TSMC to make 4nm chips in Arizona for Apple, AMD, Nvidia • Hacker News Board

Re: TSMC to make 4nm chips in Arizona for Apple, AMD, Nvidia

#221

Post by jotm » Thu, Dec 01, 2022, 2:25 PM UTC

spamizbad wrote: post #172

spaniard89277 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but local fabs in Europe are far, far away from Intel, TSMC and Samsung. Infineon, NXP and STM are wayy behind.

This is largely because Europe became infatuated with austerity and its industrial policy has suffered as a consequence. You want big, cutting-edge fabs? You’re going to need to spend public money getting them off the ground. TSMC’s success is in part due to Taiwan itself designating semiconductors as a key strategic economic interest years ago and making investments/tax breaks accordingly

What do you call the infatuation with ducking over small businesses and startups?

It's tied into the culture, tbh, but you know, at least make it easier for someone to start, fail and start again.

Even forming a company is a major struggle compared to US, UK. Nevermind the insanity after a bankruptcy.

Sole proprietorship is still very common, and of course when you are in trouble with that, you are in trouble.

Re: TSMC to make 4nm chips in Arizona for Apple, AMD, Nvidia

#222

Post by wil421 » Thu, Dec 01, 2022, 2:25 PM UTC

smcl wrote: post #204

nexus_dave wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason is simple. Europeans don't want to work in chip factories.

Why do you say that? Are semi jobs worse-paid than other skilled jobs, or do they have worse conditions?

Yes it’s extremely toxic there’s a reason why manufacturing moved from the US (and probably EU/UK but I’m not certain). It’s horribly toxic and you can read this about Samsung[1].

Asia has what some would call almost slave labor and a complete lack of care for workers. Many countries don’t care about pollution either.

US and European countries will gladly clean up manufacturing at home while shifting to countries who could care less about employees or environmental impacts.

[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-46060376

Re: TSMC to make 4nm chips in Arizona for Apple, AMD, Nvidia

#223

Post by sct202 » Thu, Dec 01, 2022, 2:26 PM UTC

CivBase wrote: post #195

Victerius wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arizona is actually a good choice. It is geologically stable, doesn't suffer from natural disasters, is somewhat close to Silicon Valley, and has a large enough talent pool to staff TSMC's facilities.

Surely somewhere in the midwest would be more geologically stable and have plenty of access to water. Not sure the proximity to Silicon Valley makes any difference. It's not like factory workers are going to commute from California to Arizona.

Phoenix has long been a hub for semiconductor manufacturing, so it makes sense from the perspective of there is an existing skilled worker pool and supplier base. Motorola had large sites there, and Intel has a bunch of fabs and is building more in the area.

Re: TSMC to make 4nm chips in Arizona for Apple, AMD, Nvidia

#224

Post by jotm » Thu, Dec 01, 2022, 2:26 PM UTC

nexus_dave wrote: post #197

spaniard89277 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but local fabs in Europe are far, far away from Intel, TSMC and Samsung. Infineon, NXP and STM are wayy behind.

The reason is simple. Europeans don't want to work in chip factories.

Oh please. Plenty of jobs that are worse. Plenty of immigrants, too, with plenty of loopholes to fuck them over.

Re: TSMC to make 4nm chips in Arizona for Apple, AMD, Nvidia

#225

Post by wil421 » Thu, Dec 01, 2022, 2:27 PM UTC

mayama wrote: post #205

nexus_dave wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason is simple. Europeans don't want to work in chip factories.

That applies to Americans too. TSMC will have trouble sourcing good talent for their new plant.

Tons of people go work in factories making cars, chemicals, and food. If they could provide better shifts and working conditions they can potentially attract talent. Oil fields attract people who wouldn’t have gone into the industry if they hadn’t been offered better pay and family benefits.

Re: TSMC to make 4nm chips in Arizona for Apple, AMD, Nvidia

#226

Post by ren_engineer » Thu, Dec 01, 2022, 2:28 PM UTC

huijzer wrote: post #90

squarefoot wrote: post #24

Hopefully we'll do something like that here in the EU too. We're experiencing the hard way how's like depending on the energy and resources of warmongering criminal dictators; it would be wise to start moving away from technological dependence on China asap.

