Washington pressures TSMC to make chips in US(asia.nikkei.com)
asia.nikkei.com
Washington pressures TSMC to make chips in US
https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Technology/Exclusive-Washington-pressures-TSMC-to-make-chips-in-US
65 comments
What Washington should be doing is investing in creating a US-based top-notch semiconductor foundry business. And that's something that takes 20+ years.
> What Washington should be doing is investing in creating a US-based top-notch semiconductor foundry business. And that's something that takes 20+ years.
That would require leadership and vision. Unfortunately, too many American politicians would prefer to use any money available for that to instead cut taxes yet again.
That would require leadership and vision. Unfortunately, too many American politicians would prefer to use any money available for that to instead cut taxes yet again.
I'm confused...we already have a lot!:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_semiconductor_fabricat...
I agree with your statement up until you point your finger at tax cuts. Tax Revenues are at an all-time high BECAUSE of the tax cuts. Look it up before making erroneous statements.
There's Intel today but, also, presumably this could be done with GloFo? They were in the midst of research into 7nm processes but stopped due to competition. Feels like investment there could work faster than 20+ yrs.
And ON Semiconductor bought Global Foundries' Fab 10 (formerly IBM) in East Fishkill.
Sematech was the last US government effort to improve US competitiveness in semiconductors. It's still around but isn't a US government initiative any longer.
Sematech was the last US government effort to improve US competitiveness in semiconductors. It's still around but isn't a US government initiative any longer.
Intel does not support a fabless semiconductor business model. Lots of other chips are necessary besides CPUs.
In case of war it can be forced to, the question is whether it is competitive with TSMC in medium/long run?
Really not that easy to release a PDK and get the industry familiar with it particularly for anything that is high speed analog.
A modern chip design-to-production pipeline takes roughly five years, 2 years if you crunch it and dot try anything fancy.
And yes moving from TSMC/GoFo production nodes to Intel would require significant redesign.
Are you saying I can't make a random chip using Intel's fabs?
"Random" has some connotations that probably aren't helpful.
He's saying you can't make arbitrary chips at the Intel fabs. So you could end up with a proverbial car with no wheels. Looks cool but it ain't going anywhere.
He's saying you can't make arbitrary chips at the Intel fabs. So you could end up with a proverbial car with no wheels. Looks cool but it ain't going anywhere.
I just meant if I had a design I wanted to make could I make it with Intel in the same way I could with a TSMC partner like Broadcom. My previous experience is that you could, we had them come deliver us a presentation some years ago. Their offering was no good at the time as they didn't have some of the IP macros available in the time frame we needed. So I find the parent comment confusing, unless things have changed.
Honestly that was news to me, but I'm only paying enough attention to this space to make a stock pick or two.
I think I'd appreciate a [citation needed] as well.
I think I'd appreciate a [citation needed] as well.
Looks like it's still a thing: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/foundry/overview.htm...
Trying to be careful what I wish for (and probably failing), at this point electronics are such an integral part of Defense that some of the money spent on aerospace really should be diverted to insuring domestic capacity for electronics and computers.
But as several other people pointed out, and several political luminaries from the past have also pointed out, a global supply chain reduces the threat of war. Either goods cross borders or soldiers do.
But as several other people pointed out, and several political luminaries from the past have also pointed out, a global supply chain reduces the threat of war. Either goods cross borders or soldiers do.
Absolutely. NSA has its own fab to guarantee security and ensure secrecy. No reason why we can’t have a corporation that pushes semiconductor tech forward.
So did NSA buy last gen tech from Intel/GlobalFoundries and set it up somewhere secret or did they develop it in-house?
Actually I am wrong. NSA divested their fab a while ago. Instead they use the Trusted Foundry Program.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_Foundry_Program
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_Foundry_Program
[deleted]
Yes, I remember this strategy from the 80s (Sematech). This kind of industrial policy didn't help anything.
What's the point when China will just copy it and do it cheaper.
DoD's having a crisis with its trusted Foundry Program [1][2].
Originally, IBM's East-Fishkill plant was the largest trusted-foundry of near latest generations (14nm, 22nm) but that was sold off to Global-Foundries, which then sold it off to ON Semiconductor. Now it needs someone to fab the latest generation with a full chain-of-trust.
[1] https://semiengineering.com/a-crisis-in-dods-trusted-foundry...
[2]https://www.dau.edu/cop/dmsms/DAU%20Sponsored%20Documents/Ou...
