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TSMC to make 4nm chips in Arizona for Apple, AMD, Nvidia

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Re: TSMC to make 4nm chips in Arizona for Apple, AMD, Nvidia

#71

Post by vineyardmike »

holoduke wrote: post #66
vineyardmike wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China is already working on their own chips. It’s only a matter of time before it’s good enough .

They are lightyears behind. 20 years if not more. These chip machines is work of many decates of iterative work. You cannot simply step in and produce similar tech.

You don’t need to actually replace them with equal alternatives, just enough so the digital economy doesn’t implode. Even 2015 is probably a target year in terms of performance that doesn’t destroy the entire electronics industry.

Re: TSMC to make 4nm chips in Arizona for Apple, AMD, Nvidia

#72

Post by mrtksn »

vineyardmike wrote: post #67
mrtksn wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also impossible to bring back horses as main vehicle of transportation until you have a civilisation collapse and can't viably produce machinery and fuel in large scale. I find it unfortunate that we are going back into a partitioned world but let's hope it brings competing ideas at least. I'm even a bit excited about it, as long as it stays a cold war and doesn't turn into WW3 and stays as a competition in ever…

> It's also impossible to bring back horses as main vehicle of transportation until you have a civilisation collapse That’s a bad read of the situation. It’s not like no one makes chips. The reasons people cite for why manufacturers don’t come to America are largely political. The reality is that manufacturing is alive and well but those with industry knowledge aren’t American, and America has most left low margin an…

I'm speaking about manufacturing in general, I don't think that anybody said that high margin and high tech manufacturing can't be done in the west - stuff like chip manufacturing never left the USA, they simply fell behind.

Re: TSMC to make 4nm chips in Arizona for Apple, AMD, Nvidia

#73

Post by Al-Khwarizmi »

squarefoot wrote: post #24

Hopefully we'll do something like that here in the EU too. We're experiencing the hard way how's like depending on the energy and resources of warmongering criminal dictators; it would be wise to start moving away from technological dependence on China asap.

It's a bad idea to depend on the outside for energy and resources in general. Not just on warmongering criminal dictators. Buying US gas for a fortune is far from ideal, for example. Not blaming anyone, obviously any country will look after themselves first. If resource scarcity starts hitting hard, we won't be able to expect external countries to just send us resources as if nothing happened, even if they are free countries and good allies.

And that's without even mentioning that who knows which countries will be free and which will be dictatorships in 20-30 years.

Re: TSMC to make 4nm chips in Arizona for Apple, AMD, Nvidia

#74

Post by hahamaster »

squarefoot wrote: post #24

Hopefully we'll do something like that here in the EU too. We're experiencing the hard way how's like depending on the energy and resources of warmongering criminal dictators; it would be wise to start moving away from technological dependence on China asap.

But how? Develop advanced chip manufacturing in 5 years’ time? Impossible.

Re: TSMC to make 4nm chips in Arizona for Apple, AMD, Nvidia

#75

Post by tooltalk »

vineyardmike wrote: post #52
midasz wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? Is the USA going to sell their chips to China? Because when Taiwan gets invaded the Fabs will be destroyed and/or made inoperable with no way to get them functional again.

China is already working on their own chips. It’s only a matter of time before it’s good enough .

Sure, we are talking probably 20-30 years.

Re: TSMC to make 4nm chips in Arizona for Apple, AMD, Nvidia

#76

Post by enkid »

neonihil wrote: post #58

Poor Taiwanese people... their security insurance has just been cancelled. I wonder how many days after the first successful batches of chips coming out of the Arizona fab will China invade Taiwan. I do hope not, but realistically: with high-end chips being made on US soil, the US will have very little interest in protecting Taiwan, apart from maybe blocking China from also acquiring the tech.

The US has supported Taiwan's defense long before chips were made there. It's unlikely this fundamentally changes Taiwan's defensive position.

Re: TSMC to make 4nm chips in Arizona for Apple, AMD, Nvidia

#77

Post by steve1977 »

squarefoot wrote: post #24

Hopefully we'll do something like that here in the EU too. We're experiencing the hard way how's like depending on the energy and resources of warmongering criminal dictators; it would be wise to start moving away from technological dependence on China asap.

And it’s not even a technological dependence strictly speaking, as pretty much all of the technology actually comes from the west. It’s just manufacturing.

Re: TSMC to make 4nm chips in Arizona for Apple, AMD, Nvidia

#78

Post by bsmitty5000 »

My first job out of school was final test for a semiconductor in Phoenix that had a small fab in Gilbert. I remember we took a rabbit suited tour there as part of the new hire orientation, it was pretty neat. The one thing though that stuck with me is how much water a fab needs on a daily basis. I can’t remember the exact number, I just remember thinking how stupid it was to build fabs in Phoenix.

But then again, the amount of lawns and greenways in Phoenix compared to a place like Tucson, it’s pretty clear most folks in Phoenix don’t much care about water conservation.

Re: TSMC to make 4nm chips in Arizona for Apple, AMD, Nvidia

#79

Post by steve1977 »

pjc50 wrote: post #32
squarefoot wrote: post #24

Hopefully we'll do something like that here in the EU too. We're experiencing the hard way how's like depending on the energy and resources of warmongering criminal dictators; it would be wise to start moving away from technological dependence on China asap.

There's an "EU Chips Act" happening as well: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/09/a-revitalized-semicon... It makes sense. ASML are in the Netherlands, as are NXP. ST are in France. Germany has quite a bit of semiconductor production for the automotive industry. It'll be slow and expensive to get there though. There's not many places in the EU where you could simply drop a Shenzen in, demolishing historic buildings…

Also, there are laws to protect the environment in Europe. We’ve conveniently outsourced the dirty work to China etc.

Re: TSMC to make 4nm chips in Arizona for Apple, AMD, Nvidia

#80

Post by mschuster91 »

vetinari wrote: post #60
jwr wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We're experiencing the hard way how's like depending on the energy and resources of warmongering criminal dictators I'm not sure we're learning, though. At the moment, it seems that we are not only still buying the energy and resources from said warmongering criminal dictators (thus funding their war of aggression), but also setting up institutions to patrol gas pipelines, so that said dictator cannot blow them up…

> (thus funding their war of aggression) I see this repeated as a matra, in a way of Carthago delenda est. But it is not true. Said warmongering dictators do not need dollars or euros to wage any war. The entire chain of the war machine is in local currency, backed by local resources. They do not need anything there, that has to be bought for dollars or euros. They are not some third would countries that have to buy…

> The entire chain of the war machine is in local currency, backed by local resources.

Not really. There are already signs that the Russian military industry is in hot water now because there are no Russian semiconductor fabs that can supply the type of chips needed for anything beyond dumb ballistic missiles [1]. And it's not just chips, but also other basic electronic components or modules whose manufacturing has long since gone to China and other countries, some of which are under the scope of international sanctions against Russia.

> They are not some third would countries that have to buy their weapons abroad.

They are buying a ton of drones from Iran, for example, or Soviet-era stocks of artillery munition from North Korea [2].

> Said warmongering dictators do not need dollars or euros to wage any war.

Oh yes they do. No country on this planet is self-sufficient, not even the US. And it's not just about military equipment, it's about basic necessities of life, especially medicine and food. Russia needs money to buy these abroad, and for that they need foreign currency.

[1] https://www.politico.eu/article/the-chips-are-down-russia-hu...

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/05/us/politics/russia-north-...

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