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TSMC, Bosch, Infineon, NXP to jointly build semiconductor fab in Europe

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Re: TSMC, Bosch, Infineon, NXP to jointly build semiconductor fab in Europe

#191

Post by coliveira »

dontupvoteme wrote: post #139

Along with (hopefully) that french startup (Mistral) founded by the LLaMA guys, the EU is putting together the pieces they need to keep up with AI and maintain their ability to leverage their control mechanisms upon the FAANGS. Realpolitk wise they absolutely cannot risk regulatory capture to a few select firms on the west coast of the USA. Altman himself threatened (for a brief period) to cut off GPT to the EU after…

That's not the only issue. TSMC has a big problem in creating fabs in the US, which is the lack of talent in sufficient numbers for the project to be successful, and the very high cost of existing talent. No surprise that they're delaying the US fab and going ahead with plants in Germany, where there is less expensive specialized labor.

Re: TSMC, Bosch, Infineon, NXP to jointly build semiconductor fab in Europe

#192

Post by croes »

crote wrote: post #35
Vespasian wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They won't use that technology to produce mobile phones or GPUs. There are plenty of application were structure size, performance and/or power draw doesn't really matter. E.g. Automotive / Industrial applications

That's exactly the issue, isn't it? The Chips Act was marketed as an attempt to bring back "cutting-edge chips" to Europe, and to promote research and innovation. In the end it turns out to just be a huge government subsidy for a bog-standard fab which is at least a decade behind what TSMC is building in Taiwan. Great for automotive companies who want to strengthen their supply lines, but pretty pointless when it com…

Marketing vs reality.

You can't tell the people you just want to subsidise the automotive industry.

Re: TSMC, Bosch, Infineon, NXP to jointly build semiconductor fab in Europe

#193

Post by berkes »

oblio wrote: post #162
sho_hn wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren't LLMs potentially great to ward off language death due to their significant abilities to transpose ideas into different languages?

> Aren't LLMs potentially great to ward off language death due to their significant abilities to transpose ideas into different languages? What do you mean?

Not GP, but in my case, I find my conversations with ChatGPT or Copilot often being in my native language. Whereas with Google, official docs, and StackExchage it's only and always English.

Obviously, the code I write in the end is English. But explaining a domain in a native language - especially when that domain embeds cultural things - helps a lot. For example, there's a massive difference between "add_high_VAT()" in a Dutch Context from a US context. Even add_VAT(lookup_VAT("FR", "low")) demands quite some domain-knowledge about EU tax system. Which I can express in English, but is much easier in my native language.

Re: TSMC, Bosch, Infineon, NXP to jointly build semiconductor fab in Europe

#194

Post by nottorp »

oblio wrote: post #164
rjzzleep wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who don't understand what OP just wrote should look at what just happened to the South Korean semiconductor market. over 36% plunge in exports[] and that samsungs memory profit dropped 95%[]. Yes, they depend on ASML, but ASML itself was dependent on IP from TSMC engineers. TSMC already announced that they will stop applying for subsidies from the Chip Act[] in the US recently because the US keeps changing wha…

> People who don't understand what OP just wrote should look at what just happened to the South Korean semiconductor market. over 36% plunge in exports[] and that samsungs memory profit dropped 95%. Is demand for electronics finally dropping? I want to be able to buy a 3 year old Nvidia low-range GPU at below MSRP...

I've been forwarded this piece of apparently bad news recently:

https://www.extremetech.com/gaming/report-nvidia-has-practic...

So I wouldn't hold my breath.

Re: TSMC, Bosch, Infineon, NXP to jointly build semiconductor fab in Europe

#195

Post by seeekr »

dav_Oz wrote: post #178

For those unfamiliar with the region (Saxony, Dresden): A registered association ( e.V. in German) bluntly named "Silicon Saxony e.V." (est. in 2000) with over 450 members headquartered in Dresden pretty much sums up the infrastructure and ambition.[0][1] As pointed out the process TSMC’s 28/22 nanometer planar CMOS and 16/12 nanometer FinFET process technology (fabrication will begin in 2027) is not "cutting edge" b…

minor nitpick: "e.V." in Germany is "eingetragener Verein", "registered association" and is a form of association that's extremely common and use for all kinds of things, e.g. local sports groups, interest groups, etc, so "e.V." in and of itself doesn't have anything to do with industry, though as in the above case it can be used that way!

