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TSMC hikes chip prices up to 20% amid supply shortage

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Re: TSMC hikes chip prices up to 20% amid supply shortage

#441

Post by EpicEng »

dkersten wrote: post #105
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is that crypto mining is the only system designed to have negative marginal utility for each GPU consumed. It literally pays people to take energy and GPUs away from the open market for zero incremental gain to the network. The difference is that each additional iPhone or ML accelerator or cloud server CPU provides incrementally more utility. More ML accelerators means more ML processing. Proof-of-work mini…

> more ML processing I would argue that most ML processing by most "big data" companies also has marginal negative output for each additional GPU. Certainly anything to do with social media or adtech and a lot of analytics in general is a net negative for the world, while consuming electricity and processing hardware.

Even those things you have decided provide marginal value employ people, and you never know where innovation will come from. Crypto is comparable to a ponzi scheme and is an asset with almost no real value, trading only on the greater fool theory.

Re: TSMC hikes chip prices up to 20% amid supply shortage

#442

Post by polux33 »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #32

Supply shortage is another way of saying demand excess. I don’t see much evidence that TSMC ever really slowed production, at least for their most advanced processes that are in high demand. This is yet another way we’re all forced to pay the price for cryptocurrency. As long as GPUs are profitable for mining, they will be purchased and put to work. The saddest part is that each additional GPU added to the mining net…

What ?

Those GPUs are being useful for securing a network hosting close to $100B of stablecoins. https://stablecoinindex.com/marketcap

Not talking about other more volatile crypto as you'd be tempted to assert their values should be 0 in a perfect world.

You can argue all day that's wasting energy, the crypto-ecosystem, chip manufacturers, miners, energy providers, users, developers, traders, bankers and companies driving billion of dollars of revenue (Aka value for human beings who will produce and consume goods in the real World with this revenue ) out of it are proving that you're missing the bigger picture.

I've never understood HN's concerns with crypto. Following the same logic, people are literally burning petrol in their cars while it could be used for

Is it for ecological reasons ? You're still moving 2 tons of metal everywhere you go, and eating meat.

Cryptos are not less moral or valuable than plenty of things you do or cherish. Let people mine crypto, eat meat at Wendy's driving their F150, because the world is not black and white.

Re: TSMC hikes chip prices up to 20% amid supply shortage

#443

Post by zargon »

Ekaros wrote: post #375
clipradiowallet wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happens to the water the plants use? Is it polluted and unusable, or just tied up temporarily and can be released [safely] back into wherever it was diverted from?

Evaporation, goes to ground water table, stored in plant matter, goes back to river now enriched with fertilizers from fields. If there is fight over water the last one is likely quite small fraction.

They meant the water used in fabs, not agriculture.

Re: TSMC hikes chip prices up to 20% amid supply shortage

#444

Post by minikites »

ethbr0 wrote: post #435
minikites wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I'd rather be building complex medical instruments than toasters. Why? In what way is it better to have a handful of elite workers creating a handful of units sold to a handful of consumers instead of having many ordinary workers producing many units for many consumers?

Because ordinary workers, producing many units, is a business with low margins. And in modern developed economies, those margins are insufficient to support a decent salary.

So what happens when every economy becomes developed? What happens when we can't rely on the existence of low wage workers?

Re: TSMC hikes chip prices up to 20% amid supply shortage

#445

Post by polux33 »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #418
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #32

Supply shortage is another way of saying demand excess. I don’t see much evidence that TSMC ever really slowed production, at least for their most advanced processes that are in high demand. This is yet another way we’re all forced to pay the price for cryptocurrency. As long as GPUs are profitable for mining, they will be purchased and put to work. The saddest part is that each additional GPU added to the mining net…

> As long as GPUs are profitable for mining What crypto currencies are still profitable to mine with GPUs? Not bitcoin - mining btc went to ASICs long ago. Not Ether which is now POS.

