Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

671–680 of 761 posts

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

#671

Post by ta20240528 »

zuminator wrote: post #548
guywithahat wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically my only opposition to US chips is that we’re less liable to protect Taiwan if China invades

I think realistically the US is unfortunately never going to protect Taiwan. There's no way I see it getting into an unwinnable hot war with China over territory so close to the mainland. If China sent troops to secure the Taiwanese fabs, how could the US possibly dislodge them without destroying the thing they want to protect? The focus on the CHIPS Act by both recent administrations seems an admission that they don…

> could the US possibly dislodge them without destroying the thing they want to protect?

The mask slips: I thought the USA wanted to protect Taiwanese democracy.

Silly me.

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

#672

Post by achierius »

ta20240528 wrote: post #671
zuminator wrote: post #548

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think realistically the US is unfortunately never going to protect Taiwan. There's no way I see it getting into an unwinnable hot war with China over territory so close to the mainland. If China sent troops to secure the Taiwanese fabs, how could the US possibly dislodge them without destroying the thing they want to protect? The focus on the CHIPS Act by both recent administrations seems an admission that they don…

> could the US possibly dislodge them without destroying the thing they want to protect? The mask slips: I thought the USA wanted to protect Taiwanese democracy. Silly me.

"The thing they want to protect" also includes "the country"

Because yes, a protracted conflict on the island would mostly reduce it to rubble.

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

#673

Post by gambiting »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #578
kennyadam wrote: post #543

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was a stated goal of the EU - peace through trade.

How did that work out?

Pretty well I'd think. Myself and many(obviously not all) people of my generation consider themselves European before their primary nationality. The idea of EU states going into any kind of conflict with each others is beyond absurd.

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

#674

Post by SJC_Hacker »

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #632
tarkin2 wrote: post #576

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If something happens to Taiwan, the USA will have given a huge military advantage to its biggest adversary. It's going to take decades for the USA to catch up with Taiwan, and once China has its grip on the fabs they'll only further advance them. In an existential crisis, the chances of Taiwan's leadership doing a deal with China when it's military protector retreats from its former declarations is in no way low. It'…

How did that come to be? The US used to be the world leader in chip manufacturing and that wasn't all that long ago. Why was something so critical given away so freely?

I’m no expert but I believe it’s because Taiwan bet heavily on a process known as Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV).

The US companies cough Intel cough did not. Which is part of the reason they are laying off workers

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

#675

Post by gambiting »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #621
seszett wrote: post #603

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 hav…

>>The only thing prevents war is a strong military force.

Why hasn't France invaded Luxemburg then? They would be met with close to zero resistance and no other EU state would attack them militarily for it. You must be able to see that there are other factors preventing war other than military force?

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

#676

Post by ta20240528 »

9cb14c1ec0 wrote: post #627
dumbfounder wrote: post #622

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But he is predictable, so predicable in fact that they gave it a name: TACO.

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

#677

Post by api »

alberth wrote: post #667

A lot of people misunderstand why companies outsource to Asia. It’s not just about cost—it’s actually more so about manufacturing expertise. Asia has a massive pool of highly skilled manufacturing talent, and that kind of deep expertise is something the U.S. is quickly forgetting. So my question is: with TSMC building a fab in the U.S., are Americans actually getting retrained in real manufacturing skills? Or are the…

Was the US ever a major manufacturer of even pre-IC solid state electronics?

I was born in 1978 and was really into Heathkits and breadboard projects and stuff when I was a child and early teen. My dad was (and still is) an analog electronic engineer and gave me lots of surplus oscilloscopes and frequency counters and other coolness too. I distinctly remember often seeing "Made in Korea," "Made in Japan," "Made in Taiwan," etc. on circuit boards and chassis assemblies. The single word "Korea" was very common on components. This would have mostly been stuff from the late 1970s and 1980s.

At the very least it seems like electronics from at least the early-mid solid state era onward into the IC era has always been a globalized industry with a globalized supply chain. I feel like you've got to go back to vacuum tubes to find self-contained nationalized electronics industries.

Back then as now a lot of stuff was designed in the USA and Europe but manufactured elsewhere. Just like Asia has a ton of top tier manufacturing and logistics talent, the US and Europe have a ton of top tier design engineering and coding talent.

I still do agree that there is strategic value in making sure the US at least has some domestic capacity to manufacture leading-edge chips and electronics, not just to maintain some talent here but in case a major global conflict breaks out that deeply fractures all these supply chains. Same for Europe and any other country. China meanwhile would do well to develop its own domestic software and design talent pool.

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

#678

Post by Starman_Jones »

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #631
daneel_w wrote: post #614

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course it would continue to operate. The Chinese division of Arm went rogue and basically captured the entire operation from within. USA has both the engineering expertise and the incentive to do the same with an entire chip fab, if push came to shove. https://semianalysis.com/2021/08/27/the-semiconductor-heist-...

For how much longer will the United States have that expertise? Both major political parties seem intent on becoming completely reliant on importing labor, both blue collar and white collar, while giving domestic labor the finger. Boomers are already retiring by the millions and Gen-X aren't all that far behind. Outsource mania and its cheap visa labor twin had been growing since the 1990s so the younger generations…

America is made up of guests who stayed and were loyal. That's the entire US population. Not sure how long of a run you're talking about, but it's worked pretty well for the past 250 years.

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

#679

Post by myrmidon »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #592
potatototoo99 wrote: post #581

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very well? There hasn't been open war between EU countries since WW2.

>Very well? I meant with EU Russia and Ukraine. Plus, France and German economies were also connected before WW2 and that didn't stop the war. And the economies of former Yugoslav nations were very well connected, that didn't stop them going to war with each other. What stopped the wars after WW2 was western Europe being under the rule of a nuclear superpower needing to unite against a bigger nuclear superpower next…

I think you are arguing against a strawman.

No one is saying that trade makes war impossible-- but every bit of trade is an additional incentive to not start war, especially if it affects a broad slice of the population directly (=> the average German would be much more affected from losing car exports than the average Russian from lower gas exports).

Regarding Russia:

I believe that the main mistake on the western side was underestimating Russias imperialistic ambitions combined with the almost existential risk that a western aligned, economically successful Ukraine would have been for the current regime: Russian citizens getting overtaken economically by former compatriots makes it much harder to keep the kleptocracy running; Poland is one thing, but the same happening with the Ukraine would have hit much closer.

But regardless, I'm highly confident that Russia/Putin would have decided against the war with the benefit of hindsight.

You could even argue that insufficient economical consequences (from the Europeans-- basically the other, necessary side of the peace-by-trade playbook) after the 2014 annexation were a big factor in encouraging the war in the first place.

Post reply on HN