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AMD CEO sees chips from TSMC's US plant costing 5%-20% more

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Re: AMD CEO sees chips from TSMC's US plant costing 5%-20% more

#521

Post by jillesvangurp »

mmmBacon wrote: post #211

The article doesn’t say why the chips have a cost difference. The wafer cost of advanced nodes is ~$30k per wafer. Is the wafer cost different or is the yield different and hence the reason for the variance of 5-20%? All else being equal (same die size/design on same process) I suspect that a large part of the cost difference is yielded cost due to maturity of operations at the Arizona fab. Taiwan has had many years…

We can speculate. But I bet the fact that the supply chains needed by a US plant stretch across the globe (mostly back to Taiwan, Japan, and Germany) has something to do with that. In Taiwan, supply chains are local. Things like wafers might not be produced in the US yet.

You can hop in a car and visit them. In the US they are across the Pacific and in a very different/inconvenient timezone. It's a 15 hour gap. 9 am in Arizona would be midnight in Taiwan. And there's the anti meridian running through that so it's a day later over there as well. And the business days barely overlap.

I bet all that adds some friction in day to day operations. Lost time, shipping delays, miscommunication, etc. There are solutions to this, of course. But I'm sure that adds complexity to an already complex business. So, limiting that overhead to just 5-20% sounds pretty good to me.

Re: AMD CEO sees chips from TSMC's US plant costing 5%-20% more

#522

Post by consp »

lenerdenator wrote: post #330
benreesman wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Intel is a great example of the fact that between stupidity and low-integrity behavior as a default, the people in charge fuck up in ways that the man on the street would get right. Defense is starting to get a blank check with fairly bipartisan support for the first time in at least 30-40 years and it's centered on semiconductor supply chains . There has never been a better time to secure the fucking funding, have A…

> It's a failure of the will to do the right thing for both the shareholders and the country. They've been doing the exact right thing for the shareholders: squeezing the living shit out of an asset (x86/64) for decades while cutting anything interesting or competitive to the bone to give shareholders more money. Money spent on something that could really have been competitive is money not sent to the retirement fund…

The fiduciary duty is whatever the shareholders make of it, there is no need for it to be just monetary. If they were planning for long term instead of short term profits they would be making sure the company is still the world leader in 25 years. But since big investors are either pension funds or hedge funds (aka greedy bastards) you get earnings above all else.

Re: AMD CEO sees chips from TSMC's US plant costing 5%-20% more

#523

Post by azlev »

idiotsecant wrote: post #386
internet2000 wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I am absolutely not going to pay a 20% premium on the market. I’m sorry but I won’t. If this is really crucial to national security then the government can subsidize the premium. And I know I’m not alone, price speaks louder.

Enjoy not buying any chips next time there is a supply chain hiccup. If COVID didn't teach you this lesson, I don't think you're teachable. If you're making a product one of the considerations you make is how robust your supply chain is. If you fail to make that consideration you will get eaten by the organizations that do, on a long enough timescale.

COVID was a 2 year period in a century. It's way cheaper to assume this risk than pay a premium all the time.

The main issue here is political.

Re: AMD CEO sees chips from TSMC's US plant costing 5%-20% more

#525

Post by Nevermark »

Nathanba wrote: post #504
tstrimple wrote: post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more a huge part of messaging from conservatives about liberals. And that you think otherwise indicates your media bias. Democrats respond to Republican cultural issues. As they should. When Republicans state that immigrants are eating your cats and dogs you'd better well fucking address the nonsense otherwise people like you start thinking Haitians are actually out there eating people's pets.

[flagged]

> no matter how bad Trump gets, at least he doesn't claim yet that the sky is green

Just coal then?

Trump speaks nonstop nonsense. His policies don't even make sense to what is left of the Republican Party that isn't "all with him".

The left does get shrill about equal rights, but then, the people they aim to protect have been persecuted. I mean people actually brutalized for just being themselves - and I am talking about friends and family and ambulances, and surgeries after surgery. And now, Trump's idea of finding balance is to continue/resume denigrating many classes of people. So that's not an issue the Republican party comes out ahead on right now.

I personally don't understand why anyone would label themselves right or left. Group identification is disastrous for balanced thinking. Like noticing the left is shrill, but not noticing the right's idea of balance is to ignore or celebrate second class treatment for millions of people.

Group identification is also ruinous for any kind of actual innovative thinking, as apposed to ideology. Reality and reason have nothing to do with political power alignments. The runaway centralization of power within the two parties has become the biggest impediment to US competence.

Re: AMD CEO sees chips from TSMC's US plant costing 5%-20% more

#526

Post by rasz »

cptskippy wrote: post #379
SlowTao wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Minor correction. Athlon arrived at 500MHz, 550MHz and 600MHz. But they were still a big shock when they arrived. They were the first chip in a long while to really take on Intel and succeed. The 650MHz came two months after than, and 700MHz another two months later. 6 months later 1GHz! It is easy to forget just how rapid performance increased in the late 90s.

