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US Intel

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Re: US Intel

#331

Post by BeetleB »

sitzkrieg wrote: post #295
raziel2701 wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amen brother! And the work-life conditions are also much better in software. I remember in grad school an executive from a big semiconductor company (I think it was ON semi) was complaining to the EE department that most students are now pursuing EE as a CS degree and very few went into hardware so they claimed the talent pool was small. How about paying more then? Show me the incentive and I'll show you the outcome.…

you think on call doesn't exist in software? its a common squeeze and replace w h1b tool

Worked as a SW engineer for over a decade. Never did on-call.

Not all SW jobs are web related.

Re: US Intel

#332

Post by BlueTemplar »

201984 wrote: post #146
dpkirchner wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Add to this the fact that given the government is now propping up a poor performing company there's no possible reason to try to create a new domestic competitor. If you do and you start becoming successful, the government can just increase their "investment" in your chief competitor and shut you down. It's ludicrous.

The point of the article was that there's never going to be a new domestic competitor. It would take hundreds of billions in investment to get off the ground and build a fab from scratch, and they'd be in an even worse position than Intel is currently. No external customer would want to risk using them, and they don't have the internal demand of x86 to keep going on their own.

"Never" is a very strong statement... or do you expect the USA or the need for chips to stop existing in a time frame as short as half a century ?

Re: US Intel

#333

Post by kridsdale3 »

headcanon wrote: post #74
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…

Similar, My major in university was computer engineering (as opposed to pure CS or EE) because I wasn't sure if I wanted to go into a hardware or software profession. I ended up going with software since all the interesting opportunities were there, whereas most jobs in hardware seemed to be working for stodgy old companies barely making six figures if I was lucky.

Exactly the same for me.

It's made me one of the only leaders in my Software Org that actually knows what happens below the level of the instruction set. I can talk about the power and heat implications of algorithmic decisions. But mostly nobody cares, theres always enough money to buy more servers.

Re: US Intel

#334

Post by BeetleB »

tkel wrote: post #306
mrcwinn wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why take issue with Trump alone then? Go ask Bernie Sanders. This is a peak at what socialism looks like in America. The country taking a stake is the people taking a stake. Strange bedfellows, perhaps, but anyone far anti-Trump should actually take this as a model of sorts.

I read all of Bernie's platform in 2016 when it was most thoroughly developed, and he didn't call for state ownership of companies like Intel. The closest he got to what you are thinking was calling for public ownership of utilities, which is standard in most capitalist countries, namely buying out/converting private electricity utility monopolies into either public or cooperative ownership. Also, socialism means wha…

> and he didn't call for state ownership of companies like Intel.

But during the CHIPS act debate, he was against the Act unless the US gets a piece of the company.

In general, this is in line with his views.

Re: US Intel

#335

Post by luma »

chatmasta wrote: post #184
rjsw wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You would still outsource running the fab to Intel, just have a government body overseeing it.

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.

That’s the specific problem a well organized governmental body can address. Funding research through university and private R&D lab grants and spreading/licensing the knowledge to domestic companies. Fund grants for universities and scholarships to spread that further. Invest in multiple startups attacking the problem at different levels in the stack (semi manufacturing has a LOT of inputs).

There are loads of ways you can effectively steer an economy to stimulate growth while also meeting geopolitical needs through effective and liberal application of the national purse. DOGE seems to have different ideas about the value of such programs.

Re: US Intel

#336

Post by cpncrunch »

righthand wrote: post #260
monknomo wrote: post #121

the president unilaterally extorting 10% ownership out of a company isn't going to build the kind of system that competes with anyone. Big business can't really thrive under this kind of thing any more than corner stores can thrive under a protection racket.

As much as I dislike Trump, he didn’t extort anything. He renegotiated the profit-sharing terms for an equity stake in Intel.

This is the correct answer. All the news articles seem to be lacking in details, but the deal did indeed waive the profit-sharing and claw-back provisions:

https://www.intc.com/news-events/press-releases/detail/1748/...

Re: US Intel

#337

Post by BeetleB »

davedx wrote: post #168
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't the US pay $9.8 billion? Intel's market cap is $106 billion, so $9.8 billion for 10% is buying at a slight discount. If that data is correct, how did the US "extort" ownership? Look, I'm as terrified of Trump's overreach as the next guy. I could easily see him extorting partial ownership of companies. But I don't see this as being that. Can you make a convincing argument otherwise?

It was a grant (free money). Then the terms were (mostly) unilaterally changed to be an equity investment. Right?

It was because Intel likely wasn't going to get the rest of the grant money, because Lip-Bu Tan openly told the world he won't develop 14A without commitments from customers.

If Intel is going to cease semiconductor development, then why should they get the rest of the taxpayer money? Even under Biden and Pat Gelsinger, the government was signaling to Intel that they may not get the full money if they don't make progress.

Re: US Intel

#338

Post by cpncrunch »

davedx wrote: post #168
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't the US pay $9.8 billion? Intel's market cap is $106 billion, so $9.8 billion for 10% is buying at a slight discount. If that data is correct, how did the US "extort" ownership? Look, I'm as terrified of Trump's overreach as the next guy. I could easily see him extorting partial ownership of companies. But I don't see this as being that. Can you make a convincing argument otherwise?

It was a grant (free money). Then the terms were (mostly) unilaterally changed to be an equity investment. Right?

No. It was a grant with profit sharing. The profit sharing was turned into equity.

https://www.intc.com/news-events/press-releases/detail/1748/...

Re: US Intel

#339

Post by bdangubic »

simne wrote: post #328
bdangubic wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

we must do something, to make Western produced semiconductors more competitive. and letting Federal Government in on this is sure to make this happen - just like everything else being ran by the Federal Government

> just like everything else being ran by the Federal Government Well, I don't like when something ran by Federal Government, but I have similar example: when somebody ill by flu, I don't like to use antibiotics, but sometimes must use antibiotics as fast measures to save life. That is. Previous pro-semiconductor measures was not fast enough, and Intel was in real trouble and need to use something fast, and now we hav…

antibiotics work albeit being shitty for you in the long run. gov never works in short or long term (and especially long term since every 4 to 8 years everything one party did the other one destroys the day after inauguration)

Re: US Intel

#340

Post by BeetleB »

cheema33 wrote: post #262
kube-system wrote: post #120

> President Donald Trump’s announcement on Friday that the U.S. government will take a 10 percent stake in long-struggling Intel marks a dangerous turn in American industrial policy. Decades of market-oriented principles have been abandoned in favor of unprecedented government ownership of private enterprise. Really? A decade and a half ago the US government owned a 60.8% of GM and none less than Barack Obama was dir…

> Really? A decade and a half ago the US government owned a 60.8% of GM and none less than Barack Obama was directing management changes. Did US govt. actually had an ownership stake in GM? Please provide some links to this effect.

They also owned AIG insurance. Probably some other companies as well.
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