Intel and the $1.5T chip industry meltdown • Hacker News Board

Re: Intel and the $1.5T chip industry meltdown

#661

Post by terminalcommand » Wed, Oct 19, 2022, 7:20 AM UTC

CydeWeys wrote: post #544

terminalcommand wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why can't ASML scale up? I don't understand this. I think because they are a monopoly they can work slower, they don't need the extra profits.

Why didn't they simply build more chips in 2020 instead of shuttering all of those automobile factories? At some point you're running into actual, real constraints, real bottlenecks in the supply chain, that will take years to resolve. You can't just scale up on short timeframes, no more than you can make a baby in a shorter time frame.

I know I might seem like a flat-earther with this, but I don't understand the chip crisis either. The explanation that many chipmakers went bankrupt after the automobile industry scaled down their orders seemed logical to me. But now that time has passed and we still have a chip crisis makes me think that there is something else.

We know that ASML doesn't ship high tech machines to China, it only ships low tech ones. China in return holds the world hostage by not producing enough chips. With enough subsidy, I think we could ramp up production to meet demand.

I also don't understand that the key companies are monopolys. It all seems a bit planned to me. Place the chip manufacturing company in Europe, chip factory in Taiwan, assemble in China. I feel like someone planned to distribute these technologies and infrastructure to avoid having one country having it all.

I know I cannot support my argument, but this is a gut feeling I have.

OTOH, nobody can reasonably explain why there are unsolveable real bottlenecks in the supply chain and why it would take years to resolve. Throw resources and people at it. This is not just one company with limited resources and a single goal. We should fund the semiconductor industry.

Re: Intel and the $1.5T chip industry meltdown

#662

Post by nonrandomstring » Wed, Oct 19, 2022, 7:22 AM UTC

MikePlacid wrote: post #468

vkou wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You were a professional software engineer in the Soviet Union while still being a high school student? Or do you mean to say that you were one in the 1940s, when people were packed into train cars to bring in the harvest, among other things? Something about this doesn't seem to entirely add up, given that workers in government and defense-critical industries weren't exactly rounded up a la carte to work the fields. N…

>Something about this doesn't seem to entirely add up I kinda think I should write an essay about the life of a software engineer in the Soviet Union. It is always interesting to get reactions of un-believe to simple truths, known to everybody with the same "living experience". What stops me - my English is bad and Russians know all this already. Still, let me do what I can. So, software engineers and the food supply…

Great story. Thanks for sharing this reality.

For anyone who doubts it I highly recommend Adam Curtis's new 6 hour docu-montage "Russia 1985-1999: TraumaZone"[1]

[1] https://www.newstatesman.com/international-politics/ideas-in...

[1] https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/us/a...

Re: Intel and the $1.5T chip industry meltdown

#663

Post by senttoschool » Wed, Oct 19, 2022, 7:44 AM UTC

yvdriess wrote: post #6

senttoschool wrote: post #3

A few months ago, I posted that here that governments around the world should not interfere with the chip industry just because of the covid-induced shortages. The reason is that supply and demand will naturally sort things out and that any government handout to chip companies to increase capacity will be wasted because chip demand will swing the other way. The chip industry is now swinging the other way.

The current slump seems purely caused by a demand drop. It will take years to see the capacity increase because of those government investments. By then, we will hopefully be out of this recession.

The chip manufacturing industry would have spent their own money building fabs based on demand projections. Government money (my tax money) does not need to interfere and give free money to them. This is my point.

Re: Intel and the $1.5T chip industry meltdown

#664

Post by caskstrength » Wed, Oct 19, 2022, 8:11 AM UTC

CapricornNoble wrote: post #616

caskstrength wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ukraine as a piece of land was Russia's only warmwater port. Why is this obviously incorrect statement that can be easily disproved by just checking the map is being repeated again and again on HN? It is only second in popularity to "Russia invaded Ukraine to prevent NATO on its borders" which can also be trivially disproved by finding Estonia or Latvia on the map...

