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EU countries team up for semiconductor push

reuters.com

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Re: EU countries team up for semiconductor push

#251

Post by burntoutfire »

arnaudsm wrote: post #193
ralfn wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most competitive chips in the world are produced by machines made in the Netherlands at ASMI/ASML The US companies do what they do best: innovate business models and find ways to vendor lock in and own the market. But who's been doing all the research keeping moore's law alive? Lithography? For a country as small as the Netherlands, you can wonder if we could afford from a geopolitical point of view to be producing a…

> It will end up in the pockets of friends and families of politicians that will be in "the management". 100% agree. Considering the incredible education system and engineers we have, the 2 only things restraining Europe from reaching Silicon Valley level are corrupt politicians and risk-adverse VCs.

Also:

- labor laws (very hard to fire people in many European countries)

- lots of disjointed small-to-medium markets (with different laws and languages) make expansion on continental scale much harder than in the US

Re: EU countries team up for semiconductor push

#252

Post by deltron3030 »

joelbluminator wrote: post #196

Why isn't Netherlands mentioned btw? What semiconductors companies did Germany , France and Spain built so far? Netherlands has ASML, NXP and ASM...

>What semiconductors companies did Germany , France and Spain built so far?

German companies like Zeiss build parts for e.g. ASML.

Re: EU countries team up for semiconductor push

#253

Post by jason0597 »

agumonkey wrote: post #249
sitkack wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NXP and STM are both European companies. Arm is from the UK. I do agree that every continent should have a modern fab along with the supply chain to feed and repair it.

Hold on, who own ARM now ? softbank did sell it ? was it to nvidia or apple ?

ARM was sold by Softbank to NVIDIA a couple of months ago

Re: EU countries team up for semiconductor push

#254

Post by rossdavidh »

So, as someone who used to be an engineer in semiconductor manufacturing facilities, this reminds me a lot of Sematech. That was a joint venture between American companies in the 90's, when there was a concern that we were falling behind Japan. I'm sure there will be people who try to claim otherwise, but my view from inside AMD (at that time still doing its own manufacturing) was that nothing much ever came out of Sematech. It was a lot of hype, but not much result.

If, at the time of the founding of TSMC, you had tried to get a consortium of companies, much less nations, to agree on the idea of a semiconductor foundry, you would not have been able to get agreement to do it. Consortiums can help to pool resources when everyone knows what needs doing, but even Intel has had a problem getting the latest generation of semi manufacturing going, and their problem sure wasn't a lack of resources. Sometimes the problem is the speed of innovation, and the more parties you have involved the harder it is to get agreement to try any given thing, especially if it is innovative (i.e. not certain to work).

I wish them good fortune, it would be good for the stability of the world economy not to have all the world's advanced semiconductors made in one region, but I am skeptical of whether or not this can make a big difference, no matter how much money is spent.

Re: EU countries team up for semiconductor push

#255

Post by selectodude »

joelbluminator wrote: post #240
ElKrist wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

STMicroelectronics is, according to Wikipedia, Europe's largest semiconductor chip maker based on revenue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STMicroelectronics

ASML dwarfs it in terms of market cap.

ASML doesn't make semiconductors :)

Re: EU countries team up for semiconductor push

#256

Post by whimsicalism »

arnaudsm wrote: post #193
ralfn wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most competitive chips in the world are produced by machines made in the Netherlands at ASMI/ASML The US companies do what they do best: innovate business models and find ways to vendor lock in and own the market. But who's been doing all the research keeping moore's law alive? Lithography? For a country as small as the Netherlands, you can wonder if we could afford from a geopolitical point of view to be producing a…

> It will end up in the pockets of friends and families of politicians that will be in "the management". 100% agree. Considering the incredible education system and engineers we have, the 2 only things restraining Europe from reaching Silicon Valley level are corrupt politicians and risk-adverse VCs.

There's also the push-factor of the yawning black void of poverty in the US if you choose to pursue your passion rather than your comparative advantage.

Re: EU countries team up for semiconductor push

#257

Post by rejschaap »

Tade0 wrote: post #228
read_if_gay_ wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think GP's point is that when you consider their output they're really not the bigger names.

Perhaps it's because at least in NXP's case the reason why headquarters are there and not somewhere else is that the Netherlands are a tax haven for IP-heavy companies.

Are you thinking about STMicroelectronics perhaps? They are incorporated in the Netherlands.

NXP has a long history in the Netherlands. It started as a division within Philips (Dutch company) and it has done a lot of production work in the Netherlands.

Re: EU countries team up for semiconductor push

#258

Post by est31 »

viktorcode wrote: post #211
oblio wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... in 2020. What will happen in 2040, when the Chinese economy is double the US one?

Economies don't develop by linear growth extrapolation.

China's economy with all its issues has definitely far more potential for growth left than the EU or the USA... It's still a developing country for the most part. Better learn Chinese if you want to stay relevant in 30 years... wait better learn it now. In the hardware world, Documentation about new chips etc. is increasingly available in Chinese first.

Re: EU countries team up for semiconductor push

#260

Post by whimsicalism »

viktorcode wrote: post #211
oblio wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... in 2020. What will happen in 2040, when the Chinese economy is double the US one?

Economies don't develop by linear growth extrapolation.

> Economies don't develop by linear growth extrapolation.

This is true, but I view China's economic growth more as 'reversion to the mean' when their population is 3x that of the US.

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