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EU Signs €145B Declaration to Develop Next Gen Processors and 2nm Technology

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Re: EU Signs €145B Declaration to Develop Next Gen Processors and 2nm Technology

#301

Post by petre »

thu2111 wrote: post #181
golfer wrote: post #174

Serious question: Why is the EU so far behind in tech company influence/leadership compared to the US and Asia? Europe has successful tech enterprises, but surely is capable of so much more on a global scale.

That's a deep question that is asked nowhere near enough. And when it is asked, my experience has been it's mostly been Americans doing the asking. Here's a story. I was once visiting Silicon Valley for work and getting dinner with a friend who lives there. I'm a Brit who lives in central Europe. On the way over I'd bought a copy of Der Spiegel, which likes to write tabloid-esque articles about the Power Of Tech Firm…

> The EU views more regulation as inherently good, and anything that isn't caked in hundreds of pages of regulations as being merely on the TODO list

One of the best examples of this are the digital tachograph design documents, which are hundreds of pages of legal gibberish mixed with a convoluted tech spec. 100% design by comitee. No wonder the top digital tachograph supplier is VDO and one if the lesser players, Stoneridge, has a much better designed and executed product.

In contrast with this, the US ELD is an 125 page document standardising functionality and the data output of the device.

Re: EU Signs €145B Declaration to Develop Next Gen Processors and 2nm Technology

#302

Post by dzhiurgis »

tasubotadas wrote: post #227
f6v wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly the opposite happened in Russia and other ex-soviet countries. The factories were sold and dismantled under the pretense of “transitioning to market economy”.

They were non-competitive businesses producing outdated junk and in majority of cases there was no other way to survive apart of being sold for scrap. Some manufacturers that produced basic sellable goods survived (steel foundries, fertilizer makers)

Some fertiliser plants (Achema for example) still rely on exclusively signed contracts with Russia for buying cheap natural gas (its main cost) aka there’s some underwater influence there.

Re: EU Signs €145B Declaration to Develop Next Gen Processors and 2nm Technology

#303

Post by 908B64B197 »

dmix wrote: post #259
11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the EU treats this as a strategic capability and not commercial, the spending is much less of a consideration. The advantage that the EU has is in fact ASML. No company can make the 5nm litho systems today, and catching up with the decades of R&D they've invested is not feasible. They are the greatest achievement of science and technology on the planet. [0] The strategy that can work is for the EU to partner with…

Man, I wish I too shared such optimism in EU or other massive multi government bureaucratic organizations to pull something off like this in 2021. But sorry I simply don’t. From my experience with gov trying to do tech investment it’s going to go into the pockets of late career overpaid ‘executives’ with ‘industry experience’ and tons of (also overpaid and underqualified) contractors doing the same thing. Not the bri…

> Not the brilliant engineers you imagine are going to run it.

I have no doubts brilliant European engineers are going to work on the hard problems of shipping a next gen chip process and design... In America!

What the EU should do is earmark some of that money to be directly paid as engineering salaries. Of course they won't: that would reduce the piece of the pie of all the non-technical managers and bureaucrats!

Re: EU Signs €145B Declaration to Develop Next Gen Processors and 2nm Technology

#304

Post by 11thEarlOfMar »

mafribe wrote: post #299
dmix wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Man, I wish I too shared such optimism in EU or other massive multi government bureaucratic organizations to pull something off like this in 2021. But sorry I simply don’t. From my experience with gov trying to do tech investment it’s going to go into the pockets of late career overpaid ‘executives’ with ‘industry experience’ and tons of (also overpaid and underqualified) contractors doing the same thing. Not the bri…

As far as I understand, ASML is not the creation of government funding, but instead a spinout of Philip and ASMI, two successful Dutch electronics companies. ASML was successful in a competitive market, dominated by Japanese companies pretty quickly. In other words, very different model from what the EU is currently trying.

You are correct. The discussion about ASML is relevant in that state of the art chips cannot be produced without one of their TwinScan lithography tools. ASML is the only company that can build tools with 7nm and below capability.

In the context of the EU developing the ability to fabricate state-of-the-art chips, ASML would sell them the TwinScan tools they needed, which are just one species of about 40 that are used for chip fabrication.

