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US Intel

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Re: US Intel

#231

Post by Workaccount2 »

rich_sasha wrote: post #46

I am torn on this. On the one hand, I strongly agree with this article. This kind of state ownership never brings anyhing good. I don't see how this is different. On the other, it is hard to deny how impressive the new wave of Chinese manufacturing is. No longer are they just making knock offs of Western products with stolen IP. BYD for example seems genuinely innovative, a top product. There are many other examples.…

The thing the US should fear the most, ironically, is China moving further and further away from communism.

If something happened to Xi and the party elected a hard nosed communist, China would unravel itself.

Re: US Intel

#232

Post by jollyllama »

georgeburdell wrote: post #23
themgt wrote: post #7

I’ll be honest: there is a very good chance this won’t work .... At the same time, the China concerns are real, Intel Foundry needs a guarantee of existence to even court customers, and there really is no coming back from an exit. There won’t be a startup to fill Intel’s place. The U.S. will be completely dependent on foreign companies for the most important products on earth, and while everything may seem fine for t…

If I may add my view as a formerly high-achieving semiconductor worker that Intel would benefit greatly from having right now, a lot of us pivoted to software and machine learning to earn more money. My first 2 years as a software engineer earned me more RSUs than a decade in semiconductors. Semiconductors is not prestigious work in the U.S., despite the strategic importance. By contrast, it is highly respected and r…

Billions for fast food delivery apps, not a dime for defense or sustainable agriculture.

Re: US Intel

#233

Post by KerrAvon »

rich_sasha wrote: post #46

I am torn on this. On the one hand, I strongly agree with this article. This kind of state ownership never brings anyhing good. I don't see how this is different. On the other, it is hard to deny how impressive the new wave of Chinese manufacturing is. No longer are they just making knock offs of Western products with stolen IP. BYD for example seems genuinely innovative, a top product. There are many other examples.…

The US government can, for example, discourage using Chinese chips using various policy levers without taking direct corporate ownership. That sort of thing is not that unusual.

Re: US Intel

#234

Post by ac29 »

onetimeusename wrote: post #189

The other day when the US's stake in Intel was announced, people assumed it was a political stunt. I suspected it was because of national security interests. The CHIPS act probably didn't get the result US Defense wanted quickly enough. Some details that were glossed over include that there was a chip shortage a few years ago as a result of COVID and TSMC supply chain disruptions that led to a shortage in electronics…

> The CHIPS act probably didn't get the result US Defense wanted quickly enough.

It might have helped if they actually distributed the authorized funds. CHIPS act was passed just over 3 years ago now, and Intel never received their grant money (which has now turned into the cash for equity deal of dubious legality).

Re: US Intel

#235

Post by nemothekid »

ecshafer wrote: post #195
chatmasta wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This won’t solve the biggest challenge/problem, which is lack of talent for staffing the fab. In Arizona they had to import a bunch of temp workers from Taiwan just to train the locals. We don’t have the skills. If you want to involve the government, maybe we should be training units of the military to make their own chips.

How many workers do we need? TSMC has 80k workers all in. 15-24 there is about 3 million US NEETs. I think that we could have a 10 year plan to get 80k people with EE/CE/NanoTech Eng/ChemEng/etc degrees. Make college free, or hell even a stipend for people to pursue "Critical Careers", heavily fund Phds in the same areas for US Citizens, and we will see workers with the skills.

This is the wrong way to look at it. The people in the US that you would want working in semiconductors aren't NEETs. They are at Facebook/Google/Jane Street/Citadel/McKinsey.

If I am a capable person working on delivering node improvements dealing with smaller and smaller challenges as the physics issues become quantum - I will eventually start to ask myself: why am I working on the hardest physics problems in the private sector for 150k/yr, when I can transition to Facebook or Jane Street, work equally (if not less) as hard and make 500k/yr?

The US has plenty of smart people. I'd argue more that the wealth inequality gap makes it _incredibly_ difficult to justify working for less, even in a field you love, when you can make top 1-4% of income doing something else.

Re: US Intel

#236

Post by foobazgt »

bilbo0s wrote: post #54
baq wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counterexample: AMD almost died and see where they're now. Intel needs a major shakeup, it has been brewing for a long time, but coffers were too full. Cushion is gone now, urgency is now understood by everyone; now it takes a visionary and some successful execution, for once. If you say corruption is the difference, maybe - but I wouldn't be so pessimistic... yet.

Oh my. Please no one take this the wrong way, but I hope AMD is not the model of "success" we're going for here.

Can you elaborate?

Re: US Intel

#237

Post by willhslade »

packetlost wrote: post #224
willhslade wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you glossed over the question

Generally, the answer is management via performance reviews.

So current management, who had proven incapable of running a business, will be trusted to ignore past political games and just retain talent? That's certainly a take

Re: US Intel

#238

Post by Aurornis »

troad wrote: post #65
georgeburdell wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I may add my view as a formerly high-achieving semiconductor worker that Intel would benefit greatly from having right now, a lot of us pivoted to software and machine learning to earn more money. My first 2 years as a software engineer earned me more RSUs than a decade in semiconductors. Semiconductors is not prestigious work in the U.S., despite the strategic importance. By contrast, it is highly respected and r…

We have developed an economy oriented around selling one another websites, and we are only belatedly noticing that none of our enemies seem to have followed.

The countries producing semiconductors and manufacturing other goods are also producing SaaS services. It's not unique to the United States.

The number of countries producing leading edge semiconductors is actually small. The number of companies doing this work is very small, too. Although much of the economy needs chips to operate, those leading chips are concentrated in the production of a very small number of companies.

Re: US Intel

#239

Post by craftkiller »

themgt wrote: post #7

I’ll be honest: there is a very good chance this won’t work .... At the same time, the China concerns are real, Intel Foundry needs a guarantee of existence to even court customers, and there really is no coming back from an exit. There won’t be a startup to fill Intel’s place. The U.S. will be completely dependent on foreign companies for the most important products on earth, and while everything may seem fine for t…

> over a decade ago but no one thought to find TSMC on a map and ask whether Intel was driving itself into the dirt?

Over a decade ago Intel wasn't driving itself into the dirt. Their failure was just beginning approximately 1 decade ago, starting with their failure at EUV leaving them trapped on 14nm.

Re: US Intel

#240

Post by makestuff »

throwup238 wrote: post #178
makestuff wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah seeing the innovations DJI is making in agriculture makes me wonder why VCs do not want to fund other startups like it. I know the margins are worse and it takes way more capital to fund hardware companies, but that has to be better than funding another chat-gpt wrapper. I guess that is why I am not a VC though lol.

The infrastructure to rapidly iterate and manufacture just isn’t here anymore, so everything costs significantly more to the point where we’re noncompetitive. Even VCs with no experience see the top line numbers for hardware startups and nope out. Contrast this with biotech venture capital which has been doing well for decades, often investing more capital in a year than software VCs. The difference is that all the r…

Yeah that makes a lot of sense. Way easier to iterate when you have access to a machine shop vs having to upload a CAD file and have a part shipped from another country.
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