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Intel United States

Intel CEO Calls for 'Moonshot' To Boost US Role in Chipmaking (axios.com) 143

Posted by msmash from the moving-forward dept.
Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger called Monday for the U.S. to spend billions of dollars over the next few years as part of a "moonshot" designed to regain lost ground in semiconductor manufacturing. The goal, he said, is to see the U.S. again account for a third of global output, up from about 12% today. From a report: Investments made now will take several years to bear fruit, so they won't do much to ease the current semiconductor shortage, but are vital to America's long-term economic future and national security, Gelsinger told Axios on Monday. The White House met with tech leaders in a virtual summit on Monday discussing the need for investment in chip manufacturing. With demand for broad categories of chips exceeding supply, makers of everything from cars to computers and networking gear are having to slow factories and cut output. Automakers have been hit especially hard. At the very leading edge, the vast majority of chip production today is done in Taiwan, an island that remains imperiled by China's longstanding claims. "I would argue the most important building block for our economic livelihood and every aspect of human life is now increasingly not in our control," Gelsinger told Axios in an interview after the White House meeting.
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Intel CEO Calls for 'Moonshot' To Boost US Role in Chipmaking More

Intel CEO Calls for 'Moonshot' To Boost US Role in Chipmaking

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  • Maybe Intel Can Make ARM Chips For NVidia (Score:5, Funny)

    by zenlessyank ( 748553 ) on Monday April 12, 2021 @09:38PM (#61266672)

    This is going to be a fun couple of years in the chip biz.

    • Re:Maybe Intel Can Make ARM Chips For NVidia (Score:5, Insightful)

      by saloomy ( 2817221 ) on Monday April 12, 2021 @10:30PM (#61266872)
      It could. It should. What it should not do is expect billions of dollars to subsidize his business. Thats effectively what he is asking for. Intel can spend billions of dollars on-shoring what it had spent billions of dollars off-shoring, if thats its prerogative. They could just build their next fab in the US when they get to less than 7nm.
      • Huh? Where has Intel offshored fabs? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] They have one in China and that is for memory. They have some in Ireland and Israel, all the others are US. Intel uses US manufacturing heavily. I have very mixed feelings about subsidizing Intel, but TSMC does get subsidies and Chinese fabs do as well. Between the tax cuts and the pandemic stimulus, billions for Intel is rounding error. I do agree, we have reached a scary state where billions is rounding error in the deficit.
        • Intel makes chips in Malaysia. The photolithography is just a part of process. Those wafers go to assembly plants. They are not in the US. Just the photolithography is done here.

          • Intel does NOT make chips in Malaysia. They do test and packaging in Malaysia. No one considers test and packaging to be a fab, any more that a butcher is considered to be a cattle rancher.

      • Expect? No. Ask for? Of course it should. He would be derelict in his duty as CEO if he _didn't_ ask for it.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Rhipf ( 525263 )

          How exactly would someone be "derelict in his duty as CEO"? I can't find anywhere in any description of CEO duties where it says that they must ask for funds from any source available.
          Would it also be a dereliction of duty to not ask your competitors to give you funds to help build your next manufacturing plant?
          Would it be a dereliction of duty to not ask your workers to work for free for the next year so you can finance your next manufacturing plant?
          Sure they can ask but I can't see where it would be a der

          • Funds from external sources are costs deferred, costs deferred are profits, generating the highest profits possible is the job of the CEO and every other employee as well.

            "Would it also be a dereliction of duty to not ask your competitors to give you funds to help build your next manufacturing plant?
            Would it be a dereliction of duty to not ask your workers to work for free for the next year so you can finance your next manufacturing plant?"

            It would be a dereliction of duty to do anything that one, as CEO, f

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Intel is having technical difficulties. It's not just a question of building it, they need a massive amount of R&D to catch up to Taiwan.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tomhath ( 637240 )

        What it should not do is expect billions of dollars to subsidize his business.