>>>Why is this obviously incorrect statement that can be easily disproved by just checking the map is being repeated again and again on HN? Can you list the other warm-water ports used by the Russian Navy? Here's a paper on the subject from the Air Force Journal on European, Middle Eastern, and African Affairs: https://www.airuniversity.af.edu/Portals/10/JEMEAA/Journals/... >>>It is only second in popularity to "Russ…

> Can you list the other warm-water ports used by the Russian Navy?

OP didn't say anything about Russian Navy specifically. However, do you suggest that Russian Navy couldn't use Novorossiysk for military purpose if need be?

> While technically true, there is a big difference between the Estonian/Latvian border, and the Ukrainian one. I discussed this 7 months ago

Well, Russia is now getting additional 1,340 km border with a new NATO member (real, not imaginary one like Ukraine) and is apparently completely unfazed by it. In fact they continue to move military from that border into Ukraine. Really makes you think whether they were really worried about spooky-scary NATO or pursuing some other goal in Ukraine all along...

Regarding other analysis from your comment - this is not WW2, nobody is tank-rushing capital of nuclear superpower via highways lol.

EDIT: Also, I've re-read comment you referenced again and for a person with a lot of "defense consultant"-related buzzwords in profile you seem to be awfully poorly informed about European history. "Keep in mind this is a country who's arguably most important holiday commemorates the war where they lost 25+ million lives fighting off an invasion from a hostile alliance on their western border." is either intentional manipulation or pure ignorance because USSR _were_ part of the alliance and were happy to divide Poland and massacre its people at the beginning of WW2. They like literally started the whole thing themselves, but miscalculated with choosing their allies!

Re: Intel and the $1.5T chip industry meltdown

#665

Post by cromwellian » Wed, Oct 19, 2022, 8:32 AM UTC

kragen wrote: post #648

cromwellian wrote: post #644

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are you supporting that assertion, or are you making an unrelated point about educational models? Because the connection isn't clear to me. I'm just reacting to the point about tutoring as a proxy for valuing education, when in my experience (living in China, and with my extended Chinese family), this mostly results from pressure over the Gaokao. In the US, college admissions aren't so test focused, indeed, a lot o…

I agree with almost all of your comment. But I do think Chinese culture has greatly valued education (and standardized testing) for about 20 times as long as the gaokao has existed; in that sense, too, the school system is a reflection of the surrounding society, not only vice versa. It's true that the "education" in question has often been more a matter of convincingly repeating established doctrines than of repudia…

I definitely agree with you that the US has a really bizarre kind of anti-intellectualism going on, and the GOP is kind of leveraging it, because much of their voting base is rural and old and less educated, and so they're basically putting out this divisive message that educated people are these "other" folks, and 'real americans' are the less educated people. Sarah Palin literally said it directly in a speech. One GOP Senator called an opponent who had multiple college degrees "a snob" .

In general, I think this 'rebel' instinct can go either way. It can lead you to challenge the status quo and make an improvement, it can also lead you to think you're a rebel because you deny the moon landing, or you're a flat earther, or an anti-vaxer. Anti-establishmentarianism can turn from a legitimate gripe into a conspiracy rathole really quickly.

From "I don't wanna wear a mask or get vaxed" to "vaccines are implanting you with Bill Gates microchips!"

It's kinda weird how Americans would look down on a very qualified political candidate with lots of degrees, but then boost up a blithering idiot because "he's one of us". No where else is that attitude prevalent. When you are flying commercial airlines, do you want the unqualified, uneducated guy flying the plane? When you're getting heart surgery, do you want the guy who never went to med school doing your surgery? But somehow, when it comes to politics, the guy who studied economics, history, political science, engineering, somehow loses points.

Re: Intel and the $1.5T chip industry meltdown

#666

Post by lovich » Wed, Oct 19, 2022, 8:36 AM UTC

rnk wrote: post #622

lovich wrote: post #606

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh, looks like it might be my little bubble. Went looking online and definitely see media references to “the jab” late 2021 and then it appears the anti vaxx crowd I first experienced with took it on as a sarcastic mocking of how the media used a synonym instead of calling it the vaccine. Guess I’m one of todays 10,000

Yeah, I think jab has become accepted US shorthand for a shot and it's not pejorative. But your comment is shocking, you made a graceful acceptance that the word's definition had changed? Thank you.