Re: TSMC, Bosch, Infineon, NXP to jointly build semiconductor fab in Europe

#196

Post by j-pb »

bboygravity wrote: post #174
dontupvoteme wrote: post #139

Along with (hopefully) that french startup (Mistral) founded by the LLaMA guys, the EU is putting together the pieces they need to keep up with AI and maintain their ability to leverage their control mechanisms upon the FAANGS. Realpolitk wise they absolutely cannot risk regulatory capture to a few select firms on the west coast of the USA. Altman himself threatened (for a brief period) to cut off GPT to the EU after…

Just weird to me that they build in Germany. Germany basically pressed "delete" on (clean) energy for the coming decades and has very little capacity to seriously expand their energy conversion.

Germany has build more PV capacity in the last three years than the total nuclear capacity it ever build, and the numbers are increasing thanks to regulatory cutbacks by the current government.

Meanwhile new nuclear reactors cost 4 times as much as renewables and take decades to build.

So stop spreading FUD.

Re: TSMC, Bosch, Infineon, NXP to jointly build semiconductor fab in Europe

#197

Post by RF_Savage »

crote wrote: post #54
spdy wrote: post #29

Just out of curiosity how hard would it be to re-fit such a foundary to modern <5nm cpu fabs with ASML/Zeiss directly around the corner.

Literally impossible. You don't re-fit a fab, you build it from scratch. There is very little technological overlap where it matters due to the shift to EUV. You'd essentially have to scrap >75% of the fab to fit in the new equipment.

Not only that, but the fab undergoing the 2 - 5 year refit would also not be in full production capability. So there is the revenue loss in addition to everything else. and suddenly just building new makes even more sense.

Re: TSMC, Bosch, Infineon, NXP to jointly build semiconductor fab in Europe

#198

Post by qwytw »

berkes wrote: post #177
Nux wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think AI is an afterthought here, if at all. Automotive is the main target and to a degree IoT. They couldn't build cars during the pandemic due to broken supply chains, that's when their lightbulb went on afaik.

But isn't a lot of modern automotive all about ai? Stuff like image recognition on camera's and sensors, error prediction, data-aggregation and, in future, self-driving?

You're not going to run that AI on chips made in fab which will be already outdated by 15+ years when it's opened.

Re: TSMC, Bosch, Infineon, NXP to jointly build semiconductor fab in Europe

#199

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

dontupvoteme wrote: post #139

Along with (hopefully) that french startup (Mistral) founded by the LLaMA guys, the EU is putting together the pieces they need to keep up with AI and maintain their ability to leverage their control mechanisms upon the FAANGS. Realpolitk wise they absolutely cannot risk regulatory capture to a few select firms on the west coast of the USA. Altman himself threatened (for a brief period) to cut off GPT to the EU after…

> Altman himself threatened (for a brief period) to cut off GPT to the EU after Italy rightfully brought up issues with data privacy.

This wouldn't be a big deal. GPT is not some one-of-a-kind leaps-and-bounds ahead of everyone else ground-breaking technology.

Re: TSMC, Bosch, Infineon, NXP to jointly build semiconductor fab in Europe

#200

Post by scythe »

enigma20 wrote: post #152
dontupvoteme wrote: post #139

Along with (hopefully) that french startup (Mistral) founded by the LLaMA guys, the EU is putting together the pieces they need to keep up with AI and maintain their ability to leverage their control mechanisms upon the FAANGS. Realpolitk wise they absolutely cannot risk regulatory capture to a few select firms on the west coast of the USA. Altman himself threatened (for a brief period) to cut off GPT to the EU after…

Why would be the language death bad. Imho, from practical point of view it doesn't make sense to have multiple languages, or?

From a practical point of view it is probably good to have an international lingua franca, most likely a variation of English not only due to its current popularity but because it has accommodated a lot of simplifications [1,2] to make itself easier to learn. But for local cultures it would be an awful lot of work to translate centuries of tradition and literature into a global language, or a lot to lose by forgetting it. There is also a natural human tendency to modify and evolve the language that we use, while an international language has to be more stable or changes regulated lest it fragment as Latin did 1500 years ago.

1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplified_Technical_English

2: Contrast particularly major rivals French and Mandarin

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