TSMC head says drive to onshore chip supply chain is 'unrealistic' • Hacker News Board

Re: TSMC head says drive to onshore chip supply chain is 'unrealistic'

#181

Post by thorRay8383 » Thu, Apr 21, 2022, 10:27 PM UTC

squeaky-clean wrote: post #171

thorRay8383 wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In practical terms the government is intentionally hamstrung to appear incompetent: https://about.usps.com/who-we-are/financials/annual-reports/... With a vote Congress destroys budgets and the narrative is the PO sucks. Government incompetence is private interest driven propaganda

But Congress is part of the government. So it's hamstringing itself. It's the same line of thought when some large dinosaur of a company purchases a startup. "Welp, startup is going to suck in 2 years." It's not the startup's fault, but to the consumer it's still going to suck. It doesn't really matter why.

Incorrect. Congress can muck up government for everyone while investing in stocks, and receive unlimited campaign cash to help keep their job mucking up government.

As individuals, Congress is doing fine by its members

Re: TSMC head says drive to onshore chip supply chain is 'unrealistic'

#182

Post by throw8383833jj » Thu, Apr 21, 2022, 10:35 PM UTC

mjevans wrote: post #176

topspin wrote: post #12

At some point in the next 10 years Taiwan will be surrounded by half a dozen Chinese aircraft carriers[1]. The rest of the world knows that continuing to rely so heavily on Taiwan for crucial components is not viable. [1] https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/09/china/china-aircraft-carrier-...

I suspect that outside of... 'mainland China' (I'll phrase it for clarity) and the island just off the coast of 'mainland China'; the rest of the world really just wants stability in the region and no further conflict. Generally the status quo is OK for the rest of the planet, and the other nations would be happy to call 'mainland China' China and the island off of that recognized as the sovereign nation of 'Taiwan'…

>> grow up enough as a species to cease having countries and instead have a united single government like Star Trek.

This would require everyone to think very alike which we will never be. there's simply too much diversity.

why not aim for more of a everyone have it their own way kind of model where more of the power is sent to local governments? this way there would be less conflict and more happy people, rather than only one way for everyone (one size does not fit all)

Re: TSMC head says drive to onshore chip supply chain is 'unrealistic'

#183

Post by alfalfasprout » Thu, Apr 21, 2022, 10:41 PM UTC

topspin wrote: post #12

At some point in the next 10 years Taiwan will be surrounded by half a dozen Chinese aircraft carriers[1]. The rest of the world knows that continuing to rely so heavily on Taiwan for crucial components is not viable. [1] https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/09/china/china-aircraft-carrier-...

The fact China hasn't already invaded makes this doubtful. More likely is trying to install a pro-CCP politicians and pursuing annexation politically.

The US has had a very close relationship w/ Taiwan for decades including military training and access to newer military hardware.

Also discussions about china attacking a US ship are rather silly since that would be an outright declaration of war. The amount of firepower available to the US would level mainland cities.

Too much to lose for them to make an invasion likely.

Re: TSMC head says drive to onshore chip supply chain is 'unrealistic'

#184

Post by charcircuit » Thu, Apr 21, 2022, 10:47 PM UTC

btgeekboy wrote: post #133

inetknght wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it’s not like we can just sit with old tech and say “nah, that’s good enough.” But, why not?

Remember when someone famously said 640kb of memory ought to be enough for anybody? Imagine if video games' audio/video just stopped improving past the SNES. Imagine if we decided that 56k dialup was good enough. Imagine if we stopped improving cell phone cameras past the iPhone 3G. These things seem pretty low quality now because we've incrementally built so many better things in the interim. The unleaded gasoline o…

>Remember when someone famously said 640kb of memory ought to be enough for anybody

No because that is a made up quote.

Re: TSMC head says drive to onshore chip supply chain is 'unrealistic'

#185

Post by tomatowurst » Thu, Apr 21, 2022, 10:53 PM UTC

dirtyid wrote: post #153

tomatowurst wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> US would go to war with China over Taiwan They've repeatedly signaled and backed this up with a real aircraft carrier that sails between the straits. They aren't doing this just for show. The ball is in CCP's court, if they venture too far past their coastline they are going to face USN + JSDF. Again, Taiwan is NOT ukraine. It's semiconductor supply is critical to national security and the economy. US also signaled…

> real aircraft carrier USN hasn't had the balls to sail carriers through the strait in 20+ years even under Mike Pompeo at the nadir of US/PRC relations since Nixon. Clinton sent 2 during last TW strait crisis for shits and giggles. Strait transits are down to DDGs and coast guard vessels now. PRC doesn't even need Navy to venture outside the first island chain to destroy East Asia semi, or conduct massive crippling…

If there's a war in East Asia, I would bet against China. It should be clear that having the world's largest standing army don't really matter, we can see what a paper tiger Russia turned out to be and PLA has far worse corruption. Especially since the PLA only has had success fighting its own, it's lost every single war and hasn't fought a major war since losing to Vietnam in a quick war.

