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Intel and the $1.5T chip industry meltdown

economist.com

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Re: Intel and the $1.5T chip industry meltdown

#681

Post by xyzzyz »

rnk wrote: post #653
xyzzyz wrote: post #651

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why nuke? Why assume that China cannot achieve military success using conventional means? Observe that "the world" will not be helping Taiwan. India won't. Russia won't. Brazil won't. Nigeria won't. Pakistan won't. Bangladesh won't. Nigeria won't. You get the drill. US will, and probably Europe too, but why assume that these will 1) be able to defeat China in a conventional war in its own back yard, and 2) will even…

Good point, it would not be the world. In short, the free countries of the world will come together to protect a democracy from tyranny. Yes, this is imperfect, lots of small countries were not protected, we protect the "good ones" which is unfairly decided. The democratic countries will come together, the same ones that helped Ukraine; delete from that list authoritarian (democratic or not) countries, and democracie…

So you agree that China at least has a good chance of winning this war conventionally, and will not have to “immediately use the "do what we say or we'll nuke you"” nuclear threat? That’s my point here, I am not really interested in discussing moralistic platitudes as to how “free” and “democratic” just happen to exactly coincide with the countries of the western alliance.

Re: Intel and the $1.5T chip industry meltdown

#682

Post by JAlexoid »

shepherdjerred wrote: post #317
JAlexoid wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Em... I doubt that semiconductor industry is the thing to lead us to WW3.

Why not? Don't semiconductors represent a significant military advantage? Would we really want China to control the worlds semiconductor supply?

Semiconductors alone aren't even remotely enough. We have enough supply to wait out and build out other semiconductor fabs, to go to WW3 just over TSMC.

Re: Intel and the $1.5T chip industry meltdown

#683

Post by JAlexoid »

tsimionescu wrote: post #302
JAlexoid wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Em... I doubt that semiconductor industry is the thing to lead us to WW3.

I think you underestimate the dependency of all modern economy on semiconductor industry. I honestly think there is 100% chance that if China invaded Taiwan today, the US would declare war and send troops to defend Taiwan. In contrast, I think there is >0% chance that the US would not declare war on Russia if they did a (tactical) nuclear attack in Ukraine.

What you described isn't "because of semiconductor industry". That's a wild oversimplification.

Taiwan is an American ally for reasons other than the semiconductor industry.

Re: Intel and the $1.5T chip industry meltdown

#684

Post by JAlexoid »

nscalf wrote: post #432
rat87 wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No you massively overestimate the importance of economics or semiconductor industry. Whatever will happen to Taiwan has nothing to do with Chips. For China it's about nationalism, for US it's about protecting allies/upholding treaties and protecting democracy from the strongest authoritarian regime. Chips are not important. After all chances are high they might be destroyed even in a successful defense of Taiwan. As…

I don't know where you got the idea that the US will not go to war to protect the US economy, national security, or military capacity, but you are severely misunderstanding the situation. That is why the military exists. We spend the amount we do on the military to support American economic dominance and define the rules on how world trade happens. The reason we are not doing more for Ukraine is because they are not…

You're overestimating the value of semiconductor industry in this hypothetical.

TSMC chips aren't critical, considering that ASML can also deliver the same equipment to US... and cut off China from their equipment. (or sabotage in critical cases)

There's a myriad reasons, why US would probably would send in military to protect Taiwan. But it's not going to be "just because TSMC"

Re: Intel and the $1.5T chip industry meltdown

#685

Post by JAlexoid »

l33t233372 wrote: post #423
rat87 wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No you massively overestimate the importance of economics or semiconductor industry. Whatever will happen to Taiwan has nothing to do with Chips. For China it's about nationalism, for US it's about protecting allies/upholding treaties and protecting democracy from the strongest authoritarian regime. Chips are not important. After all chances are high they might be destroyed even in a successful defense of Taiwan. As…

The US is really not _that_ interested in protecting democracy from authoritarian regimes. If we were, we’d have boots on the ground in many African states. While upholding treaties is vitally important, I think you’re underestimating the importance of chips(a rare occurrence on HN!). Wars are generally fought over resources rather than ideas, and pretending that US is defending Taiwan to defend democracy instead of…

This is very typical of HN - complete ignorance of anything other than tech, and even within the tech sector.

Loss of TSMC would result in chips shortage, but not when it comes to critical and military infrastructure.

There's a lot of resources at stake, and semiconductors are just one part of the whole.

Re: Intel and the $1.5T chip industry meltdown

#686

Post by JAlexoid »

nscalf wrote: post #297
JAlexoid wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Em... I doubt that semiconductor industry is the thing to lead us to WW3.

If Taiwan is taken off the board for semiconductors, or if all semiconductors have to go through China, that means the entire US military (and all western militaries) are dependent on a geopolitical rival. To allow that would be nothing short of giving away the game.

That's complete BS. If TSMC is removed - we don't loose ALL of it.

Taiwan and China account for 70% of contract chip manufacturing. It's absolutely the dominant share... but not remotely to being "all".

Re: Intel and the $1.5T chip industry meltdown

#687

Post by passion__desire »

mFixman wrote: post #335

I know nothing about the chip-making process, and news about fabs and the chip industry confuse and scare me. Can anybody link me to a guide with the basics of these topics, like what exactly is a chip (is it a microcontroller? a part of a larger system?), or why the few giant fabs can't be replaced by a lot of smaller and cheaper ones?

Asianometry[1] is a good channel for breaking down the chip industry news and process. He also has a newsletter[2].

[1] https://www.youtube.com/c/Asianometry/videos [2] https://asianometry.substack.com/

Re: Intel and the $1.5T chip industry meltdown

#688

Post by sc0ttyd »

kamaal wrote: post #654
Sakos wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they don't have EUV. They have 7nm which they're doing with DUV, but they're hitting the same issues Intel did with abysmal yields and there's no guarantee that SMIC will be able to solve something Intel was never able to.

They do have EUV machines, albeit unreliable. Like you yourself mentioned the yields are the problem here. This is really more of an engineering problem, you need more cycles for quality and reliability. But it's not something unsurmountable. Intel had no reason to try hard enough, Intel is never going to get sanctioned. 'Necessity is the mother of all innovation' might come to play here. If it comes down to living v…

Source? I've not seen anything _anywhere_ about anyone other than ASML producing EUV lithography tools. DUV yes, but not EUV

Re: Intel and the $1.5T chip industry meltdown

#689

Post by gdy »

jcranmer wrote: post #491
gdy wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"already-proven-unreliable" How so?

Russia has switched off the gas before, such as when Russia first invaded Ukraine in 2014. Hell, there's a Wikipedia page listing all of the Russia-Ukraine gas disputes ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia%E2%80%93Ukraine_gas_dis... ). One of the stated motivations for Nord Stream 2 was to improve reliability of gas to Europe in case Russia decided to cut off the gas because of a spat with one of the transit countr…

The only thing this wikipedia page shows is that the Ukraine is an unreliable transit country stealing gas intended for the Europe.

Re: Intel and the $1.5T chip industry meltdown

#690

Post by gdy »

jcranmer wrote: post #642
CapricornNoble wrote: post #618

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>>Russia has switched off the gas before, such as when Russia first invaded Ukraine in 2014. Russia switched off the gas 7 years after Putin was screaming from the rooftops that the US sticking ABMs in Eastern Europe was a red line for Russia. That's Russia being an unreliable partner?

Russia switched off the gas essentially because a pro-Russian Ukrainian government was insufficiently pro-Russian.

You mean, he was actually pro-Ukrainian?
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