Re: EU Signs €145B Declaration to Develop Next Gen Processors and 2nm Technology

#305

Post by f6v »

samat wrote: post #296
stelonix wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the time with countries not directly aligned to the west, the preaching is for us to sell our strategic industries in name of liberalism and "economic openness", usually spreading lies and misinformation about the company's efficiency. When it's the other way around, it's protectionism and good old Keynesian economics: China can't buy that company, their 5g is evil etc. I know this first-hand because it has h…

There is a popular myth that 'there was a mighty USSR and some enemies ruined it'. The Soviet Union collapsed because of massively broken economy. That's just basic science. They exported oil and imported grain. Russia imported GRAIN for gods sake. Then oil prices collapsed. Next? They did nothing and just ate through the resources until they were no more. And then 'evil liberals/evil west destroying the great countr…

The truth is in between. Was USSR full of internal problems? Yes. Did USA and allies want USSR destroyed and actively work on? Also yes. Saying that Cold War and the arms race had absolutely no role in USSR collapse is either a blatant lie or incompetence.

Re: EU Signs €145B Declaration to Develop Next Gen Processors and 2nm Technology

#308

Post by DrBazza »

thu2111 wrote: post #181
golfer wrote: post #174

Serious question: Why is the EU so far behind in tech company influence/leadership compared to the US and Asia? Europe has successful tech enterprises, but surely is capable of so much more on a global scale.

That's a deep question that is asked nowhere near enough. And when it is asked, my experience has been it's mostly been Americans doing the asking. Here's a story. I was once visiting Silicon Valley for work and getting dinner with a friend who lives there. I'm a Brit who lives in central Europe. On the way over I'd bought a copy of Der Spiegel, which likes to write tabloid-esque articles about the Power Of Tech Firm…

The USA is also one country, one culture, one language, 300 million people as an initial market and a continent. Each of these lower the barrier to entry. The last point point about being a continent is that I can ship across the USA for far less than I can ship from one side of the EU to the other. The USA has economies of scale that Europe still does not have.

Re: EU Signs €145B Declaration to Develop Next Gen Processors and 2nm Technology

#309

Post by CalChris »

skrebbel wrote: post #71
Nokinside wrote: post #35

EU has the tech. ASML is #2 company in EURO STOXX 50 index with 5.69% weight. ASML is the world's largest photolithography systems manufacturer and the only one producing extreme ultraviolet lithography machines. These EUV scanners are expensive as hell. Last years model costs $120 million per piece and you need 10-15 of them for TSMC gigafactory. TWINSCAN NXE:3400C (7 and 5 nm nodes, >170 wafers per hour) is probabl…

ASML is impressive for sure, but having the litho doesn't mean you can make good chips. As a mediocre analogy, you don't expect to be able to write good novels because you got your hands on a printer. I think much of the relevant general-purpose chip design knowledge we had (ARM) left the EU this morning. I don't yet see any other chip company (eg NXP etc) suddenly be the next Intel or AMD yet (let alone the next App…

The company has offices and design centres in Copenhagen in Denmark; Oulu in Finland; Sophia Antipolis in France; Grasbrunn in Germany; Budapest in Hungary; Galway in Ireland; Trondheim in Norway; Katowice in Poland; Sentjernej in Slovenia; Lund in Sweden.

Re: EU Signs €145B Declaration to Develop Next Gen Processors and 2nm Technology

#310

Post by mafribe »

11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #304
mafribe wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I understand, ASML is not the creation of government funding, but instead a spinout of Philip and ASMI, two successful Dutch electronics companies. ASML was successful in a competitive market, dominated by Japanese companies pretty quickly. In other words, very different model from what the EU is currently trying.

You are correct. The discussion about ASML is relevant in that state of the art chips cannot be produced without one of their TwinScan lithography tools. ASML is the only company that can build tools with 7nm and below capability. In the context of the EU developing the ability to fabricate state-of-the-art chips, ASML would sell them the TwinScan tools they needed, which are just one species of about 40 that are use…

ASML would also sell those tools without prodding by the EU. ASML would dearly love to sell them to SMIC and other Chinese foundry too, if the US would let them.

Lithography machines are a functioning market that is interfered with for geo-strategic reasons.

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