        *cough* Tesla *cough*

        • China via soybean subsidies (they now own most of the domestic farms and production plants, then turn around and export to themselves).
          Oil/gas
          Tom Steyer...err solar.
          Florida sugar plantations
          Banks

          Tesla definitely isn't topping the list here.

      • You don't expect him to ask the Feds to subsidize someone else like GlobalFoundries, do you? And GF has foreign ownership . . .

        • GlobalFoundries created the GF US 2 legal entity so they can continue to be in the trusted fab program. They've had special status for military/government production continuously since they bought IBM microelectronics.

      • Can't agree with you here. If the war with China and other interests has shown anything it is that having the absolute top end chip fab and design capabilities be domestic is a matter of essential national security.
        • LMOL. And morons like you keep believing that corporation give a rats ass to what any nation thinks. Corporate profits do not recognize state boundaries. Only for taxes do they car which country they earn profits.

  • The national security risk is real (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Guspaz ( 556486 ) on Monday April 12, 2021 @09:44PM (#61266694)

    If China attacks Taiwan and the US loses access to both Chinese and Taiwanese fabs, suddenly at least 70% of 40nm capacity and smaller and 100% of 5-7nm capacity would disappear. The impact on the US economy would be devastating, considering semiconductors directly or indirectly impact almost everything in a modern economy.

    It's absolutely critical that the global semiconductor manufacturing market is diversified, as too much of it is concentrated in that volatile region.

    • Re:The national security risk is real (Score:4, Informative)

      by Joe_Dragon ( 2206452 ) on Monday April 12, 2021 @09:55PM (#61266754)

      and all China owned stuff in the usa becomes lost to china. Also shipments in US waters can be taken

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by orlanz ( 882574 )

        Technically, shipments in international waters can be taken too since they are IOUed already. Whether we respect the IOU is a different matter.

      • That just means they'll pull back on US investment before they try it, which (uh-oh) they've been doing lately.
        • They would also need to divert attention and resources away from such an attempt. Let's say they had developed some kind of virus that could make a lot of people really sick really quickly .... naaah ... .That's crazy talk. Never mind.

      • Re:The national security risk is real (Score:5, Insightful)

        by gtall ( 79522 ) on Tuesday April 13, 2021 @05:09AM (#61267578)

        Yes, but the U.S. isn't a major part of the China supply chain while China is to the U.S. I don't think "they" care if "they" lose their American investments. By "they", I mean that tyrant Jinping and the infantile CCP. "They" won't mind taking a bite out of centers of power they do not fully control. Remember, the CCP is the party that gets the collywobbles over Falun Gong doing calisthenics on their front lawns.

        The U.S. is now reaping the rewards of Nixon and Kissinger selling out Taiwan because they thought they could tame the CCP. Successive administrations are also culpable for not fixing the problem of not adequately supporting Taiwan. Taiwan should be so militarily strong by now that China would lose were they to attack. They aren't because the U.S. administrations decided corporate profits were more important than supporting an ally.

        In my opinion, Jinping is dead-set on taking Taiwan as a monument to prove he's a "man" instead of being almost but not quite as mature a twelve year old when told he couldn't get that sparkling new toy he feels would make his life complete. See Tibet and Xinjiang to see what he has in store for Taiwan.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by DarkOx ( 621550 )

          Spot on, our China policy has been disgusting from Nixon on. The only guy who came even close to taking the correct approach to China was Trump and even he was mostly tough talk and weak knees when it came to actually doing anything.

          The UN is as much to blame though. The PRC should never have been recognized. No trade agreements or international participation should have have been extended to the evil empire.

        • A major motivation for Chinese investment in the US is to stimulate demand for Chinese exports. They don't have a trade surplus if you exclude the US. Their domestic demand is increasing rapidly, but is not enough large enough to withstand the loss of exports to the US.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by robi5 ( 1261542 )

            Except that China has a major trade surplus in relation to the other large, advanced market, Europe.
            Sure it might run some trade deficit in relation to nations which provide China with low value added resources; even these nations import a lot from China.

