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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

#431

Post by s1artibartfast »

gamepsys wrote: post #396
s1artibartfast wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious what you think it is telling? What are the alternative incentives?

1. It's telling because if Intel thought this was a good investment then they would have made it without the grants. The stock buybacks show they had the cash to do it recently. 2. Alternatives to giving grants: Tax credits, low interest loans, import duty, law, executive action, threaten anti-trust lawsuit, purchasing shares, leverage intelligence agencies, nationalize. The most straightforward way would be to exten…

Re 1,thanks for clarification. I wasn't sure if you thought it was a point contrary I. E. "something, something, greedy"

Re 2, it's worth noting that the majority of Chips does come in the form of tax breaks and loans

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

#432

Post by whimsicalism »

echelon wrote: post #418
whimsicalism wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It is US-led, but the US has good reasons. - The US has almost everything it needs in North America to be self-sufficient. Food, energy, natural resources, manufacturing, trade. - The US is tired of being involved in the Middle East. - The US is tired of protecting the oceans and trade for everyone else. - The US is tired of China stealing its tech, being protectionist, becoming an adversary, not being friendly to US…

Good reasons that will raise costs for everyone and lead to measurable impacts on the pace of quality of life improvements. A world that moves towards near-shoring out of security concerns is a world that is long-term poorer. That's real medical innovations, improvements in tech, education, climate that will be delayed because of our new cold war. We are already seeing climate impact in the EV car market where we are hamstringing our own policy efforts.

Globalization does not necessitate middle east involvement.

> - The US is tired of China stealing its tech, being protectionist, becoming an adversary, not being friendly to US companies, meddling in US trade, etc.

WTO already has the mechanisms to deal with this, the CHIPS act is hurting out standing with our allies because of its blatantly protectionist provisions.

> - The US is tired of NATO not stepping up to the plate. It won't back out, of course, but would love for Europe to care more about its own security.

Again, not contra globalization.

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

#433

Post by xcv123 »

whimsicalism wrote: post #406
WWLink wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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]

This is common sense and has nothing to do with nativism or jingoism. The offshoring was an action of pure selfish greed at the expense of the working class people who built the industry.

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

#434

Post by coliveira »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #323
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…

When you connect those dots this feels more like a pseudo bailout in disguise.

This is exactly what it is. With the added issue that, in all likelihood, $8B is not even enough to start making a change. The US gov would have a better time giving these $8B to startup companies in the chip space. Intel will just squander this money and give some of it to shareholders.

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

#435

Post by unyttigfjelltol »

nwiswell wrote: post #345
unyttigfjelltol wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your link indicates a $1.7T deficit for FY23 which is not "less than $1T". That's roughly twice the figure you offer as " sustainable" ($700B). It's been widely reported [1] that the US debt reached $32T in June 2023, $33T in Sept 2023, $34T January 2024, achieving those milestones roughly every 100 days. The projections indicate an exponential increase, which doesn't help the case for sustainability. Sovereign debt…

You're right, I mistook the year-to-date figure for the full-year projection. That said, > It's been widely reported [1] that the US debt reached $32T in June 2023, $33T in Sept 2023, $34T January 2024, achieving those milestones roughly every 100 days. The projections indicate an exponential increase, which doesn't help the case for sustainability. These figures aren't interesting because they include debt that the…

Nice smooth exponential curve, debt held by public as percentage of GDP through 2053.[1] During the GFC, the projections always flattened over the long term. There's no longer even a pretense of plans to normalize. We've lived for a long time in the "no serious consequences" regime; this set of projections seems different.

[1] https://www.cbo.gov/publication/59711

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

#436

Post by rayiner »

postpawl wrote: post #405
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…

> 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

Yikes. I think my local Dunkin’ Donuts is paying $16+.

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

#437

Post by coliveira »

quantum_state wrote: post #389
jart wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How did this happen in the first place? Texas Instruments didn't give guys like Morris Chang enough opportunities to advance. That's why TSMC was founded.

Similar mistake is being made right now by restricting sales of chips. It forces people to make their own. It is just a matter of time the consequence comes … like many other decisions made by some big wigs before …

Yes, they have just forced China to make their own chips, and they will make them cheaper and in higher volume than anyone can do...

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

#438

Post by demondemidi »

rhelz wrote: post #426
demondemidi wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Just show me where PhDs are needed to wheel a batch of wafers from the litho room to the bath. I'll wait.

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

#439

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

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

#440

Post by BobbyTables2 »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #234
gamepsys wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Corporations should only return cash to investors (via dividend or stock buyback) if they do not have a high yield way to invest the money internally. A large stock buyback is the corporation admitting they do not have good uses for the cash. If Intel would take these grants, tax credits, and low interest loans and turn around and increase their dividend or do a large stock buyback then this would be a simple wealth…

I'm not sure if this was your intent, but it sounds like you're describing the world as it actually works. Companies execute stock BuyBacks when they don't have better internal Investments, and that's a good thing! Intel doesn't care about more us-based Fabs, nor are they high yield. This is why the US government has to pay them if the US government wants those things to exist.

To me, unless a company is Nvidia, a stock buyback screams “we have no vision for the company’s long-term growth, let’s just prop up our options/shares for short term personal gain”.

That said, I’m not a fan of pointless acquisitions either…

Would executives actually do buybacks if they didn’t have company shares? I suspect not!

At the same time, a company shouldn’t get to underpay employees, do layoffs, and stock buybacks all in the same year…

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