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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

#621

Post by FirmwareBurner »

seszett wrote: post #603
FirmwareBurner wrote: post #599

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>So this supports the idea that the EU does prevent wars rather than invalidating it. Yes, it was all the EU economy. The 40 or so US military bases occupying the EU had nothing to do with ensuring peace on the continent.

I didn't caricature your words, so please don't do it with me. Of course the US plays a part. But they don't have bases everywhere so it's not that obvious why it would explain why France and Luxembourg get along fine but Serbia and Kosovo don't, is it? Or Turkey and Greece, which both host US bases.

>it would explain why France and Luxembourg

The discussion wasn't about getting along fine but about economic ties preventing wars, since Russia and Germany were also "getting along fine" till 1940 when they suddenly weren't.

And Luxemburg has nothing that would prevent France form invading them if they wanted to, economic ties or not. Economic ties might even be a negative for your protection since economic ties have to be negotiated but if you invade the other party you own their assets and economy and don't need to negociate any ties anymore.

The only thing prevents war is a strong military force.

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

#622

Post by dumbfounder »

kashunstva wrote: post #618
fn-mote wrote: post #601

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> how could the US possibly dislodge them without destroying the thing they want to protect? I would instead assert that it is very likely that the US would destroy the fabs rather than allow China to gain control of them through an act of aggression. The doctrine of mutually assured destruction has been around a long time. The international players are familiar with it.

> The international players are familiar with it. The current U.S. leadership is so chaotic and seemingly uninvolved in strategy that predictions about whether/how MAD would play out are difficult to make.

An unpredictable enemy is way scarier than a predictable one.

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

#624

Post by dathinab »

bee_rider wrote: post #296
lotyrin wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I could gather while I was inside (2010-ish, but not directly involved with chip product lines) there was just incredible hubris company wide. "Intel Architecture is the best because we made it and we're the best" essentially. They were wasting a ton of time and effort eagerly trying to convince Apple to put IA into phones despite obvious failures to deliver power-effective chips (Atom being the result of t…

It also probably didn’t help with that arrogance issued, that ARM laptops were tried… more than a couple times, and didn’t generally work out. I mean, these new Snapdragon things might be good. But Intel successfully fended off multiple generations of Surface RT devices from their pseudo-partner Microsoft, from 2012 until recently. Of course, one could have done an ARM Linux device at any point in that timeline, but…

> didn’t generally work out

agreed, but that was often not necessary a hardware issue but a ecosystem issue and Intel executives maybe not seeing/realizing that is pretty incompetent

On one side you had the whole windows was absolute garbage on ARM until very recently, and needed Apple to show them how to have a low friction support extension/transition. And if you instead shipped it with Android or Chrome OS it supposedly didn't count anymore (except a lot of non tech afine consumers have replaced home desktop/laptop with a tablet anyway (cheaper and does everything they need)).

On the other side there was a best technical fit/best customer fit mismatch. Best customers where tech enthusiasts which want to try out new things and can live with a bit of friction (if it's small enough) and are also often willing to pay _slightly_ more. But the best price/product fit is the low (initially, then to mid) end devices except they aren't really that interesting for enthusiasts and due to low (initial) production quantity also not necessary that cheap either and for the people which normally buy this devices buying a similar priced android tablet is most times just better and with a bit of effort you can get an even better x86 PC, through with many 2nd hand/hand me down parts.

and outside of 1) means to pressure MS for better deals, 2) Steam Deck/OS, there just weren't any meaningful large/well known hardware producers shipping with Linux (yes Lenovo and Dell do care (do they still? idk.) for Linux compatibility in _some(few)_ of there expensive business focused lines. But outside of exceptions in 1) don't ship with it so no "normal" consumer pics it up, and Linux shipping ORMs are on the larger consumer market picture just too small to make a big difference. So ARM Linux stayed relegated to niche, too.

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

#625

Post by phi0 »

Qwertious wrote: post #471
irjustin wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is something the gov should subsidize or at least organize competitors to act like a cartel[0]? Such that the market forces don't push pricing that the plant would naturally die. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebus_cartel

The phoebus cartel whine is bullshit - incandescent light bulbs should be limited to 1000 hours because 1) the cost of electricity used by the bulb is easily as much as the replacement bulb (in the 1920s/1930s), and running the bulb hotter makes it more energy-efficient, and 2) because running incandescents cold makes the light look sickly and awful. Light bulbs were mostly being sold by electric companies at the tim…

This seems slightly inconsistent with them testing all cartel member's bulbs and fining those who surpassed 1000 hours. If shorter-lasting bulbs were better looking and more efficient their fining mechanism would be energy efficiency / appearance related.

Or require no fines at all. It's much simpler to sell a non-sickly looking bulb at the store and other companies would converge.

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

#626

Post by adastra22 »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #591
adastra22 wrote: post #587

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There used to be open war between European countries every 30 years or so. That hasn’t happened. So mission accomplished? And before anyone says it’s because of nukes or superpower protection or whatever, there has been plenty of wars on the periphery of the EU during this time. The balkans, Cyprus, Egypt, etc.

>There used to be open war between European countries every 30 years or so. That hasn’t happened. I meant how did that ensure peace between Ukraine, Russia and EU? It clearly didn't even though EU was buying shit tonnes of gas from Russia, and Russia was buying shit tonne of aerospace parts and stuff from Ukraine. War still happened. [..edited out the Yugoslavia argument..] All the proof shows "peace through trade" d…

Neither Russia nor Ukraine are part of the EU. That’s my point?

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

#627

Post by 9cb14c1ec0 »

dumbfounder wrote: post #622
kashunstva wrote: post #618

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The international players are familiar with it. The current U.S. leadership is so chaotic and seemingly uninvolved in strategy that predictions about whether/how MAD would play out are difficult to make.

An unpredictable enemy is way scarier than a predictable one.

This is Trump's precise strategy. He's even said so in so many words.

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

#628

Post by SirHumphrey »

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…

As a European I would like geographically and politically dispersed production lines for one of the most important products of the 21 century. Domestic production would be idal, but whatever we can get is a plus.

Because Taiwan is a small, earthquake prone island perpetually on the brink of invasion of a superpower 180 kilometers away. And antagonizing, predatory privacy laws and espionage is also an issue with CCP, however we still import a lot of electronics and semiconductors from there.

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

#629

Post by mmmBacon »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #521
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…

The supply chain is already dispersed, even outside Taiwan. Particularly as we move from single die devices to MCM, many processes are outside of Taiwan. JCET is in Singapore and Amkor is in Arizona and Korea for example. There is some cost to the logistics but it’s kind of in the noise on a per device basis. The cost is in the processes themselves. It is a gigantic pain to manage but it doesn’t not add such a high variable cost.

Semiconductor companies need gross margins of around 65% to grow and be able to invest in development of the next node. So this large additional variable cost really can’t be shrugged off as you suggest. If so, Ms. Su wouldn’t have mentioned it at all.

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

#630

Post by Mountain_Skies »

blitzar wrote: post #619
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 the US, we won't regret being able to produce these chips domestically. For the rest of the world, Taiwan with a "China Risk" looks like a safer bet than the USA.

Until the rest of the world actually stops using the US Dollar as their reserve currency instead of endlessly talking about it but never actually do more than some token local trades, I don't believe the rest of the world prefers Mainland China invading Taiwan over dealing with the US. People (and countries) love to bluster but their actions are far more indicative of their outlook than posturing is.
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