        • Seriously? Yeah let's ignore globalization and what corporations wanted. Nixon and Kissinger had nothing to do with this. You can fuck off now.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by robi5 ( 1261542 )

          > Yes, but the U.S. isn't a major part of the China supply chain while China is to the U.S

          True, but China holds over 1 trillion USD of US debt.
          Also, I guess that there's some kind of kill switch planted in the Taiwanese chipmakers, to avoid unintended technology transfer once China captures Taiwan.

    • Re:The national security risk is real (Score:5, Informative)

      by backslashdot ( 95548 ) on Monday April 12, 2021 @10:05PM (#61266780)

      China isn't in a position to do something like that and not be hit back. While Taiwan's air force is only one fifth of China's air force in size, they have better fighters. They could easily cause some devastation in China physically and economically which in turn could destabilize the communist party.

      "Say, that's a nice dam you've got across the 3 gorges .. shame if anything were to happen to it" -Taiwan

      • Re:The national security risk is real (Score:5, Insightful)

        by stabiesoft ( 733417 ) on Monday April 12, 2021 @11:10PM (#61266962) Homepage
        I'd hope that it does not come to China invading Taiwan, but I'd note how little backlash there was when Russia took Crimea. I'd also point out the world is being pretty indifferent to Russia amassing troops on the border with Ukraine. Will NATO do anything if Russia invades Ukraine? Has the west done anything with the HK crackdown? It is a game of chicken, and so far the west has backed down. The alternative though is WWIII. With possibly Russia/China against the west. Pretty ugly. For all sides.

        • These days Ukraine is not as powerful and critical to the global economy as Taiwan. Taiwan can hit China back hard.

          • I like how everyone think's Russia and America's playbook is the same as Chinas...

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by robi5 ( 1261542 )

            > These days Ukraine is not as powerful and critical to the global economy as Taiwan

            First of all, it's sad but true.
            Second, Ukraine isn't important to the US or Europe for its economic weight, it's important as an increasingly aggressive Russia is separated from Western Europe in part due to the existence of an independent and antagonized Ukraine. The West probably doesn't want to turn the entirety of Ukraine into a marching ground for Russian forces, Belarus is enough of a European (in location, not in

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by DarkOx ( 621550 )

        That is a wonderful theory but you are coming at it from a very republican western mindset. The CCP since its inception has demonstrated a willingness to sacrifice individuals and resources for 'the cause'.

        They don't see something like the loss of 3 gorges as an unacceptable catastrophe that could devastate the lives of millions; they see it as a potential expense. If in their calculus the long term gains of capturing Taiwan and the south see are greater they will do it. China is literally always flexing.

    • Re:The national security risk is real (Score:4, Insightful)

      by gravewax ( 4772409 ) on Monday April 12, 2021 @10:11PM (#61266798)
      unfortunately the rest of the world looks at the US in much the same way, the government uses this sector as a political tool for trade and sanctions, there is simply too much risk for most companies to manufacture in the US.
      • Beat me to it. Trump's sanctions both forced manufacturing to turn to non-US sources for fear of being frozen out in another arbitrary round of sanctions, and forced people to take sides. When the US makes 10% of the world's semiconductors and not-the-US makes 90%, it's a pretty easy decision to make. So this is asking for money to build a new stable door long after the horse has bolted.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ranton ( 36917 )

        unfortunately the rest of the world looks at the US in much the same way,

        Yes and no. Every country should be trying to limit their strategic dependencies on other countries, but their level of alliance with each country is important. A European nation, for instance, would be less worried about dependencies on another EU nation than dependencies on the US. And they would be less worried about a dependency on the US than they are a dependency on China or Russia.

        So while the concept of wanting to limit strategic dependency on other nations is the same, there is a big difference bet

    • unless South Korea is now also part of China or Taiwan I can't see how your numbers make sense.
    • Ahahah, Intel's current global market share is around 75% percent, while AMD is about 15% – both of them based in Silicon Valley ... and currently the USA has a near monopoly on Software, Devices, Infrastructure, Emerging Tech, and IT Services; all concentrated in that volatile region [wikipedia.org]. Diversification is absolutely necessary for the global IT industry - but to ask the US government to subsidise research into any area does not lead to diversification, unless it involves investing in foreign research.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Guspaz ( 556486 )

        Intel doesn't currently offer foundry services at all, and AMD spun off theirs (now called Global Foundries) years ago. You're talking about CPU market share, not foundry market share. If nVidia wants to get a GPU manufactured, they don't go to AMD to build it, because AMD doesn't build chips, they design them.