I'm trying to reconcile that with my memory. Pre-launch the AMD rep approached the electronics salesmen where I worked and offered us a deal to purchase a K7 700mhz for like $200. It came with a Biostar motherboard, a brand I'd never heard of back then. I remember it was a K7 700 because it was the first from scratch PC that I ever built. Everything before and probably since has been a Ship of Theseus.

Athlons official announcement June 23 1999, official shipping date August 17, 1999. A week after announcement reservations started at Akihabara https://akiba-pc.watch.impress.co.jp/hotline/990703/p_cpu.ht... https://akiba-pc.watch.impress.co.jp/hotline/990703/price.ht...

"AMD Athlon 500-600MHz (bulk) price display. The product is scheduled to arrive in mid-July, and reservations are being accepted. However, there is no specific arrival schedule for compatible motherboards yet."

"the K7 revised "Athlon" has been given a price and reservations have also started. The estimated price is 44,800 yen for 500MHz, 69,800 yen for 550MHz, and 89,800 yen for 600MHz."

Those were Pentium 3 450-550MHz prices.

A week before official AMD shipping date retail Athlons arrive in Japan https://akiba-pc.watch.impress.co.jp/hotline/990813.html

"AMD's latest CPU "Athlon" will be sold in Akihabara without waiting for the official release date on the 17th is started. All products on the market are imported products, and 3 models of 500MHz/550MHz/600MHz are on sale. The sale of compatible motherboards has also started, and it is possible to obtain it alone, including Athlon"

https://akiba-pc.watch.impress.co.jp/hotline/990813/p_cpu.ht...

~$380-800 depending on speed.

https://akiba-pc.watch.impress.co.jp/hotline/990813/newitem....

Picture of one of the Akihabara stalls full of CPUs being sold retail before official AMD launch date :) https://akiba-pc.watch.impress.co.jp/hotline/990813/image/at...

For reference in US 4 days later on August 17 Alienware was merely teasing pictures of Athlon system https://www.shacknews.com/article/1019/wheres-my-athlon According to Anand "OEMs will start advertising Athlon based systems starting August 16, 1999" https://www.anandtech.com/show/355/24

Re: AMD CEO sees chips from TSMC's US plant costing 5%-20% more

#527

Post by Galanwe »

aylmao wrote: post #174

I see the point being made here, and yeah 5%-20% extra for what amounts to insurance against geopolitics isn't too bad, but doesn't this all fall apart when China catches up? That 5%-20% is worth it now because no one else can fabricate competing chips. In a competitive market, 5%-20% can be the difference between having the price edge or not. I understand why the USA wants TSMC to manufacture outside of Taiwan, but…

> I see the point being made here, and yeah 5%-20% extra for what amounts to insurance against geopolitics isn't too bad

Well that is an insurance only for the US. As a european, I feel safer, or at best neutral, knowing my ships are made in the Taiwan rather than the US, so having them more 5-20% more expensive is not competitive.

With all their antagonizing of allies, and predatory privacy laws, and repeated espionage on allies, the US has disintegrated any trust other parties have to buy things made there.

Re: AMD CEO sees chips from TSMC's US plant costing 5%-20% more

#528

Post by simianparrot »

Galanwe wrote: post #527
aylmao wrote: post #174

I see the point being made here, and yeah 5%-20% extra for what amounts to insurance against geopolitics isn't too bad, but doesn't this all fall apart when China catches up? That 5%-20% is worth it now because no one else can fabricate competing chips. In a competitive market, 5%-20% can be the difference between having the price edge or not. I understand why the USA wants TSMC to manufacture outside of Taiwan, but…

> I see the point being made here, and yeah 5%-20% extra for what amounts to insurance against geopolitics isn't too bad Well that is an insurance only for the US. As a european, I feel safer, or at best neutral, knowing my ships are made in the Taiwan rather than the US, so having them more 5-20% more expensive is not competitive. With all their antagonizing of allies, and predatory privacy laws, and repeated espion…

Let's not forget that the US is only _one_ member of Five Eyes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes

Credit where credit is due: Australia, UK, New Zealand and Canada are all doing their major parts in espionage on each other and everyone else as a service as part of Five Eyes.

As a European myself, I am pretty miffed that my fellow Europeans keep acting like we're not leading the charge when it comes to spying on each other.

Re: AMD CEO sees chips from TSMC's US plant costing 5%-20% more

#529

Post by pyrale »

zer00eyz wrote: post #469
fishsticks89 wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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... https://archive.is/sM16Y 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 a…

> It took explosives for the EU to curtail its Russian natural gas use.

Assuming you refer to NS2 blowup, it was unused when it got sabotaged.

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