not a lot of folks with the skills in the USA is because 30 years ago, the US labor market did not appropriately reward those parts of the chip building supply chain. Same dynamic as not paying construction workers enough, just with a greater time lag.

I think the distinction is still important, in that the time lag is large enough to have changed the current dynamics, even if they still match on longer timescales. Raising salaries a bit could stem the outflow of construction workers, and raising salaries sufficiently could bring folks like the prior commenter back into the industry. But as more time passes this gets less and less effective, because there's no one left in the industry to retain and no one with recent enough knowledge to pull back in.

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

#430

Post by coliveira »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #254
mfer wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This award isn't about innovation, the best way to do things, or job requirements. This about supply chain security and national defense. So many of our components are made overseas and under governments who are not close allies. This is in order to operate things in our country. When you have the FABs in the US and under US control you can handle international foreign policy and the security of the nation differentl…

Fair enough. But then the question is: How did this happen in the first place? If the Pentagon is playing out scenerio after scenerio after scenerio, how did we allow ourselves to be so embarrassingly venerable? And now the taxpayer is on the hook for $8.5B and growing? There's a certain smell to all this.

The pentagon is run by politics just like the rest of the country. The US wanted to move industry to other countries, so the Pentagon just played the party like they're used to do, and got the promotions and bonuses. Everything else is a second thought.
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