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

TSMC Announces Intention to Build and Operate Advanced Semiconductor Fab in U.S.

tsmc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

351–360 of 438 posts

Re: TSMC Announces Intention to Build and Operate Advanced Semiconductor Fab in U.S.

#351

Post by AgloeDreams »

Nokinside wrote: post #269

Important detail: This is not GIGAFAB facility. Only 20,000 wafers per month is between mini- and megafab for TSMC. I suspect the production goes to US defense applications. Pompeo tweeting about it seems to confirm it. https://twitter.com/SecPompeo/status/1261143980634509318 ? >Secretary Pompeo >@SecPompeo >The U.S. welcomes TSMC’s intention to invest $12B in the most advanced 5-nanometer semiconductor fabrication f…

This seems like something China might treat as an act of aggression by Taiwan..right? Like, now they are giving China good reason to see Taiwan as hostile, esp. with all their efforts to snuff out Taiwan.

Re: TSMC Announces Intention to Build and Operate Advanced Semiconductor Fab in U.S.

#352

Post by nabla9 »

audunw wrote: post #325
nabla9 wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taiwan's official position is that there is only one China and Taiwan is the one. >[Taiwan] considers "one China" to mean the Republic of China (ROC), founded in 1912 and with de jure sovereignty over all of China. The modern-day ROC, however, has jurisdiction only over Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu. Taiwan is part of China, and the Chinese mainland is part of China as well. Taiwan is de facto independent, not for…

There was just a proposed amendment which would change that. But it was withdrawn. Probably because they're worried about upsetting China too much. The current government is very pro (formal) independence. But it's a bit hard to declare China and Taiwan to be seperate when China is threatening with invasion.

It does not help that US long term policy is strategic ambiguity and one China policy as well.

The goal of ambiguity is prevent unilateral declaration of independence by Taiwan and an invasion of Taiwan at the same time.

Re: TSMC Announces Intention to Build and Operate Advanced Semiconductor Fab in U.S.

#353

Post by AgloeDreams »

wtallis wrote: post #252
p1esk wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you think Intel is behind TSMC in terms of process technology?

Intel's 10nm process does finally exist in a shippable form, but it's not yet mature enough or high-volume enough to handle the entire breadth of their CPU product line. Intel launched new 14nm processors last month, 5.5 years after introducing their first 14nm processors. Meanwhile, TSMC's 7nm process has been shipping since Q3 2018, and their EUV-based N7+ process is now in mass production. There's no question that…

Bingo, plus they are deep in R&D of 5nm with Apple having placed large orders already. Their 5nm plan sees shipping products WAY before intel's 7nm.

Re: TSMC Announces Intention to Build and Operate Advanced Semiconductor Fab in U.S.

#354

Post by HideousKojima »

barrkel wrote: post #318
magicsmoke wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China won't march into Taiwan until they can win a naval war with the US to keep the US from retaliating. And if China can do that, they won't have to march into Taiwan. 2050 Indo-pacific naval war is my prediction.

China can almost certainly win a naval war with the US already; or rather, negate the US's naval force projection tool of choice, the aircraft carrier, with anti-ship ballistic missiles. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DF-26 - range of 2500 miles

Every Carrier Battle Group has two ships in it that are essentially devoted to just protecting the carrier whether from missiles or other threats. We've yet to see how effective systems like Aegis are against anti-ship missiles (though I'm sure the DoD has done plenty of tests) but it's far from clear that anti-ship missiles obsolete carriers. And given that China is starting their own carrier fleets I'm guessing they don't think things are so clear cut either.

The Exocet was made way back in the early 70's yet carriers and surface fleets in general still aren't obsolete.

Re: TSMC Announces Intention to Build and Operate Advanced Semiconductor Fab in U.S.

#355

Post by 101404 »

solstice wrote: post #332
101404 wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China is 1.4 billion people. That's more people than the western world combined. Once China has "acquired" the technology, it doesn't need an export market anymore for economies of scale. China's internal market is more than large enough for that. Just a detail to keep in mind.

That's a bit too simple. People in inland provinces such as gansu or guizhou have much -much- lower purchasing power. I encourage you to have a look at a map of China with GDP numbers and then compare them to the US, Germany or Japan...

No need to look, I lived there long enough and have been to every province. Despite the still existing poverty is the internal market large enough already for many products.

However, China is not quite there yet when it comes to technology (hence the many Chinese students in Western universities), but they are well on the way.

Re: TSMC Announces Intention to Build and Operate Advanced Semiconductor Fab in U.S.

#356

Post by holdenc »

bobthepanda wrote: post #230
fermienrico wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China marching into Taiwan would be a losing move. Never mind the civil unrest, the entire world would bail out of China. Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand + India would be even more alerted than they are right now with HK situation. The narrative in these countries is quickly evolving. CCP is over playing their hand by engaging in asymetrical trade.

It's also worth pointing out that Taiwan is so densely populated and small that it would be hard to invade Taiwan without simultaneously destroying everything of value. It's a fools' errand.

