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EU countries team up for semiconductor push

reuters.com

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Re: EU countries team up for semiconductor push

#651

Post by rossdavidh »

ISL wrote: post #399
rossdavidh wrote: post #254

So, as someone who used to be an engineer in semiconductor manufacturing facilities, this reminds me a lot of Sematech. That was a joint venture between American companies in the 90's, when there was a concern that we were falling behind Japan. I'm sure there will be people who try to claim otherwise, but my view from inside AMD (at that time still doing its own manufacturing) was that nothing much ever came out of S…

I suspect that a long-term path out of this sort of thing has two key ingredients: 1) The commoditization of foundry technology. 2) The hardware equivalent of the reproducible build. The first is necessary for nation-states to feel comfortable building and maintaining national-security infrastructure. The second is necessary for the rest of us. If we are able to purchase an open-hardware CPU and verify its integrity…

The commoditization of foundry technology, at least for the smallest geometry (i.e. highest performance) semiconductors, is going in reverse. There are fewer and fewer companies that can perform at the leading edge, and now you could probably count them on one hand without needing all the digits.

Re: EU countries team up for semiconductor push

#652

Post by athms »

cma wrote: post #583
rossdavidh wrote: post #254

So, as someone who used to be an engineer in semiconductor manufacturing facilities, this reminds me a lot of Sematech. That was a joint venture between American companies in the 90's, when there was a concern that we were falling behind Japan. I'm sure there will be people who try to claim otherwise, but my view from inside AMD (at that time still doing its own manufacturing) was that nothing much ever came out of S…

Doesn't AMD mainly exist as it is because US military contracts had second source requirements imposed on Intel? There were lots of lawsuits and stuff as well hat went into their IP sharing, but that military stuff in some ways made Intel+AMD into a partially government-coordinated consortium. The EU doesn't have a unified military in the same way as the states.

IBM made AMD the second source for Intel's CPUs used in the IBM PC line of computers.

Re: EU countries team up for semiconductor push

#653

Post by randompwd »

nine_k wrote: post #577
Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #566

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Welsh is not a "Gaelic language". It doesn’t even belong to the same branch of the Celtic language family as Irish, Manx and Scottish Gaelic.

Thanks, TIL!

> If you want to hear a more or less alive Gaelic language in everyday use, visit rural Wales.

>Thanks, TIL!

And yet, you had the confidence to assert the above...interesting..

Re: EU countries team up for semiconductor push

#654

Post by dharma1 »

russli1993 wrote: post #396

Under this line of thinking, EU or Britain should think twice about approving Nvidia's purchase of arm. Arm's British's one of the most influential technology company in the world. And with Apple's M1 and other arm chips movements lately, the future of computing will be moving to arm from x86. Arm is not financially strong right now, but there are so much potential to improve it's financials. Make arm remains an Brit…

The co-founder of ARM, Hermann Hauser is pushing for blocking the deal. I'm not hopeful it's going to be stopped. The UK has too much hanging on a trade deal with the US post-Brexit.

https://techcrunch.com/2020/09/14/arm-co-founder-starts-save...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrKmYomSLJU

Re: EU countries team up for semiconductor push

#655

Post by emteycz »

dependsontheq wrote: post #603
toyg wrote: post #593

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your view of the EU “wants” is laughable. The EU exists to matter on the global stage in the age of superpowers, to keep alight the flame of European economic imperialism that was being smothered bu US/USSR (and now US/China). It just so happens that most people here think the best way to go about that, without massive societal upheaval, is to guarantee prosperity for all. There is little “cute” about the project, an…

Mostly it exists so we don’t kill each other -European imperialism is a direct outgrowth of being the most warlike continent for hundreds of years. When they talk about “civil war times” in the history of China ... that’s the whole history of Europe. I have 300 castles around my hometown ... I can find WW2 bombs and Munition from the 30 years war in the forest.

You severely underestimate Asian warfarers.

Re: EU countries team up for semiconductor push

#656

Post by dharma1 »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #151
nr2x wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Finland knows a thing or two, even if not present in the headline.