        • I'm talking about the entire IT industry.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by hjf ( 703092 )

            A lot of "large IT companies" are based in Ireland, for tax benefits.
            Since the EU threatened to sanction Ireland for those shenanigans, Ireland has requested these benefited companies to increase their presence in Ireland. And companies are doing it.

            Dublin is becoming the new Silicon Valley. Until the US gets reasonable about corporate tax and the way it's collected, and the "american company based in Ireland" bullshit ends.

        • To be more specific, I am calling you out for conflating "threat to national security" with "threat to global hegemony".
          The need for the USA to develop foundry services, or any other service/industrial product currently supplied by overseas is only ever a threat to it's global hegemony.
          Call it for what it is, and we have no argument.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Guspaz ( 556486 )

            I'm just pointing out that the world economy would be in a major pinch if 70% of the foundry capacity suddenly disappeared. That applies to Canada just as much as the US. Diversifying that capacity by getting more fabs in more countries is a good thing for global economic stability. We've got too many eggs in one basket at the moment.

            This impacts far more than just the IT field. You can't build a modern farm tractor without semiconductors. You can't build planes, trains, or automobiles. You can't build miss

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by hjf ( 703092 )

              The problem isn't the semiconductors as "anyone can build a chip factory". It's when you want to go REALLY FAST REALLY SMALL that problems start to arise. A "normal" chip factory can be set up in a couple of years and things will be just fine.

              You don't need 5nm processes for anything that's not a high-performance CPU or GPU. Those are the only "mass market" devices that benefit from such technology. You can certainly build modern farm tractors, trains, and planes (especially since planes don't use cutting-e

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by nagora ( 177841 )

      If China attacks Taiwan

      If that happens there will be WWIII and chip shortages will not be our biggest problem.

    • All that's true, but I am still 100% against free money for Intel.

      Intel are real monopolists. Intel are real frauds. Intel genuinely engaged in absolute shit-tons of anticompetitive action so they could sit on their laurels, meaning that they held back advances in computing.

      If we give Intel money for this tech, The People need to own it and profit from it, and not just Intel execs and shareholders. And not in some nebulous "national security" manner, but in a direct economic fashion.

    • It's absolute criitical that ass-holes like you realize that corporations don't fucking care.

      Get a fucking clue.

  • Your own fault (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bigtreeman ( 565428 ) <treecolin@@@gmail...com> on Monday April 12, 2021 @09:46PM (#61266702)

    ... for offshoring to increase short term profits with cheap manufacturing.
    You have lost a couple of generations of workers and experience.
    You now need to play catchup.
    So much for the clever country, just greedy feckers.

  • Sounds like they need money to figure out how to make 5nm and smaller feature size CPUs.

  • if our taxes are going to pay for their factories, we better get the CPUs dirt cheap. I doubt that would be in any negotiations though, instead we'll pay this money so they can be the monopoly player and charge us whatever they like.

    • Re:OK but.. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by PolygamousRanchKid ( 1290638 ) on Monday April 12, 2021 @09:58PM (#61266762)

      if our taxes are going to pay for their factories, we better get the CPUs dirt cheap.

      Not gonna happen.

      Oh, and don't worry about our taxes going to pay for their factories . . .

      . . . they will go to pay for Intel executive bonuses.

    • "Dirt cheap" is why we offshored everything. "National security / supply stability" is why we'd want to bring that capability back. Unfortunately, the free market only cares about ONE of these two issues.

    • BUT MUH PROFITS!!

      (They will PR-sell not making *more* *profit* as "taxation" or "stealing" again. [Fun riddle: Find the difference between theft/robbery and profit.])

