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Semiconductors Demand 30% Above Supply, 20% Year-on-Year Growth

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Re: Semiconductors Demand 30% Above Supply, 20% Year-on-Year Growth

#81

Post by wbl »

totalZero wrote: post #42
scott_codie wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats great for them and great for US semiconductor companies since we are trading partners.

No. Dependence upon East Asian semi fabrication is a liability even if you're best buddies (as with Taiwan). TSMC was founded by Morris Chang -- hard to find a more reasonable, US-friendly, capitalist person in the industry -- but every time a butterfly flaps its wings in Asia-Pacific, we have to worry about the sanctity and continuity of our semiconductor supply chain. NVDA just reported earnings and, while booming,…

Anyone can own stock in NVDA no matter where they live.

Re: Semiconductors Demand 30% Above Supply, 20% Year-on-Year Growth

#82

Post by totalZero »

bsder wrote: post #46

A lot of this is people now over-ordering since they can get stuck by a shortfall. As soon as the crunch passes, there will be a big drop in demand while people burn down their inventory. Normally, planning is 18-26 weeks out and nobody really worries. Now, planning is 52+ weeks out, and people are stockpiling.

That's the big question:

Is this a crunch, or has persistent demand for semiconductors been created by recent changes in the way that people live and work?

Re: Semiconductors Demand 30% Above Supply, 20% Year-on-Year Growth

#83

Post by jldugger »

HenryKissinger wrote: post #39
stupidcar wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The DoD's Industrial Capabilities report to Congress[1] that got posted on HN last week recommended exactly this: > "Outside of the United States, foreign governments and their citizens pay the lion’s share, one way or another, of the cost of building the fab. The companies do not. They take on the other massive set of costs: running the fab. The hard truth is that if the United States does not start doing the same,…

The Chinese government is willing to spend what it takes to win and this is the reason why they will win. The US government is way too reluctant to spend in this regard. The Chinese government is investing hundreds of billions in artificial intelligence, hundreds of billions more in renewables, and so on. I don't see Congress giving a blank check to scientists and engineers, like China does.

> The Chinese government is willing to spend what it takes to win and this is the reason why they will win.

But it's Taiwan that is doing the chip fabs in TSMC, not mainland China. While they do have some capacity in the mainland, it's best to not conflate the two when discussing the geopolitical situation.

Re: Semiconductors Demand 30% Above Supply, 20% Year-on-Year Growth

#84

Post by ajross »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #17

Given the strategic importance of semiconductors and how expensive new fabs are and how long they take to start production (if you start planning a new state of the art fab now it'll take ~5 years before it's ready to produce chips) it seems like perhaps we need to look a public-private partnerships here in the US. The Chinese government is funding fabs. While we tend to be squeamish about such things here in the US,…

> I'm not sure we have the time to wait to see if Intel will decide to go big into the foundry biz - they seem to vacillate on this pretty regularly.

Historically, that's because the "foundry biz" has been small. If you check the revenue numbers in that chart, you'll note that TSMC is now larger than the rest of the foundry industry combined. They brought in almost $13B last year.

Intel 2020 revenue was $78B.

There just hasn't been incentive to go into that market. At best it would be a way to squeeze a few extra percent out of idle fab capacity. Now, obviously the trajectory here is not good for Intel. But that's because of technical details of fab process, it has nothing to do with their decision not to chase the foundry market.

Re: Semiconductors Demand 30% Above Supply, 20% Year-on-Year Growth

#85

Post by yellowapple »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #58
Udik wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that equivalent to starting up with VC money (and stocks, later)? You get billions to start up, and if you fail you don't have to pay anything back. It's the business model of Amazon, Uber, Tesla, Airbnb...

All of your examples are companies that were pioneers in immature markets. And then if you succeed , the VCs own your company. It's not charity. Whereas China will give a Chinese company billions of dollars to unseat an incumbent in a mature industry and expect nothing in return except for that industry to be in China.

> and expect nothing in return

Aside from the expectation of unwavering loyalty to the Communist Party of China, you mean.

Re: Semiconductors Demand 30% Above Supply, 20% Year-on-Year Growth

#86

Post by [deleted] »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #11
11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #3

Equipment companies are running at an all-out sprint to ship fabrication equipment. Applied Materials, the world's largest by revenue, has 1,390 open positions. #4 Lam Research has 570. The equipment space is brutally cyclic, akin to the oil services industry. Revenue can jump as much as 60% year over year, only to plummet 40% the next. It's always worrisome to see these macro-trends, feasting now, but famine sure to…

> Applied Materials ... has 1,390 open positions. #4 Lam Research has 570 With this many openings they must be having problems actually getting stuff done. But as you suggest, by the time they get a good chunk of these openings hired for they'll be looking to cut heads again. People who have been through one cycle before probably aren't inclined to go through the buzzsaw again and so move onto other industries.

[deleted]

Re: Semiconductors Demand 30% Above Supply, 20% Year-on-Year Growth

#88

Post by nerbert »

TrispusAttucks wrote: post #44
HenryKissinger wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Chinese government is willing to spend what it takes to win and this is the reason why they will win. The US government is way too reluctant to spend in this regard. The Chinese government is investing hundreds of billions in artificial intelligence, hundreds of billions more in renewables, and so on. I don't see Congress giving a blank check to scientists and engineers, like China does.

Here in the USA we're more focused on the important things, like passing identity politics legislation.

Turing would be delighted to read this.

Re: Semiconductors Demand 30% Above Supply, 20% Year-on-Year Growth

#89

Post by dannyw »

fomine3 wrote: post #53
zokier wrote: post #16

And people scream at nvidia trying to segment the market a bit and/or price gouging. Meanwhile nowhere near all launch day orders (7 months ago) 3080 orders have been delivered, and at this rate I suspect there will be new gen out before all the outstanding 3080 orders have been fulfilled.

I believe (something looks like permanent) ETH crash is enough to fix GPU demand including miners selling their GPUs as used. By introducing PoS or gov's regulation?

An ETH crash will happen, but I doubt it will be permanent.

Re: Semiconductors Demand 30% Above Supply, 20% Year-on-Year Growth

#90

Post by pie420 »

AtlasBarfed wrote: post #67
HenryKissinger wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Chinese government is willing to spend what it takes to win and this is the reason why they will win. The US government is way too reluctant to spend in this regard. The Chinese government is investing hundreds of billions in artificial intelligence, hundreds of billions more in renewables, and so on. I don't see Congress giving a blank check to scientists and engineers, like China does.

Well we did it for the F-35. Defense pork/corruption is a liability in economic war. We need to wake up and realize that China is kicking it into high gear.

The F-35 seems to be selling like hotcakes, from looking at the orders american allies have for the plane. Lockheed is essentially a wing of the department of defence and lot of the "project overruns" are actually dollars spent on R&D and technology development. Defense pork is bad, but giving billions of dollars to aerospace, electronics, and radar engineers is a fantastic way to maintain an economic edge, especially when Lockheed, SpaceX, and Boeing dominate the global market thanks to US government funding
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