That actually isn’t too bad, assuming it’s true. I would certainly pay 5% and probably 20% more for a product made here by American workers getting fair wages versus an overseas factory. I’ll believe it when I see it because I have a hard time believing this is possible. I would like to be proven wrong.
AMD CEO sees chips from TSMC's US plant costing 5%-20% more
461–470 of 761 posts
Re: AMD CEO sees chips from TSMC's US plant costing 5%-20% more
#462What I really want to know, from someone who does know: Is Intel cooked? Like, will they be able to manufacture chips that compete with TSMC? They used to be a crown-jewel of US tech. But it seems like every time I read the news, they are announcing a delay or shutting down some product.
On the consumer side...
Smart people know to choose AMD. OEMs heavily favor Intel for the brand recognition. It's the same on the workstation side, though AMD's market share has been rising quite fast (it's apparently at a 36.5% share) so I'm unsure if system integrators will keep pushing their Intel SKUs so heavily.
So they're not cooked, but they're certainly not doing well and barring a massive jump in performance or efficiency, they're not going to be making a recovery any time soon.
Re: AMD CEO sees chips from TSMC's US plant costing 5%-20% more
#463Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ironically my only opposition to US chips is that we’re less liable to protect Taiwan if China invades
It's probably the opposite. I very much doubt that the factory would continue to operate if the US refused to defend Taiwan. The factory gives Taiwan a huge amount of leverage.
The supply chains for chip production terminate in Asia but there aren’t many inputs that originate there (which is by design). The real value to be lost are the Taiwanese engineers themselves.
Re: AMD CEO sees chips from TSMC's US plant costing 5%-20% more
#464Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ah yes, Taiwán - that famously stable nation with no existential threats to its very existence. I don’t think this is an “if” situation, but rather a “when”. There is no question in my mind - it’s simply too attractive to China. It may not come through all out war, but they will eventually claim what they feel is theirs. They operate on much more manageable time scales.
What is so attractive to attempt the greatest amphibious assault in human history just to get an island with a bunch of people who will hate you and have nowhere to run away.
The thing about autocracies, there is nobody to stop an obviously wrong decision (for example, Russian invasion of Ukraine).
Re: AMD CEO sees chips from TSMC's US plant costing 5%-20% more
#465Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ah yes, Taiwán - that famously stable nation with no existential threats to its very existence. I don’t think this is an “if” situation, but rather a “when”. There is no question in my mind - it’s simply too attractive to China. It may not come through all out war, but they will eventually claim what they feel is theirs. They operate on much more manageable time scales.
What is so attractive to attempt the greatest amphibious assault in human history just to get an island with a bunch of people who will hate you and have nowhere to run away.
Political reunification, i.e. land > people, see PRC saying "keep the island not the people". At this point no amphibious assault needed, just blockading TW and turning into gaza via mainland munitions now that starving masses is normalized is an option too.
Re: AMD CEO sees chips from TSMC's US plant costing 5%-20% more
#466Re: AMD CEO sees chips from TSMC's US plant costing 5%-20% more
#467Re: AMD CEO sees chips from TSMC's US plant costing 5%-20% more
#468Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is not about national security. This is about being more than a simple consumer. If all your society does is consume, eventually, the money runs out. We need to have know-how, talent and all that stuff to create some value. We're bleeding all these things by the minute, and I don't want to be around when the critical point is reached.
The critical point has been reached. The part you don't want to be around for is following the realisation that there is no path back.
Seems like it is also bad for the countries actually making stuff too.
Where would they be if their exports were significantly slashed? They didn’t develop all that manufacturing capacity to sell domestically.
Re: AMD CEO sees chips from TSMC's US plant costing 5%-20% more
#469If that is the cost of keeping the value within the western economies, we should pay. Plain and simple. I'd even argue it's cheap.
If something happens to Taiwan, we won't regret being able to produce these chips domestically. If AI keeps growing like it does, it might even trigger a conflict.
> If something happens to Taiwan,
This isn't really a workable argument any more. As examples:
https://apnews.com/article/north-carolina-quartz-hurricane-5...
The global supply chain is now so deeply interwoven that a large geopolitical disruption is nearly impossible. It took explosives for the EU to curtail its Russian natural gas use. And there is still stiff trade with Russia today (not as much as pre war) and lots of folks exploiting the gaps in that system (Turkey, India, china).
If you have never read it I highly recommend I, Pencil: https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/read-i-pencil-my-family-t...
Re: AMD CEO sees chips from TSMC's US plant costing 5%-20% more
#470Earlier quoted context omitted.
They just farmed out the compute section of Nova Lake to TSMC which is a sad statement (probably a good business decision, though).
This isn't very surprising. Intel has already been making their GPUs at TSMC for quite a while now (I believe using N4). Porting and validating that GPU to Intel fabs would be expensive and take a lot of time. There is talk about the next version of Arc using 18a. If it does, I'd expect Intel to move that generation's compute tiles to 18a as well.
I guess that explains why the current intel GPUs are actually good value and somewhat not terrible.