  • Moonshot? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by boudie2 ( 1134233 ) on Monday April 12, 2021 @09:54PM (#61266744)
    Maybe Intel should fix their broken CPUs before calling for government intervention.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by orlanz ( 882574 )

      Exactly! Intel should fix their mfg process that they have broken over the last 4-5 years. That's the reason we have a capacity shortage. Intel can't seem to make the yields work on their newer and future lines so they take up extra floor space to produce the same quantity but with more waste. They been backporting new features into their legacy chip architecture that was supposed to sunset 4 years ago!

      What he is NOT telling you is what they will do with these brand new tax payer paid facilities once the

  • Fine but not a penny for Intel. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Gravis Zero ( 934156 ) on Monday April 12, 2021 @10:06PM (#61266786)

    I'm OK with bringing up new fabs plants but not a single penny should go to Intel. Intel has promoted itself for decades as having a more reliable manufacturing source than AMD, even after it's own manufacturing started falling behind on 14nm stuff. Furthermore, Intel has utilized anti-competitive behavior to sell chips and keep anyone else from getting a foothold and have made several multibillion dollar settlements that prove it. When they weren't the top dog they talked on end about how AMD had an unreliable manufacturing stream which again was total bullshit. Intel MO is to lie, cheat and steal. I wouldn't piss on them if they were on fire and I sure as hell don't want them to get any taxpayer assistance.

    So yeah, if the US want to help bring up a couple fabs, I'm all on board but Intel should eat shit and die before they see a single cent of assistance from taxpayers.

    • Re:Fine but not a penny for Intel. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Arethan ( 223197 ) on Monday April 12, 2021 @10:17PM (#61266824) Journal

      Let the military make its own chips with its own people.
      They already receive tax dollars, they already have "employees", and "national defense" is literally in the charter. All they should need is space for a few buildings and some training.

      If you want to spend government money for a public service, it should damn well look and act like a public service. You can have a handout when the banks have finished paying back the social interest from the last one.

      • Let the military make its own chips with its own people.

        How the military "makes" things is they pay defense contractors. It's a fantastic way to waste money and congresscritters are more than happy to do it.

        • We are not a Socialist state, the US Government does not control means of production. The government does not make anything. It has no factories, no plants, no assembly lines. Though I think the Government Publishing Office has it's own printing presses in Pueblo, Colorado.

          • We are not a Socialist state,

            Never has been.

            the US Government does not control means of production. The government does not make anything. It has no factories, no plants, no assembly lines.

            LOL! Riiight.

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

            Its most visible civil works missions include:

            Planning, designing, building, and operating locks and dams. Other civil engineering projects include flood control, beach nourishment, and dredging for waterway navigation.
            Design and construction of flood protection systems through various federal mandates.
            Design and construction management of military facilities for the Army, Air Force, Army Reserve, and Air Force Reserve as well as other Department of Defense and federal government agencies.
            Environmental regulation and ecosystem restoration.

            Oh no, guess we're socialists now! Tell me, is blinding ignorance as wonderful as I've heard?

      • Re:Fine but not a penny for Intel. (Score:5, Informative)

        by stabiesoft ( 733417 ) on Monday April 12, 2021 @11:17PM (#61266990) Homepage
        I used to work for a defence contractor that had a captive fab in the 80's. And in the 80's was not unusual at all. By the end of the 80's it was clear that does not work. Volumes are just not there. You need millions/billions of parts coming out of a fab to achieve the needed quality. It is just not viable even with deep pockets of the military. There is a reason the world is down to a few fabs for the entire world production of all 20nm parts.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by DarkOx ( 621550 )

        That is a lot of highly specialized expertise and equipment that frankly isnt central the military's mission.

        The job of military is to kill people and break things and to get in the way when others try to kill 'our' people and break 'our' things.

