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Intel and the $1.5T chip industry meltdown

economist.com

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Re: Intel and the $1.5T chip industry meltdown

#301

Post by datavirtue »

pcai wrote: post #251
bee_rider wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Grocery self-checkout machines are great. There's even a system now where you can bring a little scanner with you and scan as you pick them out, that way you can bag them directly in your cart, saving the time of the final scan and the bagging (it was great during the peak of the pandemic, skip the cashier and waiting in the high-population line area). Robots answering support calls are annoying, but self-service web…

the scan as you shop technology is actually being phased out in many chains because the theft rates are unsustainable some wholesale clubs apparently counter this by randomly auditing every cart as you leave, but that seems to leave the whole thing only marginally more efficient than traditional checkout

Yes, apathetic, emasculated, underpaid employees are being used to examine your cart/checkout.

I have lost count of how many items I forgot to pay for at Home Depot.

Re: Intel and the $1.5T chip industry meltdown

#302

Post by tsimionescu »

JAlexoid wrote: post #291
nscalf wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does it do little to diversify these fabs? The current situation is that if China invades Taiwan, the entire Western world is compelled to engage militarily over Taiwan's high end chip fabs. It cannot be overstated how much we depend on that, if TSMC operates in other countries, we don't HAVE to engage in WW3.

Em... I doubt that semiconductor industry is the thing to lead us to WW3.

I think you underestimate the dependency of all modern economy on semiconductor industry.

I honestly think there is 100% chance that if China invaded Taiwan today, the US would declare war and send troops to defend Taiwan. In contrast, I think there is >0% chance that the US would not declare war on Russia if they did a (tactical) nuclear attack in Ukraine.

Re: Intel and the $1.5T chip industry meltdown

#303

Post by slickrick216 »

theptip wrote: post #288
LeifCarrotson wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A fab in Ohio, Oregon, or Arizona 10,000 km from China is safe from threats like cruise missiles that the proposed fab 1000 km from China in Japan or South Korea would not be. It's not so much that cruise missiles used on civilian targets in South Korea or Japan would not be a reason to start WW3, more that it would be less tempting.

I'm confused by this take. Who is threatening Japan with cruise missiles? Certainly not China or Russia. North Korea, perhaps. The primary reason that we're concerned about semiconductor fab concentration in Taiwan is that China has consistently stated that it is going to invade Taiwan at some point (and that could be 2049 or in a few years for all we know). This is completely outside of any hypothetical scenarios of…

If China attempts an invasion on Taiwan it is not unrealistic to suggest they’ll also take a swing at Japan and at least try to destroy the fabs there.

Re: Intel and the $1.5T chip industry meltdown

#304

Post by xxpor »

terminalcommand wrote: post #287
kuschku wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need certain machines for EUV. There's only one manufacturer (ASML) for those, and they're at capacity. And even if they wanted to scale up, there's only one manufacturer (Zeiss) for the EUV mirrors required for those machines, and all their capacity for the next years is already bought as well.

Why can't ASML scale up? I don't understand this. I think because they are a monopoly they can work slower, they don't need the extra profits.

ASML is (now) a company everyone has heard of, but like GP hinted at with their Zeiss comment, their supply chain is crazy deep as well. Getting everything scaled up across companies and countries is far from trivial.

Re: Intel and the $1.5T chip industry meltdown

#305

Post by sylware »

Sakos wrote: post #202
sylware wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So it means that chinese SMIC announced '7nm' implies they have EUV working?

No, they don't have EUV. They have 7nm which they're doing with DUV, but they're hitting the same issues Intel did with abysmal yields and there's no guarantee that SMIC will be able to solve something Intel was never able to.

... unless they jump onto the EUV train. That said heard that japan may come back as a top-notch silicium country with... nanoimprint?!