The US + allies aren't exactly worried here. It possesses complete air superiority in the region as well as early warning radar.

I mean if a small country like Taiwan could lodge missiles at the Three Gorges dam that would completely flood the mainland, think what Korea or Japan can do without even the US helping.

The PLA is a paper tiger and this angers a great deal of PRC nationalists and sympathizers but its the truth. There's very little chance it could enter into a prolonged war with QUAD + South Korea, Taiwan.

I don't know what this sanction proof economy is about but it clearly isn't working out for Russia with Ukraine.

Re: TSMC head says drive to onshore chip supply chain is 'unrealistic'

#186

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Apr 21, 2022, 10:55 PM UTC

thorRay8383 wrote: post #158

55873445216111 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In practical terms, the government is just too slow to actually help. They always shoot behind the target. The semiconductor market is cyclical. By the time the CHIPS Act, etc, actually get passed and implemented, the market will already be in oversupply and voters/politicians will complain about government handouts for these companies.

In practical terms the government is intentionally hamstrung to appear incompetent: https://about.usps.com/who-we-are/financials/annual-reports/... With a vote Congress destroys budgets and the narrative is the PO sucks. Government incompetence is private interest driven propaganda

[deleted]

Re: TSMC head says drive to onshore chip supply chain is 'unrealistic'

#187

Post by skeeter2020 » Thu, Apr 21, 2022, 11:13 PM UTC

[totally not efficient, non-profitable capacity] !== 'unrealistic'

Re: TSMC head says drive to onshore chip supply chain is 'unrealistic'

#188

Post by robonerd » Thu, Apr 21, 2022, 11:17 PM UTC

topspin wrote: post #12

At some point in the next 10 years Taiwan will be surrounded by half a dozen Chinese aircraft carriers[1]. The rest of the world knows that continuing to rely so heavily on Taiwan for crucial components is not viable. [1] https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/09/china/china-aircraft-carrier-...

I think the PRC saw how well Russia has fared against modern weapon systems in Ukraine and is probably getting cold feet. Taiwan has had more time to prepare and very advanced domestic manufacturing; the missile spam would be dense enough to make a Macross fan blush.

And with respect to the Type 003, where is the J-35 or whatever they're calling it? Still not ready. The only plane they've got for these ships is the J-15, which has the RCS of a barn. Carriers without planes are like tigers without teeth. Furthermore the PLAN's lack of operational experience with carriers is stark, to put it mildly. Those ships will be good at one thing: being reefs.

Re: TSMC head says drive to onshore chip supply chain is 'unrealistic'

#189

Post by vimy » Thu, Apr 21, 2022, 11:18 PM UTC

pphysch wrote: post #102

jaywalk wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly correct. If China took out TSMC, we would have an unimaginable global catastrophe on our hands that would make Covid look like nothing. There are far too many eggs in that basket.

This is absurd. No, we definitely wouldn't. Most people wouldn't notice if TSMC disappeared. In a couple years they might go, hey, why isn't my iPhone 42 any faster than my iPhone 35. But most devices and datacenters would keep running for literally years. Occasionally there would be a disaster that is hard to recover from due to missing supplier inventory. The average warranty on such devices is like 3 years, and ma…

Why do you think most people wouldn't notice? Computer and phone prices would probably double or triple. Think gpu shortage but with everything.

Since the world would have to fall back to older fabs we'll probably go back 10 years or more in time. A lot of current software is not optimized for such old tech or would be impossible to run. Can't run ML algorithms on an iPhone 6 cpu.

Apple probably wouldn't be able to sell phones or computers for a year or two. Would have to redesign everything for older fabs. Is an M1 cpu even possible on say 30nm? Apple has enough money to probably survive two years without income but a lot of companies would just go bankrupt. Can't sell anything if you lost access to the factories.

Re: TSMC head says drive to onshore chip supply chain is 'unrealistic'

#190

Post by dragonwriter » Thu, Apr 21, 2022, 11:54 PM UTC

dahdum wrote: post #144

dragonwriter wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> China is a far stronger opponent than Russia, so I don’t see why that would change. China is a weaker strategic threat despite being a stronger local conventional threat. That would seem to me to make outside direct intervention more likely (though not necessarily more likely than not.) > The US would be going it comparatively alone against China in a Taiwan conflict There is nothing as centralized as NATO or the E…

Why would China be a weaker strategic threat than Russia? They have 10 times the population and a massive industrial and technological base. Fewer nuclear weapons but more than enough to trigger the apocalypse. Much stronger trade relations, economic diversification, and growth. Kendall, Air Force Secretary, said “When you look at it objectively, China is a much greater strategic threat than Russia is”.[1] 1. https:/…

Yeah, that was sloppy. What I meant specifically is that, while China has a strategic nuclear arsenal, it is insufficient to really count as a MAD threat, so it lacks Russia’s trump card against intervention.