Ether is not POS yet.

Re: TSMC hikes chip prices up to 20% amid supply shortage

#446

Post by bluecalm »

rfd4sgmk8u wrote: post #412
bluecalm wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stocks are not Ponzi wtf? Even today you can get something like Apple making 3% per year while also having big chance of making more in the future. It has nothing to do with a Ponzi scheme at all while artificially propped up producing absolutely nothing crypto currencies have a lot of similarities. The argument that scarcity is a fundamental value proposition for an asset is just nonsense. I can make my own crypto e…

Stocks are a ponzi by definition. All growth in stock prices are dependent on extracting money from future investors. It gets a little more complex with corporate stock buybacks, but ignoring this, the price of a stock tracks a companies success, but is ultimately a product of the market buy/sells. Without injection of funds by the corporation, its a Ponzi like anything else. Even more so for stock that does not issu…

Man, companies make money or have good prospects of making money in the future. You own part of the profits. If the company pays dividends doesn't matter at all. It's econ 101 or not even that.

Re: TSMC hikes chip prices up to 20% amid supply shortage

#447

Post by acomjean »

HenryKissinger wrote: post #345
11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As parent indicated, they are machines that make chips.

How were the chip-making machines made before there were chip-making machines? Can't chip-making machines be made without chips? Yes. The very first one, at least, was made like that.

My partner designed computer chips.

My understanding is that as you design more powerful chips you use those chips to design more and more powerful chips.

Some older 8bit cpus now have kits where you can make them from components (20x slower and many times larger…)

https://monster6502.com/

Re: TSMC hikes chip prices up to 20% amid supply shortage

#448

Post by reassembled »

bagacrap wrote: post #405
HenryKissinger wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How were the chip-making machines made before there were chip-making machines? Can't chip-making machines be made without chips? Yes. The very first one, at least, was made like that.

or was made with a handmade chip

We need Hamdmade Hero for chip making.

Re: TSMC hikes chip prices up to 20% amid supply shortage

#449

Post by evandijk70 »

rfd4sgmk8u wrote: post #412
bluecalm wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stocks are not Ponzi wtf? Even today you can get something like Apple making 3% per year while also having big chance of making more in the future. It has nothing to do with a Ponzi scheme at all while artificially propped up producing absolutely nothing crypto currencies have a lot of similarities. The argument that scarcity is a fundamental value proposition for an asset is just nonsense. I can make my own crypto e…

Stocks are a ponzi by definition. All growth in stock prices are dependent on extracting money from future investors. It gets a little more complex with corporate stock buybacks, but ignoring this, the price of a stock tracks a companies success, but is ultimately a product of the market buy/sells. Without injection of funds by the corporation, its a Ponzi like anything else. Even more so for stock that does not issu…

The idea of a stock is that it is worth the present value of all future dividends. Stocks that do not issue dividends and are expected never to issue dividends are indeed a Ponzi. I think those are by far the minority of stocks.

Re: TSMC hikes chip prices up to 20% amid supply shortage

#450

Post by vmception »

nexuist wrote: post #304
njovin wrote: post #288

Forgive the naive question but why doesn't the US government fund several foundries in the US immediately? $20B over 3 years is a drop in the bucket compared to a lot of military spending and these chip shortages surely have downstream impact on the defense industry, no? At this point I'd be much happier subsidizing chip manufacturing than most of the other ways this country spends money overseas.

Might scare Taiwan and embolden China? A huge reason we hold Taiwan as an ally is their chip production capabilities. If we become self reliant on those then we don't really need Taiwan and China might try to invade them, which would be bad for our own national security interests.

Why would that be bad for our own national security interests if we have our own semiconductor lines?

What else does Taiwan offer to the US?

We have "strategic bases" everywhere. One being 100 miles from mainland china versus 200 miles makes no difference to US in the 21st century.

A shipping lane maybe? Also not US problem really, got plenty of those too.

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