        That is what the military should focus on. A lot of the problems we have there are because we ask the military to do things way out of that scope. If you want go digging wells in Afghanistan than maybe make the Peace Corps something other than a resume padding for e

    • IMHO, Intel wants a handout because AMD and ARM have been eating their lunch on the technology side and in consumer CPU chips. Intel showing signs of executive bloat and fear of change.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dargaud ( 518470 )
      Yeah, it sounds like they want the taxpayers to do the investment for them...
    • I'm happy to help them save billions in taxes and compliance costs, I'd even be okay with putting massive tariffs on competitors from mainland China (if there currently are any), but I'm not willing to give them my tax dollars. They are doing just fine, they can afford to expand on their own and perfectly capable of raising all the funds they might need.
  • NEW INTEL CEO: ‘Intel is back:’ New CEO’s plan to make chips for other companies excites investors [cnbc.com].

    Maybe Intel will be managed better now. In my opinion, there have been many mistakes in the last few years.

    Re-post: Intel Management [slashdot.org]
  • Intel should fund its own moonshot. It created its problems.

    Any public money that is spent should be spent on creating competing startups that are created on the condition that they are not allowed to sold off or merged.

  • Chip manufacturing produces a lot of pollution. Are we sure we want that? Perhaps we should focus on high margin chips in the USA and encourage secondary manufacturers in other countries to make commodity chips. Yes, I know it's kind of mean dumping the problem elsewhere, but they have to be made somewhere.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by DarkOx ( 621550 )

      Yes - we want that. Obviously we want to do it in ways the mitigate those environmental impacts as much as possible. However this just like steel and aluminum production. We *Need* to be doing this, because if we don't we won't be the masters of our own destiny.

      We will be the UK in the 50s. Another ascendant world power (china) will be able to start setting the ground rules of where the wealth flows go. Somehow I suspect the will chose to start diverting things their way.
       

  • wants government funds(Tax Dollars, other peoples money) to try and catch up and save themselves.

  • Intel, who is suffering due to lack of innovation and (failed) efforts to suppress competition, thinks they should take a "moonshot"?

    Pardon me for being cynical, would that come with a hand out for cash from the US government?

  • Tell me it aint so.

  • The very first M-series processor is of limited integrated RAM and is optimized for power consumption, not speed, and it's alraedy whipped the Intels used in the same application. Now let's see what this fall's M2 will do.

    And nobody is even making use the huge neural section of the chip yet...

    • Yes, what with those awesome Apple fabs. I hear they're very pretty and well designed, those Apple fabs.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by SeaFox ( 739806 )

        I hear they're very pretty and well designed, those Apple fabs.

        You could say they're fabulous.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by teg ( 97890 )

      The very first M-series processor is of limited integrated RAM and is optimized for power consumption, not speed, and it's alraedy whipped the Intels used in the same application. Now let's see what this fall's M2 will do.

      And nobody is even making use the huge neural section of the chip yet...

      Apple's chips are manufactured in Taiwan, by TSMC.

      That said, many countries don't see US as a politically safe and stable country anymore. The erratic, dishonest, not too bright, narcissistic and thin-skinned president you had for 2016 lowered the US reputation and respect a lot - it's no longer a safe choice. Especially since almost half(!) of the actual voters wanted to continue the insanity - and there was no real repercussions for trying to overthrow it either.

      • Do you have anything other than your imagination to back that claim? Because that was the biggest load of shit I've seen today.

      • Where the first chips are manufactured is purely a matter of early fab availability. If the line continues to be successful, Apple will have any number of derelict Intel fabs to choose from.

    • Hint: CPUs have been optimized for power consumption ever since we started doing multiple cores.

      Because once you can't shrink the architecture anymore, apart from adding cores, making it run cooler via other means is the only way you can still increase the frequency.

      I just hope we get practical superconducting CPUs. So GHz can become THz or something.

      • Would that be possible at all? A terahertz is one trillionth of a second. Light travels all of .29 millimeters in a trillionth of a second. That means you'd need a computational pathway shorter than that in order to complete one cycle. That means a chip so small that philosophers would start arguing about how many angels could dance on it. Or more importantly, so small that the electrons would tunnel right out of it.