Actually, Europe is doing pretty good due to having a monopoly on making chip making machines via ASML in the Netherlands which relies heavily on Carl Zeiss in Germany. Fun fact by the way, at some point Japan and Europe were very close in state-of-the-art semiconductor manufacturing while the US didn’t have the capabilities anymore because it was outcompeted by Japan. At that point, the US donated funds and 20 years…

>the US donated funds and 20 years of research to ASML

wasn't really a "donation" it had strings attached which is why ASML wasn't allowed to export to China, the US has all the say at the end of the day

Re: TSMC to make 4nm chips in Arizona for Apple, AMD, Nvidia

#227

Post by jotm » Thu, Dec 01, 2022, 2:29 PM UTC

float4 wrote: post #122

spaniard89277 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but local fabs in Europe are far, far away from Intel, TSMC and Samsung. Infineon, NXP and STM are wayy behind.

Why do we even want cutting edge fabs in Europe? We have no companies that design cutting edge logic chips here. Literally none. Why invest 20 billion dollars (or what is the price of a cutting edge fab these days?) to create supply without demand? Or do we seriously expect that US companies will generate significant demand even though TSMC and Samsung are already building heavily subsidized fabs in the US ?

Why not invest in both?

Besides, the cost of designs pales in comparison to the cost of producing locally.

Re: TSMC to make 4nm chips in Arizona for Apple, AMD, Nvidia

#228

Post by JamesonNetworks » Thu, Dec 01, 2022, 2:31 PM UTC

phpisthebest wrote: post #147

d3ckard wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't want to start a fight, but honestly, I only ever hear those types of arguments from people who don't use Apple hardware. People who do, in large majority, do it for two reasons: - build quality; - it mostly just works.

>>- build quality This is part of the marketing delusion, multiple people have done A/B testing to clearly show Apple Build Quality is either on par with the rest of the industry or in many specific examples WORSE, people that claim this often have ZERO experience with non-apple products or are comparing different classes like a budget consumer level Lenovo to the pro line of apple, of course of $500 unit will be of…

I will assume I’m not going to change your mind with my comment, but anecdotally I was a pixel user for years (Nexus 5 (boot loop break) Pixel 2, Pixel 3, tried to order a Pixel 6 but the site didn’t work on launch day) before switching to the iPhone 13. I build applications for both Android and iOS. My wife has been an iPhone user for years. Both iPhones she has owned are still in use by someone in our extended family (iPhone 7, X)

My pixel phones did not take high quality videos without crashing and over heating. This iPhone can do 4k 60fps for an hour without a hiccup. The build quality of this phone feels like it came from an alternate reality to me. Pixels in the same price point do not hold up against it on any metric that matters to me (stability, battery life, software reliability, hardware longevity)

Again, this is just anecdotally and I try not to be an Apple fanboy, but being the family tech point person, Apple has made my life marginally easier.

Re: TSMC to make 4nm chips in Arizona for Apple, AMD, Nvidia

#229

Post by smoldesu » Thu, Dec 01, 2022, 2:31 PM UTC

mirthflat83 wrote: post #202

phpisthebest wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>- build quality This is part of the marketing delusion, multiple people have done A/B testing to clearly show Apple Build Quality is either on par with the rest of the industry or in many specific examples WORSE, people that claim this often have ZERO experience with non-apple products or are comparing different classes like a budget consumer level Lenovo to the pro line of apple, of course of $500 unit will be of…

What a passionate comment about Apple. I guess some people are just this invested in Apple enough to write book-long comments on every single thread even tangentially related to Apple.

Nobody would need to write it if Apple didn't spend $XX billion on misleading marketing every year.

Re: TSMC to make 4nm chips in Arizona for Apple, AMD, Nvidia

#230

Post by smoldesu » Thu, Dec 01, 2022, 2:32 PM UTC

d3ckard wrote: post #123

phpisthebest wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Don't want to start a fight, but honestly, I only ever hear those types of arguments from people who don't use Apple hardware. People who do, in large majority, do it for two reasons: - build quality; - it mostly just works.

Build quality, that's a riot. Here's a riddle for you: my $300 Thinkpad and $1,500 Macbook Pro each hit the concrete from waist height. Which laptop can I open up and keep using like nothing happened?