Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

US Intel

stratechery.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

341–350 of 581 posts

Re: US Intel

#341

Post by bdangubic »

CharlieDigital wrote: post #311
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

To be fair, US government is pretty good at strategic weapons; best in history. So if you view chips through that maybe it all works out.

this is being ran at about 9,800% waste which is why our department of offense budget is equal to 976 GDPs of Germany… very very bad example

Re: US Intel

#342

Post by MichaelZuo »

fxtentacle wrote: post #279
nine_k wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say that VC funding may be an inappropriate tool for that. VCs want you to either grow fast, or fail fast. Not necessarily to bring profit fast, but to visibly capture the market (see Uber). Move fast, break things, rework things every week, trigger that wave of sign-ups. Agriculture is much slower, every iteration may be is a year, or (in tropical climates) half a year. Microelectronics is comparably slow, and e…

Yeah, it's almost as if prioritizing returns on investment over EVERYTHING!!! else has bad side-effects for the economy as a whole.

It seems really unlikely so many elements of American society decided to prioritize returns simultaneously… but more like those who didn’t… eventually couldn’t compete anymore and left the market.

Leaving behind only those completely focused on returns.

Re: US Intel

#343

Post by kridsdale3 »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #222
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…

Amen, software sucked all the talent out of the hardware room. When you write the pros and cons of software vs hardware, pretty much the only positive on the hardware side is a subjective "it's more fun".

Sometimes, there's lasers.

Re: US Intel

#344

Post by deepsquirrelnet »

BeetleB wrote: post #327
deepsquirrelnet wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO the company can fail. It’s the people, facilities and equipment that matter. Those can get picked up by a company or companies that know how to use them. Secondarily, a TSMC fab on US soil seems like a better investment. In the catastrophic event that Taiwan were invaded — it’s still people, facilities and equipment that remain here.

> It’s the people, facilities and equipment that matter. Those can get picked up by a company or companies that know how to use them. This trope keeps getting repeated on HN. No, the point of the top level comment and article is that no US based company will replace Intel's fabs, nor will they form a "better" Intel. This stuff is intensely capital intensive, and nothing short of a government mandate will make any oth…

Because there’s many ways to raise capital, but very few ways to get talent.

You’re arguing about logistics under the current economic rules while simultaneously defending a change of rules.

When you put that on the table, then there’s a lot more ways to overcome the obstacles of today that aren’t being discussed.

If a company’s management becomes a risk to national interests, then giving them more money with no added oversight is not really solving anything.

Re: US Intel

#345

Post by convolvatron »

freeopinion wrote: post #139
jandrese wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still think Intel missed the boat when they had the dominant process in focusing entirely on their own chips and not taking customers for third party fabbing. Samsung and especially TSMC have demonstrated conclusively that the real money is in producing chips for other companies. It might be lower margin, but the volume is undeniable and it keeps your company on its toes with node improvements. Intel switched to a…

TSMC does not compete with their customers. Intel would. I know that is not a new idea and there are some established mitigations. But it seems it would be better if it wasn't an issue at all.

I worked in a CPU group that used IBM for a fab when they still had one. it was definitely an issue.

Re: US Intel

#346

Post by p1necone »

treis wrote: post #258
jandrese wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is when importance is not reflected in the quarterly profit margin.

Chips are one of those things where being the best is simultaneously very important and not at all important. Making a 10% better chip gets you the entire market. But it makes practically no difference if your cellphone or laptop or server or whatever has a 10% worse chip.

> Making a 10% better chip gets you the entire market

Gets you the entire datacenter market maybe. End user (PCs, cellphones etc) stuff is much more concerned about perf/$ (up front cost) than perf/watt (long term cost), and the embedded market (electronics, appliances etc) mostly care about 'good enough' as cheaply as possible - performance isn't a concern at all for many use cases.

And the corporate market mostly cares about (perceived) reliability/liability concerns over everything else - see how hard it's been for AMD cpus to penetrate despite being measurably better in every category compared to Intel at various points in time.

Re: US Intel

#347

Post by supportengineer »

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.

These ads ain't gonna show themselves.

Re: US Intel

#348

Post by tick_tock_tick »

NitpickLawyer wrote: post #72
zoeysmithe wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a real folly in capitalist countries thinking they can be self-sufficient walled castles. Capitalism by its nature will seek out the lowest cost be it in labor or manufacturing. That means often means outsourcing. Our system has no breaks for this. In fact it works actively for this, hence the neolib ideal of "just move towards efficiencies, and let the chips fall where they may." This is ideal under capitali…

> Nationalism/protectionism and capitalism are fundamentally incompatible Huh? France and Germany are prime counter examples of your statement.

I mean they are both shocking poor compared to the USA and France is still suffering from ridiculous youth unemployment.

Re: US Intel

#349

Post by tick_tock_tick »

3D30497420 wrote: post #10
rickdeckard wrote: post #2

> "The single most important reason for the U.S. to own part of Intel, however, is the implicit promise that Intel Foundry is not going anywhere." If the last 8 Months of this year has shown something, it's that every decision the US takes could be considerate, but as likely also completely random and reversed and bent at any moment in the future. Accepting those risks in order to sell in the US-market (assuming it w…

> every decision the US takes could be considerate, but as likely also completely random and reversed and bent at any moment in the future. This my main problem with this investment. I can certainly appreciate the benefit of US government investment to ensure "homegrown" production capabilities. However, this depends a lot on a level of understanding, intelligence, and planning from the US federal government which is…

> If no one trusts Intel now, I cannot begin to imagine how anyone would view Intel plus the current US government as more trustworthy.

Because people making these decisions aren't chronically online....

Re: US Intel

#350

Post by BeetleB »

deepsquirrelnet wrote: post #344
BeetleB wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s the people, facilities and equipment that matter. Those can get picked up by a company or companies that know how to use them. This trope keeps getting repeated on HN. No, the point of the top level comment and article is that no US based company will replace Intel's fabs, nor will they form a "better" Intel. This stuff is intensely capital intensive, and nothing short of a government mandate will make any oth…

Because there’s many ways to raise capital, but very few ways to get talent. You’re arguing about logistics under the current economic rules while simultaneously defending a change of rules. When you put that on the table, then there’s a lot more ways to overcome the obstacles of today that aren’t being discussed. If a company’s management becomes a risk to national interests, then giving them more money with no adde…

Oh I agree that this may not be a solution.

Where I disagree is that if Intel fails, something better (US based) will replace them. It won't.

Post reply on HN