It does not require an invasion unfortunately. It only requires a naval blockade, which would effectively starve the island until they concede to defeat.

Re: TSMC Announces Intention to Build and Operate Advanced Semiconductor Fab in U.S.

#357

Post by thu2111 »

baybal2 wrote: post #321
audunw wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another aspect of Russia taking crimea is that the people living there to a large extent welcomed it. There are some that are pro-unification in Taiwan, but it's a minority. Most people are pro status quo, and the number that are for declaring independence is growing. The ruling party is very pro-independence (ideologically speaking, in practice they have to move slowly and maintain status quo to some degree), meanin…

> Another aspect of Russia taking crimea is that the people living there to a large extent welcomed it. Man, are saying this in your right mind? Where do you read this stuff? People there abandoned their property, and ran! This is what they did. Nobody openly welcomed it in their sane minds, besides few thousands elderly ex-party members, and alt-right weirdos. The fact that I hear sentiments like this in the West is…

It's quite well known if you venture outside the mainstream media.

For example there were opinion polls done by western polling orgs in Crimea where the vast majority supported unification with Russia. It's not hard to understand. Salaries in Russia are ~10x what they are in Ukraine for the same job. Economically they're not comparable, and that's before you get to the whole conflict in Ukraine starting because the government was overthrown by rebels supporting a new government that amongst its first acts, banned the Russian language.

Remember that Ukraine's response to the peaceful annexation was to cut off Crimea's entire electricity supply. That's hardly the work of a friendly government trying to help its loved citizens. Russia had to send in generator ships, if I recall correctly.

Re: TSMC Announces Intention to Build and Operate Advanced Semiconductor Fab in U.S.

#358

Post by esmi »

Nokinside wrote: post #309
xxs wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like the most of the discussion here totally missed that part - that would be no consumer grade chips and likely the prime client would be US military. 20k wafers (perhaps 450mm ones?) with unknown yield (likely 80ish) is quite low. For reference AMD 5700 has die area of ~250mm.

I don't see how that big investment for relative low volume production would make sense for consumer products. If the fab is located inside the US, AMD and NVIDIA can bid for many US government contracts that would go for Intel. After GlobalFoundries quit the race, US defense contractors have only Intel as supplier for many components.

> I don't see how that big investment for relative low volume production would make sense for consumer products.

If the consumer product is a toy then sure. If it’s a medical device then it could make sense. It’s all about margin.

> After GlobalFoundries quit the race, US defense contractors have only Intel as supplier for many components.

Maybe. If you want millions of chips a quarter then sure. But if you want 1000s a quarter then there are many options, depending on the node I guess. I’m not going to Google a complete list but one obvious example is Texas Instruments.

Re: TSMC Announces Intention to Build and Operate Advanced Semiconductor Fab in U.S.

#359

Post by thu2111 »

marcell wrote: post #185
Lind5 wrote: post #64

Actually, this is true. The big question is what's going on behind the scenes. China has been busy building up its own supply chain after the U.S. closed off shipments of any U.S.-based R&D to Huawei last summer. It also has made statements that Taiwan is part of China since then, which has left the U.S. without an advanced-node fab. Intel is at least a node behind both Samsung and TSMC, and the U.S. has no trusted f…

> If China marches into Taiwan, the U.S. will be left with no advanced-node manufacturing and it will have lost the technology race Can you explain this? If China takes over Taiwan, couldn't the US just take over whatever TSMC plants exist in America?

The TSMC fab in Taiwan is the world's most advanced. There are no other sources for 7nm manufacturing at the moment. Moreover chip designs can't just be immediately re-spun onto older processes: if it were lost to China then basically the rest of the world would completely lose access to a fresh supply of the best chips. Tech would immediately have to roll back a generation of two, hardware wise, and of course software that relied on that performance would also need to roll back, etc.

Re: TSMC Announces Intention to Build and Operate Advanced Semiconductor Fab in U.S.

#360

Post by Kirby64 »

xxs wrote: post #304
Nokinside wrote: post #269

Important detail: This is not GIGAFAB facility. Only 20,000 wafers per month is between mini- and megafab for TSMC. I suspect the production goes to US defense applications. Pompeo tweeting about it seems to confirm it. https://twitter.com/SecPompeo/status/1261143980634509318 ? >Secretary Pompeo >@SecPompeo >The U.S. welcomes TSMC’s intention to invest $12B in the most advanced 5-nanometer semiconductor fabrication f…

Seems like the most of the discussion here totally missed that part - that would be no consumer grade chips and likely the prime client would be US military. 20k wafers (perhaps 450mm ones?) with unknown yield (likely 80ish) is quite low. For reference AMD 5700 has die area of ~250mm.

It'll be 300mm wafers. No one is doing 450mm wafers because cost-benefit doesn't make sense. Given it's low volume, they're going to reuse tooling that's already available, which means 300mm.
Post reply on HN