Re: Intel and the $1.5T chip industry meltdown

#306

Post by theptip »

slickrick216 wrote: post #303
theptip wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm confused by this take. Who is threatening Japan with cruise missiles? Certainly not China or Russia. North Korea, perhaps. The primary reason that we're concerned about semiconductor fab concentration in Taiwan is that China has consistently stated that it is going to invade Taiwan at some point (and that could be 2049 or in a few years for all we know). This is completely outside of any hypothetical scenarios of…

If China attempts an invasion on Taiwan it is not unrealistic to suggest they’ll also take a swing at Japan and at least try to destroy the fabs there.

That seems very unrealistic to suggest, to me.

Re: Intel and the $1.5T chip industry meltdown

#307

Post by hunglee2 »

treis wrote: post #152
chaorace wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This kind of bluster is a mainstay of Chinese geopolitics. The law was intentionally written in an open-ended way so that the party always gets the final say on what "completely exhausted" should mean. It serves as a propaganda tool internally and a point of leverage externally -- the party never needs to actually act on the threat for it to serve a valuable purpose. With that being said, it's not that simple. Bluste…

Nitpick, but AFAIK China hasn't violated Taiwan's airspace. Taiwan says they'd treat it as an act of war if they did. Taiwan has an Air Defense Identification Zone where they track aircraft and aircraft entering it are supposed to identify themselves. This extends over the Chinese mainland and it's this zone that everyone talks about China "violating". But it's Chinese airspace and ultimately they have the right to f…

not a nitpick at all, stating facts never is, regardless of the downvotes

Re: Intel and the $1.5T chip industry meltdown

#308

Post by xwolfi »

slickrick216 wrote: post #303
theptip wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm confused by this take. Who is threatening Japan with cruise missiles? Certainly not China or Russia. North Korea, perhaps. The primary reason that we're concerned about semiconductor fab concentration in Taiwan is that China has consistently stated that it is going to invade Taiwan at some point (and that could be 2049 or in a few years for all we know). This is completely outside of any hypothetical scenarios of…

If China attempts an invasion on Taiwan it is not unrealistic to suggest they’ll also take a swing at Japan and at least try to destroy the fabs there.

It is very unlikely, if not impossible: China has repeatedly stated Taiwan is in China, Taiwan has repeatedly stated they, in fact, are the legitimate China, both prepare day and night for an invasion they never dismiss, and both are a direct threat to each other politically, geographically and culturally.

Japan ? They're as threatened by China as India, and nobody in China is planning for administrative take over of 130 millions Japanese anytime soon. And Japan has so many problems to solve already, they're not looking at bothering China enough to risk missiles.

Re: Intel and the $1.5T chip industry meltdown

#309

Post by Negitivefrags »

terminalcommand wrote: post #287
kuschku wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need certain machines for EUV. There's only one manufacturer (ASML) for those, and they're at capacity. And even if they wanted to scale up, there's only one manufacturer (Zeiss) for the EUV mirrors required for those machines, and all their capacity for the next years is already bought as well.

Why can't ASML scale up? I don't understand this. I think because they are a monopoly they can work slower, they don't need the extra profits.

Scaling up too much is a huge risk. Sure, people want a lot more EUV machines right now, but what if they don’t later? You can be left with a lot of expensive capital outlay that is going unused.

The semi industry is known for being very boom/bust so it’s best not to scale up too quick lest it kill your company.

Re: Intel and the $1.5T chip industry meltdown

#310

Post by ecshafer »

tsimionescu wrote: post #302
JAlexoid wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Em... I doubt that semiconductor industry is the thing to lead us to WW3.

I think you underestimate the dependency of all modern economy on semiconductor industry. I honestly think there is 100% chance that if China invaded Taiwan today, the US would declare war and send troops to defend Taiwan. In contrast, I think there is >0% chance that the US would not declare war on Russia if they did a (tactical) nuclear attack in Ukraine.

I wish I could remember the origin of this. But a quip on this idea I had read was along the lines of "If China invaded Taiwan and Kansas, the US would send troops to Taiwan first". Whether you want to call Taiwan an ally, a protectorate, vassal or whatever your political standpoint would dictate, the US is very protective of Taiwan.
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