Originally, IBM's East-Fishkill plant was the largest trusted-foundry of near latest generations (14nm, 22nm) but that was sold off to Global-Foundries, which then sold it off to ON Semiconductor. Now it needs someone to fab the latest generation with a full chain-of-trust.
[1] https://semiengineering.com/a-crisis-in-dods-trusted-foundry...
[2]https://www.dau.edu/cop/dmsms/DAU%20Sponsored%20Documents/Ou...
ON is at least a US owned company. Should make it easier to maintain the trusted foundry there, as they have several other sites which are accredited. According to their marketing material, they are licensing the GF/IBM 45nm/65nm nodes.
https://www.onsemi.com/pub/Collateral/BRD8079-D.PDF
https://www.onsemi.com/pub/Collateral/BRD8079-D.PDF
security risks aside, andy grove of intel publicly regretted offshoring semiconductor manufacturing because of his suspicions about generational shifts in innovation and expertise
I've tried to read econ papers on colocation of innovation and manufacturing -- they're mostly long-winded and unconvincing but the concept is compelling
I've tried to read econ papers on colocation of innovation and manufacturing -- they're mostly long-winded and unconvincing but the concept is compelling
Dan Wang explores this idea in 'How Technology Grows' [0]. To summarize, he asserts that the main downside of offshoring is the loss of process knowledge (the tacit knowledge that is learned by doing and transmitted through culture).
[0] https://danwang.co/how-technology-grows/
[0] https://danwang.co/how-technology-grows/
intel is one of the few companies with leading-edge fabs in the US.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_manufacturing_si...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_manufacturing_si...
Doesn't Samsung have some fabs in Texas?
Yes. It was Samsung's first 14nm fabrication facility. They were planning to upgrade it but haven't seen any articles since 2017 on that.
https://www.samsung.com/us/sas/company/history
https://www.samsung.com/us/sas/company/history
Samsung does have a fab in Austin (maybe elsewhere), but it's mostly flash in the 50-180nm range, not a leading edge process AFAIK.
The Samsung LSI/flash lines in ATX are not a leading process node in terms of all foundries (i.e. TSMC), but last I heard they were pretty close to the bleeding edge of what Samsung is capable of in their Korean factories. The ATX lines were always intended to be exact copies of their Korean counterparts, but this may have deviated in recent years (I have been out of the loop for ~7 years now on their internals).
Some of the major reasons behind Samsung building that factory in Austin were to satisfy Apple and to also leverage the more "open" innovation attitudes of the average American worker.
Some of the major reasons behind Samsung building that factory in Austin were to satisfy Apple and to also leverage the more "open" innovation attitudes of the average American worker.
According to Samsung's own account, their first fabrication plant in Austin, Texas opened in 1997, followed by major upgrades/expansion in 2007 and 2017.
> I've tried to read econ papers on colocation of innovation and manufacturing -- they're mostly long-winded and unconvincing but the concept is compelling
Sounds interesting, do you have some references?
Sounds interesting, do you have some references?
I think Ketokivi is the paper I read (no idea what website this is hosted on):
https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/63693/1/519737458.pd...
aside from the basic claim that large factories are doing some amount of R&D on-site, this read like nonsense to me. Could be my lack of depth in industrial organization / economics.
maybe also search 'industrial clustering' or 'innovation clusters'
https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/63693/1/519737458.pd...
aside from the basic claim that large factories are doing some amount of R&D on-site, this read like nonsense to me. Could be my lack of depth in industrial organization / economics.
maybe also search 'industrial clustering' or 'innovation clusters'
> regretted
But not enough to lift a finger about it
> > Andrew "Andy" Grove was a Hungarian-American businessman, engineer, and author who had a net worth of $500 million dollars.
But not enough to lift a finger about it
> > Andrew "Andy" Grove was a Hungarian-American businessman, engineer, and author who had a net worth of $500 million dollars.
Couldn't this have the opposite effect from what is intended? If all the US military TSMC chips come from a separate facility from those for Huawei, etc... then there's only one, big, target with minimal collateral damage.
I thought the deal about the F35 and other fighter planes was that when the various countries bought this hardware they got to build a part of it. Really as a way to soften or justify the absurd cost of these things,
For example here in Denmark, the Danish company Terma which is specialised in radar technology produces a number of components for the F35:
https://www.terma.com/media/444108/f-35_and_terma_171012_scr...