        Note that a Ryzen 9 5900x has a 520 mm^2 die, meaning it's probably about 22.8mm on e

  • So: Intel rested on their laurels for too long. For decades, they suppressed domestic competition, letting AMD barely exist, just enough to avoid anti-trust problems. Now they are technologically behind, unable to get modern fabs working. So they want the government to throw money at them. Screw Intel. They made their bed, so they can lie in it. If the government decides that it would be strategically important to have domestic fabs, they need to support some new-and-upcoming company with innovative ideas.

  • Let's be honest.
    This is a move of desperation.

    I wouldn't even be opposed, as long as they stop being sneaky dicks and start being honest and it benefits everyone.
    Yeah, I know... might aswell bet on meeting a white raven on the day he is struck by a plane taken down by a meteorite while he just won the lottery.

  • Again?!?!?!? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by tiqui ( 1024021 ) on Tuesday April 13, 2021 @03:20AM (#61267376)

    The taxpayers already sis this once, LITERALLY!

    In the 1960s, the taxpayers funded 4 programs that gave us the computer chip, and made it reliable. The programs were: The US Navy SLBM program, the USAF ICBM program, the USAF/NASA Titan II program, and THE APOLLO MOONSHOT.

    The Navy and Air Force needed small, lightweight, reliable electronics for the guidance systems of their ballistic missiles - for the Navy it was so they would be compact enough to be carried aboard and launched from submarines. For the Air force it was so the ICBMs did not need to be massive. For Titan, NASA joined with the Air Force since NASA was using Titan to loft the Gemini capsules to pre-test ideas for Apollo, and for Apollo it was all about size and weight because every pound that landed on the moon required a huge amount of first and second stage rocket power.

    The taxpayers paid a huge premium for this tech with the promise that, in return, they would get tech supremacy, national security, and good high tech jobs. Corporate America had other ideas - they squandered all this by transferring the tech to other countries and companies, outsourcing production, and importing workers and teaching them this tech. With plentiful, inexpensive, reliable computer chips, companies like Apple were employing middle class Americans to build their computers in the late '70s and early '90s. Twenty years later, not only were the users of computer chips building their stuff offshore, but the chip companies themselves were helping foreign firms make chips, and now much of the American chip industry has been replaced by China and Taiwan. There is absolutely ZERO evidence that "American" companies like Intel would be any more responsible and patriotic with another round of such funding than they were the first time - hell most of them are proud to call themselves "global" companies; let them get new "global" funding.

    The American tech sector should be denied any such help in the future unless they repay the taxpayers for the previous funding, with interest. Might be nice to round up some of their previous execs and charge 'em with treason. It's quite an evil business model to charge the taxpayers to get an edge, then give away that edge for quick profits, then point to the lack of an edge and announce that the taxpayers need to pay again to regain the edge.

    Fool me once...

    • Twenty years later, not only were the users of computer chips building their stuff offshore, but the chip companies themselves were helping foreign firms make chips, and now much of the American chip industry has been replaced by China and Taiwan. There is absolutely ZERO evidence that "American" companies like Intel would be any more responsible and patriotic with another round of such funding than they were the first time

      mod +1G

  • Didn't Intel just recently close down their US factory and shift all production to TSMC?

  • ....and they need more money?
    During the Wintel era they made out like bandits, and like all monopolists they became lazy and incompetent. Itanium sucked, AMD led the way in 486/CISC development, their modems sucked so hard they quit the business, and their solutions for portable devices have traditionally been pretty poor compared to ARM, (as witnessed by Apple's latest move). So sure, get in line for a handout, why not?

  • While I agree that we need more manufacturing capacity (for everything, not just chips), but Intel can damn well afford to build their own plants, they don't need me to chip in for their chip fabs. You make 'em, we'll buy 'em, that's how it works; not, "we give you a ton of money for the factories and then give you more for the product".

    That said, if they want to find a location where they'll get State/local tax breaks, that's fine. I'm much more in favor of not taking someone's money than I am of givi

  • Intel wants the government to buy them a fab because they are behind in that area

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