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TSMC to make 4nm chips in Arizona for Apple, AMD, Nvidia

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Re: TSMC to make 4nm chips in Arizona for Apple, AMD, Nvidia

#421

Post by eagleinparadise »

pphysch wrote: post #335
menshiki wrote: post #235

Great news for the US. Great news for Apple, AMD, and Nvidia. Not so good news for Taiwan. The fact that the whole tech world is dependent on chips produced in Hsinchu is a huge advantage for the safety of Taiwan. Moving the fabs and talent further away from the island will not benefit the people of Taiwan at all. TSMC with its global influence has been a huge factor for guaranteeing safety of the island and peace in…

> TSMC with its global influence has been a huge factor for guaranteeing safety of the island and peace in the Taiwan strait. This narrative is echoed around the internet, but if you study the actual history of the Taiwan Strait Crises (which started before the semiconductor was invented), it never comes up in official discussion or analysis. See Kissinger, for example. Cynically, this narrative was possibly promoted…

The real reason we care so much... just look into how power is created by international laws allow landmasses to project power X number of miles out into the ocean. That control plays right into the most influential lanes of commerce in the world.

Sometimes, real life feels like a game of Command and Conquer or Risk, when you zoom back out and boil things down to their most simple form.

Re: TSMC to make 4nm chips in Arizona for Apple, AMD, Nvidia

#422

Post by hammock »

black_puppydog wrote: post #411
hammock wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Great news for the US. Great news for Apple, AMD, and Nvidia. Not so good news for Taiwan. The fact that the whole tech world is dependent on chips produced in Hsinchu is a huge advantage for the safety of Taiwan. Moving the fabs and talent further away from the island will not benefit the people of Taiwan at all. Naive question, can we relocate the people of Taiwan?

Think about that for a second: why would they want to be relocated? And when is the last time you can remember someone deciding "let's relocate these other people that I'm not part of" and that being okay? I mean, one of these relocations is literally called "march of tears".

35 million or so Latin Americans have relocated themselves to the US, even piled into dark crowded trucks and given up their life savings to dangerous coyotes, to do so. I would imagine the the specter of Communist China knocking on your door and breathing down your neck would be a motivator for many Taiwanese. And there would be a great opportunity for the US to welcome them with open arms as allies

Re: TSMC to make 4nm chips in Arizona for Apple, AMD, Nvidia

#423

Post by topspin »

nailer wrote: post #7

I love how “we can’t make chips in the US anymore it’s impossible” was something we heard only a few years ago.

The regression so far:

- TSMC will never build-out in the US

- And if they do it will only be older nodes

- And if it's not just old nodes then it's only because subsidies.

Now that it's actually happening we see cop outs, like "yeah but ?nm will be obsolete by the time it's built."

Re: TSMC to make 4nm chips in Arizona for Apple, AMD, Nvidia

#424

Post by rsj_hn »

NeverFade wrote: post #408
rsj_hn wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Automotive industry is still using 90nm chips. It's not even the generation before the current one. They have long production runs and require stability, and they also prefer to use standardized parts across many production runs. Defense also uses older chips. Don't ask what kind of chips are in Amraam missiles or the F-35 -- although the F-35 is getting a technology refresh now (after a 14 year production run). Only…

That's what I thought. If consumer products tend to use the bleeding edge, which will be the state-of-the-art chips produced in Taiwan, then I still don't get: 1. What's so exciting about a prev-gen fab possibly being completed in 2024? 2. Who will buy the chips produced by the 4nm Arizona fab, and why? The only plausible answer offered for 1 in this thread has been that it's too difficult to jump straight into the b…

Lower end consumer electronics are fine with chips that aren't the absolute latest. The point isn't that they won't find buyers, but rather that they will earn less money building a fab in a location with much higher labor costs and producing chips that are a bit behind.

My guess is that the decision to build fabs in the U.S. was the result of geopolitical strong-arming by the U.S., but TSMC will still find buyers and that the fab will at least pay for itself.

Re: TSMC to make 4nm chips in Arizona for Apple, AMD, Nvidia

#425

Post by Maursault »

TEP_Kim_Il_Sung wrote: post #396
menshiki wrote: post #235

Great news for the US. Great news for Apple, AMD, and Nvidia. Not so good news for Taiwan. The fact that the whole tech world is dependent on chips produced in Hsinchu is a huge advantage for the safety of Taiwan. Moving the fabs and talent further away from the island will not benefit the people of Taiwan at all. TSMC with its global influence has been a huge factor for guaranteeing safety of the island and peace in…

*China (Best China, not to be confused with West China) Great for Arizona. Hope it brings them jobs.

> Great for Arizona. Hope it brings them jobs.

And water!