Are you Finnish? I'm really curious what happened to all those hardware and electrical engineers developing phones for Nokia/Microsoft before they went bust, respawned as HMD, packed up and moved their production and R&D to China. Did they pivot to other industries in Finland? If so, which industries? Were they valued as much in the other industries or did they take significant pay cuts? Or did they have to pack up a…

I'm Finnish, worked with a bunch of ex-Nokia software engineers on Ubuntu touch after Nokia went bust. AFAIK people generally dispersed, many started to work for US (and some Chinese) companies, and quite a few IoT startups were started, especially in Oulu.

https://venturebeat.com/2019/05/10/surviving-nokia-how-oulu-...

https://www.eetimes.com/life-after-nokia-how-finlands-radio-...

I'm not sure we'll see a similar size global consumer hardware company from Europe anytime soon.

I would love to hear the most innovative, relevant mid-size/large class leading hardware companies HN readers can name in Europe.

imec, ASML, Graphcore, ST, Infineon, NXP, ARM (for now) - what else?

Re: EU countries team up for semiconductor push

#657

Post by dang »

claudeganon wrote: post #72
jariel wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"if someone can suffer the US' shitty conditions, " So crap, that people around the world are fighting to get in, what for those jobs that pay 2-3x, and real exciting projects to work on, and for the most part people that actually don't care about your funny accent. It's unwise to discount one of the US's fundamental, perennial and systematic advantages as somehow a drawback. Like it or not - the US has been sucking…

Some people prefer to live in societies with some semblance of basic humanity, where people don't go bankrupt and die from treatable illnesses. Or are just generally more rational than the average American.

We've banned this account for political, ideological, and nationalistic flamewar. That's not what this site is for and we asked you repeatedly to stop.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: EU countries team up for semiconductor push

#658

Post by dang »

yostrovs wrote: post #102
claudeganon wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people prefer to live in societies with some semblance of basic humanity, where people don't go bankrupt and die from treatable illnesses. Or are just generally more rational than the average American.

"semblance of basic humanity"... Obviously you have your own metric on that. The United States takes in more immigrants than any other nation and has done this for hundreds of years. You just have hate within you and it shows.

Personal attacks will get you banned here, regardless of how bad another comment is or you feel it is. Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and don't post like this again.

Please also stop posting unsubstantive comments to HN, and particularly ideological or political battle-style comments. That's not what the site is for. We want curious conversation, not opposing-side-bashing.

Re: EU countries team up for semiconductor push

#659

Post by mlindner »

oblio wrote: post #155
newsclues wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet the US military essentially safeguards Taiwan, and will continue to do so for the American business interests in TSMC.

... in 2020. What will happen in 2040, when the Chinese economy is double the US one?

Chinese growth is slowing every year. It's an open question if they'll ever surpass it.

Re: EU countries team up for semiconductor push

#660

Post by tristor »

brutuscat wrote: post #618
tristor wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What factors make you want to get out? As an American who's spent a lot of time in both the US and Continental Europe (and elsewhere) I don't see any terrific suck. At the risk of speaking out of turn, I've traveled extensively outside the US and befriended a lot of folks and had discussions on this topic with them. I would summarize my findings as such: 1. Economic Mobility: In Europe economic mobility, on average…

I do agree with you (at least I used to), but lately I've been very reluctant to anything "made in USA" (e.g. the American dream). The sheer amount of injustice that happens there is just way to much. I am not sure I would be able to sleep comfortably living in a country where I would be making 7x or 8x what other families are making at the expense of leaving them with no safety net whatsoever. Freedom at times kinda…

> Freedom at times kinda looks a lot more like selfishness.

It very much does. I think that one of the great philosophical debates that's never really been resolved is the moral quandary between individualism and collectivism. Individual freedom, at it's most fundamental level, is the freedom to do what is good for yourself, rather than being forced to do what is good for your community. It is the freedom to make the moral choice of what "good" is for yourself. In many many ways, freedom /is/ selfishness. It's not clear to me that this is a bad thing, except at the extremes. It's clear that the "best" society would be one that finds a balance, but that is very hard to do.

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