Excuse the naive question, but what technology does a fab bring to the table? As I understand it, TSMC buys most (all?) of their equipment from ASML (or a competitor), and the chip design is done and owned by their customers. What's left, aside from a giant cleanroom and some specialized operators?
TSMC Announces Intention to Build and Operate Advanced Semiconductor Fab in U.S.
401–410 of 438 posts
Re: TSMC Announces Intention to Build and Operate Advanced Semiconductor Fab in U.S.
#402Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 the…
If you use a nuclear warhead, you don't have to hit the ship directly.
Re: TSMC Announces Intention to Build and Operate Advanced Semiconductor Fab in U.S.
#403Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's definitely true for Europe being absolutely spineless when push comes to shove. The EU couldn't even put pressure on Erdogan let alone on Xi. China has been buying influence here for years, especially through the poorer countries that were alienated by the strict austerity measures imposed by the bigger powers. The nature of the EU politics where a single country has the power to veto the rest is a massive looph…
Is that being spineless or unorganized and powerless?
Re: TSMC Announces Intention to Build and Operate Advanced Semiconductor Fab in U.S.
#404Earlier quoted context omitted.
Indeed. A proxy robot war is just a very expensive game. And if you can settle your differences this way, you may as well do that in Quake 3 Arena for cheaper. And if you can settle your differences with Q3A, you may as well do that over the negotiating table. All of these depend on mutual cooperation; both parties agreeing to respect the outcome of the game. Real war starts when one party is unhappy about the outcom…
Also when the two parties misjudge their relative military strength. If both parties were in relative agreement about what the outcome of their war would be they wouldn't have to fight one in order to negotiate changes to the status quo. That's why espionage can be a stabilizing force and the US and USSR had treaties during the latter parts of the cold war allowing each side to fly spy planes into the others territor…
Re: TSMC Announces Intention to Build and Operate Advanced Semiconductor Fab in U.S.
#405Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have visited Crimea last year as a tourist and talked with Crimeans personally (in Massandra and Alushta). Where do you get your information? In my experience people are mostly happy with the Russian rule and with changes it brings (simply compare investments before 2014 and after). Of course, those who work in IT, have to virtually reallocate via VPNs to circumvent western sanctions, but they don't blame Russia fo…
> Crimean Tatars a bit less happy with the Russian rule on average compared to ethnic Russians, but I think it mostly can be attributed to the lost profits from illegal businesses It’s a bit more complicated than that. The historical and relatively recent mass starvation, persecution, mass murder and forcing into gulags is likely relevant. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean_Tatars
While I will not deny that a certain amount of bad blood still exists due to the deportation, I think most Tatars more concerned about their current livelihood (though I have talked only with 2 tatars, so my sample size is quite small).
Re: TSMC Announces Intention to Build and Operate Advanced Semiconductor Fab in U.S.
#406Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Never mind the civil unrest, the entire world would bail out of China. That is not clear.. at all. Europe, Canada, Australia, New Zealand -- the non-US western allies -- have all known exactly what China's end goal is and have down jack diddly squat to put pressure on them. The only thing preventing China from taking out Taiwan is the United States. Europe and the rest of the world is too cowardly to even do anythi…
> The only thing preventing China from taking out Taiwan is the United States. The only thing preventing China from taking out Taiwan is their mutual economic annihilation in case hostilities intensify. Taiwan's relationship with the US has been at best ambivalent. Do not forget US was close to waving a hand on the island just a decade ago.
https://www.armyrecognition.com/april_2020_news_defense_glob...
It seems like the US has been more willing to sell Taiwan better military equipment recently?
Re: TSMC Announces Intention to Build and Operate Advanced Semiconductor Fab in U.S.
#407Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can seriously get small run chips made on 7nm in the US? I just don't believe it.
Was 7nm a requirement? I didn’t gather that from the thread. Small run 22nm is certainly available. These are fabricated in the US, albeit at an Intel site. https://www.mosis.com/pages/intel_sponsored_fab
Re: TSMC Announces Intention to Build and Operate Advanced Semiconductor Fab in U.S.
#408Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I am sure China likes this. If TSCM is scared of a PRC takeover and trying to move investment out of the country, Well China's messaging is working. Maybe before Taiwan was sufficiently richer per capita that taking it over had something to do with its wealth, but now it's a almost exclusively a matter of pride and nationalism. If they get control of a deindustrialized husk, they can say "Look at all the US boot-lick…
Re: TSMC Announces Intention to Build and Operate Advanced Semiconductor Fab in U.S.
#409Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Crimean Tatars a bit less happy with the Russian rule on average compared to ethnic Russians, but I think it mostly can be attributed to the lost profits from illegal businesses It’s a bit more complicated than that. The historical and relatively recent mass starvation, persecution, mass murder and forcing into gulags is likely relevant. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean_Tatars
Note that not only Tatars have died from mass starvation in 30s and 40s. It hit equally hard Russians, Ukrainians and other ethnic groups (e.g. it had consequences as far as in the Volga region), so Tatars (as well as Ukrainians) weren't an exclusive target here. AFAIK Tatars weren't forced into Gulags without proofs of collaboration with Nazi forces (the number is estimated around 15k, which is only approximately 5%…
You have 2 more personal sources than I do.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deportation_of_the_Crimean_T...
Re: TSMC Announces Intention to Build and Operate Advanced Semiconductor Fab in U.S.
#410An earlier thread, before the official announcement, was https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23183850 . But we've merged most of the relevant comments into this thread.
But now a lot of the comments from old thread are speculating whether the move was right. When the actual news here is the confirmation of the move. I find that a little confusing just reading the comments.