[HN Gopher] When the Chips Are Down - Interview with Chip War au...
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       When the Chips Are Down - Interview with Chip War author
        
       Author : tim_sw
       Score  : 34 points
       Date   : 2023-05-11 15:06 UTC (7 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.scopeofwork.net)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.scopeofwork.net)
        
       | 11thEarlOfMar wrote:
       | From the perspective of economic and defense strategy related to
       | chips, keep an eye on TSMC's efforts to expand cutting edge
       | process development beyond Taiwan. They are building new leading-
       | edge fabs in Phoenix (@ 5nm) and Kumamoto (specialty processes).
       | 2-3nm R&D will stay in Taiwan[0], but I'd expect TSMC has plans
       | in place to rapidly evacuate their technical teams to the US and
       | Japan if the political kitchen got too hot.
       | 
       | [0]
       | https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2022/08/31/200...
        
         | ladberg wrote:
         | I highly doubt Taiwan would let TSMC evacuate their technical
         | teams in the event of a possible conflict. TSMC's IP is one of
         | Taiwan's biggest assets that keeps them from being taken over
         | and I don't think Taiwan would let TSMC remove it from the
         | playing field.
        
           | imadj wrote:
           | They can't just hold to TSMC forever, they will eventually
           | lose this "shield" anyhow.
        
         | ftxbro wrote:
         | Those fabs are already so expensive and even their foundations
         | are so deep and exotic to prevent any vibration. Maybe the
         | whole building is secretly constructed to be able to lift off
         | at a moment's notice! Suddenly it's a fab zeppelin and it's
         | floating through the air towards amnesty in Guam.
        
         | bllguo wrote:
         | The Phoenix fab is extremely likely to be a disaster. Even
         | besides the cost of labor and incompatible work culture, the
         | whole idea was a political concession to the US to begin with
         | rather than genuine interest on TSMC's part. You can already
         | easily find reports of discontent and setbacks, and that's just
         | what's available in English.
         | 
         | And I suspect you would be sorely disappointed with how many
         | would be interested in packing up shop for the US, if it came
         | to that. SMIC and others already have success luring engineers
         | to the mainland.
        
           | [deleted]
        
       | kaypro wrote:
       | Just finished this last week. Great read. Truly fascinating in
       | understanding the complexity and sheer breadth of what's involved
       | in getting these out there at scale. Recomended.
        
         | loufe wrote:
         | Agreed, read it on the suggestion of a comment here on HN and
         | found it fascinating.
        
       | d1n037 wrote:
       | Miller also recently did a great interview with Ezra Klein:
       | https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/04/podcasts/transcript-ezra-...
        
       | daydream wrote:
       | Chris Miller is making the rounds. He did a very long, in-depth
       | interview with Stratechery a couple weeks ago that was really
       | excellent. I'm not a subscriber to Scope of Work but from what I
       | can see the Stratechery interview is much more in-depth.
       | 
       | As a famous philosopher once said "when the chips go down ya
       | better be ready"
        
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       (page generated 2023-05-11 23:01 UTC)