The internet still holds surprises on occasion

Re: Intel and the $1.5T chip industry meltdown

#667

Post by bullen » Wed, Oct 19, 2022, 8:57 AM UTC

nebula8804 wrote: post #494

bullen wrote: post #32

Everything can be predicted if you understand energy. Companies can't survive in a peak world without manufacturing crap. Sell more because your tools break. So now they are looking at how to do that under the premise of eternal growth: They will try to lock us down in the hardware = deprecate older hardware and force you to move to never software with TLS 1.3. That has never succeded because you can always hack ever…

Using MacOS buys you some more time. Linux is a dumpster fire (no its not the year of Linux nor will I try Linux Mint for the 1000th time). While its not open source, MacOS still acts like an OS from the Win 7 days...for now anyway. They will probably end up going down the road of Win 11 but I think its going to take many more years till they get there. They also offer excellent support. Their hardware gets like 10 y…

You don't understand, the hardware we got 2017-2019 is peak forever.

M1-2 are brittle and controlled, the opposite of open/repairable etc.

ARM, Atom, Xeon from this period can last 100 years.

If you don't have this hardware, you'll get something that will last max 10 years.

USA has banned China from manufacturing without having a replacement.

Re: Intel and the $1.5T chip industry meltdown

#668

Post by yvdriess » Wed, Oct 19, 2022, 9:44 AM UTC

senttoschool wrote: post #663

yvdriess wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The current slump seems purely caused by a demand drop. It will take years to see the capacity increase because of those government investments. By then, we will hopefully be out of this recession.

The chip manufacturing industry would have spent their own money building fabs based on demand projections. Government money (my tax money) does not need to interfere and give free money to them. This is my point.

I get your point, but it seems to ignore the geopolitics involved in something like the CHIPS act. Those government investments are not to save the poor struggling semi industry, it is a strategic move to limit overseas dependencies in a supply chain that is seen as critical for the MIC and the economy at large.

You are right that those semi companies do not need the government investments to build fabs. However, those fabs materialize overseas, depending on overseas supply chains. The EU and US regions want to build out more of the supply chain domestically, for strategic reasons. Those governments could simply legislate to impose heavy restrictions, but that hurts the competitiveness of the companies involved. And so, they combine that stick with a carrot, which is the government investments. You can already see increased restrictions on the semi supply chain in China, timed right after the CHIPS act passed.

Re: Intel and the $1.5T chip industry meltdown

#669

Post by des1nderlase » Wed, Oct 19, 2022, 9:53 AM UTC

SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #92

breckenedge wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Treating political and military leaders as rational entities is dangerous.

Likewise, treating everyone you disagree with as completely insane; devoid of any reasonable motivations is a lazy hand-wavy viewpoint. It’ll also make you prone to suck up any and all propaganda that aligns with your biases.

Yup, general public needs to read The Art of War to understand these conflicts at a deeper level.

Re: Intel and the $1.5T chip industry meltdown

#670

Post by sylware » Wed, Oct 19, 2022, 10:05 AM UTC

terminalcommand wrote: post #661

CydeWeys wrote: post #544

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why didn't they simply build more chips in 2020 instead of shuttering all of those automobile factories? At some point you're running into actual, real constraints, real bottlenecks in the supply chain, that will take years to resolve. You can't just scale up on short timeframes, no more than you can make a baby in a shorter time frame.

I know I might seem like a flat-earther with this, but I don't understand the chip crisis either. The explanation that many chipmakers went bankrupt after the automobile industry scaled down their orders seemed logical to me. But now that time has passed and we still have a chip crisis makes me think that there is something else. We know that ASML doesn't ship high tech machines to China, it only ships low tech ones.…

chips are critical for so many things, each "zone" of the world should have its own capabilities to build leading-edge chips, and probably with international collaboration on R&D (like ITER).

I don't think the global economy can "fund" properly more than the current number of actors of this industry, namely each of those zones would have to consider what would be its "local" leading-edge chip manufacturing as a "military defence"-thingy: making money out of it would be optional.