For example here in Denmark, the Danish company Terma which is specialised in radar technology produces a number of components for the F35:
https://www.terma.com/media/444108/f-35_and_terma_171012_scr...
It's not a bad idea. It would (presumably) insulate them against future border tariffs.
Would the location of the factory really make much difference? If TSMC was to buckle under China pressure, it could probably find a way to interfere with or distribute secrets from the US military chips regardless of the physical location.
TSMC is "in China" it's just that ROC fabs are a few process nodes ahead of anything in the PRC.
Various US military and government orgs prefer to buy chips entirely sourced within the US, this isn't as much about pointing fingers at China, but it is presumably harder to suborn domestic workers than foreign workers.
Personally, my take on things is that the major world powers should use silicon entirely manufactured and assembled within their borders for critical and military/government hardware. It is too damn hard to verify chips after they are manufactured, because potential backdoors and vulnerabilities are too small to see these days. It is always an arms race between attackers and security, and whichever side is "winning" in a particular domain will shift back and forth, and the cost-effective tradeoffs will shift in position. Same thing happens in physical warfare over the course of history.
The argument that PRC "could probably find a way to interfere" is not germane, because perfect security was never on the table in the first place. We are just comparing different relative levels of security on a probabilistic basis comparing cost of attack and cost of defense.
Various US military and government orgs prefer to buy chips entirely sourced within the US, this isn't as much about pointing fingers at China, but it is presumably harder to suborn domestic workers than foreign workers.
Personally, my take on things is that the major world powers should use silicon entirely manufactured and assembled within their borders for critical and military/government hardware. It is too damn hard to verify chips after they are manufactured, because potential backdoors and vulnerabilities are too small to see these days. It is always an arms race between attackers and security, and whichever side is "winning" in a particular domain will shift back and forth, and the cost-effective tradeoffs will shift in position. Same thing happens in physical warfare over the course of history.
The argument that PRC "could probably find a way to interfere" is not germane, because perfect security was never on the table in the first place. We are just comparing different relative levels of security on a probabilistic basis comparing cost of attack and cost of defense.
Military prefers locally sources parts because if war breaks out you need absolute certainly you can get the critical parts you need to build whatever weapons you don't have. For short war this isn't a big deal because you are stuck with whatever you have one hand. For a longer war you need to buy more weapons - and that means you need a source you can buy them from. Friends and enemies change all the time, so the only way to be 100% sure is to produce your own parts in your country.
So, at first we encouraged military companies mergers to save our money (back from 1980s?) and left only with a few monopolies, then suddenly there is only one company that can make our military chips? What a surprise! And now we have to pay premium to have them made on our soil? Same situation with non-military monopolies and near-monopolies.
It was the 90s, and the only major defense contractor that had large fabs for digital chips was TI. The consolidation had little effect on where the chips are made.
Sounds like forced IP transfer to me.
Politics aside that is the huge problem of having a monopoly in that industry. I really hope we will have more contract chip manufacturers at some point in the future.
From a purely economic viewpoint, fabs these days have such high levels of automation that locating them in Asia doesn't carry the cost benefits it used to
I fail to see how this removes chinese interference purely by moving manufacturing to US
TSMC already makes chips in the US through Wafertech in Washington (state)
From the article:
> The U.S. accounts for 60% of TSMC's sales, but the company operates only its subsidiary WaferTech there, producing chips for mature technologies.
In this case[1], "mature technologies" appears to mean downto 160nm tech node...essentially irrelevant with respect to FPGAs.
[1] https://www.wafertech.com/en/foundry/technology.html
> The U.S. accounts for 60% of TSMC's sales, but the company operates only its subsidiary WaferTech there, producing chips for mature technologies.
In this case[1], "mature technologies" appears to mean downto 160nm tech node...essentially irrelevant with respect to FPGAs.
[1] https://www.wafertech.com/en/foundry/technology.html
Wafertech has 0.16-micron and above processes.
The US wants TSMC's latest GIGAFAB's.
The US wants TSMC's latest GIGAFAB's.
the article mentioned that, but you aren't having stuff like n7 or n10 nodes being done in US, which is what Washington presumably wants
nimbius(1)
Good
I'm wondering which foreign company would trust today's president.
The current president receives worse approval ratings than Poetin or Xi ( was a Washington company based petition in Europe, Asia,...)
Which is a very hard achievement to reach.
The current president receives worse approval ratings than Poetin or Xi ( was a Washington company based petition in Europe, Asia,...)
Which is a very hard achievement to reach.