[HN Gopher] TSMC, Intel and other top chipmakers slow Japan, Mal...
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       TSMC, Intel and other top chipmakers slow Japan, Malaysia
       expansions
        
       Author : pdyc
       Score  : 30 points
       Date   : 2025-03-29 17:54 UTC (5 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (asia.nikkei.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (asia.nikkei.com)
        
       | Animats wrote:
       | > lackluster demand for older chips and tariff uncertainties ...
       | numerous chip suppliers shift their investment strategies to
       | "wait and see" mode.
       | 
       | That's coming up in other investment areas. The Wall Street
       | Journal has been screaming about this for weeks. Nobody can
       | figure out where to build capital-intensive projects because the
       | rules change every few days.
        
         | betaby wrote:
         | I would imagine rules are not changing every day in Japan, yet
         | still there are investments slowdown.
        
           | lovich wrote:
           | These companies do business with the US and the US is
           | threatening anyone who doesn't do as they're told, including
           | how they act outside the US. The rules very much are changing
           | everyday for everybody
        
           | numpad0 wrote:
           | It's just not safe to make moves while a chart this absurd
           | and detached[1] is trying to synchronize with the reality
           | 
           | 1: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/timeline/cyd4lm8
           | 5h...
        
             | pjc50 wrote:
             | What is that chart of? Not labeled on the vertical axis
             | other than $. $ of what?
        
               | icegreentea2 wrote:
               | It's nominal GDP:
               | 
               | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(n
               | omi...
               | 
               | I'm not really sure exactly what point the OP was trying
               | to make.
        
         | 9283409232 wrote:
         | Trump thinks that this will cause people to determine that only
         | the US is where they should build but it doesn't work like
         | that. You still need supply chains with other countries even if
         | you want to domesticate production. Political unrest is also
         | bad for business. My head of R&D being snatched up by the FBI
         | or ICE because they said mean things about Elon Musk is bad for
         | my company. Everything going on right now is just telling
         | companies to sit on a pile of cash and wait it out.
        
       | mjevans wrote:
       | https://archive.is/Cxbkp
        
       | mjevans wrote:
       | One of the areas I'd really hoped the US semiconductor investment
       | act passed a few years ago would focus on are the 'jelly bean'
       | chips / components.
       | 
       | By this point those need to be bog standard, RELIABLE TO SOURCE,
       | commodity components. Like screws, staples, washers and semi-
       | processed materials like rock-board, rolls or spools of metal /
       | thread / cloth etc.
       | 
       | There should be more than one manufacturer, and geographic
       | diversity within a country and among allies to mitigate risk
       | factors like natural disasters and (may we never have to worry
       | about it) attacks by enemies.
       | 
       | It's not just the shiny new leading edge and RnD; the full stack
       | needs to be robust and provide competition to keep everything
       | healthy. That's what a regulated market should offer, value from
       | existing players, and when that fails either helping new entrants
       | compete and see success in the market, or standing up a new
       | government business to sell off (recoup investments, though I'd
       | prefer it took profits and _all profits_ were deducted from the
       | citizen tax base) after it's established.
        
         | icegreentea2 wrote:
         | The CHIPS act did include specific funding for mature (>= 28nm)
         | nodes. It definitely wasn't the bulk of the funding but it was
         | there.
         | 
         | Initial estimates were that about a quarter of funding would go
         | to supporting legacy/mature nodes, and at least 2 billion (of
         | the initial 39 billion) was directly earmarked for
         | legacy/mature nodes.
         | 
         | https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R47523
        
           | mjevans wrote:
           | I don't offhand recall that being news headlines; but that
           | might just be the bias of news reporting / filtering.
        
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       (page generated 2025-03-29 23:01 UTC)