Re: TSMC to make 4nm chips in Arizona for Apple, AMD, Nvidia

#426

Post by mattbrewsbytes »

phpisthebest wrote: post #245
mattbrewsbytes wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your build quality comparison is off, a cheap $500 laptop should be compared to prior years Macbook Air M1 which is $300 more, not $2000 more. A $800 macbook has far better build quality than any $500 Windows laptop, probably better than most $800 laptops. Its Windows that's the issue for me. Having too many bad experiences and strong bias against Microsoft, I choose Apple because its not MS and it does work vs. tink…

>>Its Windows that's the issue for me. That has nothing to do with build quality >Having too many bad experiences and strong bias against Microsoft Well at least you admit your bias, as someone that works in enterprise and manages 1000's of windows computers i can say i would never want to attempt that with Apple who does not have the enterprise tooling that MS does before I was in enterprise I felt the same about wi…

Ironic you talk of a walled garden and work in Enterprise IT creating a ... walled garden for your users (enterprise tooling like pre-installed images, not being able to install apps as admin, etc.) because its easier to support.

Oh I don't for a second think Apple stuff would ever compete with 1000's of devices being managed from an Enterprise IT department. I lived in that environment for a while and would dual boot to linux, run VirtualBox or get a 2nd PC from IT and wipe it and install linux.

Re: TSMC to make 4nm chips in Arizona for Apple, AMD, Nvidia

#427

Post by bonestamp2 »

NeverFade wrote: post #408
rsj_hn wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Automotive industry is still using 90nm chips. It's not even the generation before the current one. They have long production runs and require stability, and they also prefer to use standardized parts across many production runs. Defense also uses older chips. Don't ask what kind of chips are in Amraam missiles or the F-35 -- although the F-35 is getting a technology refresh now (after a 14 year production run). Only…

That's what I thought. If consumer products tend to use the bleeding edge, which will be the state-of-the-art chips produced in Taiwan, then I still don't get: 1. What's so exciting about a prev-gen fab possibly being completed in 2024? 2. Who will buy the chips produced by the 4nm Arizona fab, and why? The only plausible answer offered for 1 in this thread has been that it's too difficult to jump straight into the b…

If mission critical applications (military, automotive, aerospace) are using older chips, and smartphones/computers are using the latest, then everything else is using chips between those two extremes... computer peripherals, office machines, toys, audio/video systems, communication equipment, lights, HVAC, anything rechargeable. The list is massive, you name an industry and they will probably be buying 4nm over the next couple decades.

Re: TSMC to make 4nm chips in Arizona for Apple, AMD, Nvidia

#428

Post by mattbrewsbytes »

macspoofing wrote: post #268
mattbrewsbytes wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your build quality comparison is off, a cheap $500 laptop should be compared to prior years Macbook Air M1 which is $300 more, not $2000 more. A $800 macbook has far better build quality than any $500 Windows laptop, probably better than most $800 laptops. Its Windows that's the issue for me. Having too many bad experiences and strong bias against Microsoft, I choose Apple because its not MS and it does work vs. tink…

>A $800 macbook has far better build quality than any $500 Windows laptop Took a peak at the apple store, there is no $800 Macbook for sale. So we're comparing, an older (used?) higher-end Macbook to a budget Windows laptop? Why not compare an older higher-end Windows laptop to an older Macbook? Why not compare a new $500 budget Windows laptop to a $500 used Macbook? >Its Windows that's the issue for me. Having too m…

2020 Macbook Air M1 on amazon, brand new, $800 in ads I see when I google for it: https://www.google.com/search?&q=macbook+air+m1

Re: TSMC to make 4nm chips in Arizona for Apple, AMD, Nvidia

#429

Post by bjourne »

NeverFade wrote: post #348
placatedmayhem wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is still a lot of demand for the not-latest-generation, "long tail" fab processes. Much of the long tail manufacturing was (is?) what the chip shortage was about, rather than the current generation. A good example is the automotive industry. It doesn't typically move quickly or frequently onto newer generation processes as that requires R&D time and other expenses. However, these have been some of the worst sho…

Does "one generation before current" count as "long tail", though? The chip shortage in products like cars has been for much simpler chips, AFAIK. The article says Apple, AMD, and Nvidia are looking to source from the new plant. Aren't they canonical examples of companies that are always looking for the latest and greatest? Why would they be interested in an prev-gen chip?

Many companies (including NVidia and AMD) are adopting chiplet designs for which different parts of the chip can be manufactured on different process nodes. The most performance critical aspects of chips will be manufactured on 3 nm nodes, but most of the chip will be manufactured on 4-10 nm nodes. It's too expensive (in cost/wafer) to use 3 nm for everything.

Re: TSMC to make 4nm chips in Arizona for Apple, AMD, Nvidia

#430

Post by quantumwannabe »

gnu8 wrote: post #307
SkyMarshal wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Taiwan is an integral part of the Chinese nation No it isn't. China under the Communist Party has never ruled or controlled Taiwan (since 1949). Taiwan democratized, developed, and got wealthy first, completely independently of China. Taiwan has never in modern history been an integral part of China.

China has been a country for longer than the history of European civilization. They do not subscribe to the view that nothing that happened before 1945 matters the way Americans seem to.

No, China has not been a country for longer than European civilization. That CCP propaganda claim is the equivalent of saying that the European Union has been around for 8000 years because Plovdiv, Bulgaria was founded in the 6th Millennium BC.
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