UK To Subsidize Semiconductor Firms in Bid To Make Domestic Chips (bloomberg.com) 48
The UK government will provide direct taxpayer funding to support British semiconductor companies as part of a strategy for a sector that has become a lightning rod in global geopolitics, Bloomberg reported Wednesday, citing people familiar with the plans. From the report: This will include seed money for startups, help for existing firms to scale up, as well as providing new incentives for private venture capital, the officials said. Ministers will set up a semiconductor task force to coordinate public and private support to ramp up UK manufacturing of compound semiconductors in the next three years, they added. An overall figure has not been agreed with the Treasury but it is expected to be single figure billions of pounds, one person familiar with the plans said.
Chips are vital components in everything from mobile phones to cars, and shortages have the potential to cause significant disruption to supply chains. Companies already affected by the Covid-19 pandemic are reconsidering their investments in the UK due to frustrations over delays in formulating a strategy. Compound semiconductors are based on different materials to conventional "silicon" chips and are used in newer technologies like 5G wireless and electric vehicles. A UK push to develop local semiconductor manufacturing would echo US efforts to restrict exports of the technology to China and hobble its push into the chips industry. The Netherlands and Japan, key chip-making countries, are close to joining with the US to curb links with Beijing.
Chips are vital components in everything from mobile phones to cars, and shortages have the potential to cause significant disruption to supply chains. Companies already affected by the Covid-19 pandemic are reconsidering their investments in the UK due to frustrations over delays in formulating a strategy. Compound semiconductors are based on different materials to conventional "silicon" chips and are used in newer technologies like 5G wireless and electric vehicles. A UK push to develop local semiconductor manufacturing would echo US efforts to restrict exports of the technology to China and hobble its push into the chips industry. The Netherlands and Japan, key chip-making countries, are close to joining with the US to curb links with Beijing.
Invasion of Taiwan is matter of time (Score:2, Interesting)
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Peter Zeihan predicted demographic collapse and raise of ultra-nationalism in China. This would inevitably lead to military invasion of Taiwan. Even if he is wrong, it is very dangerous to ignore this threat, and having an alternative source of semiconductor fabs is of national security level of importance.
I believe he is right because there is another demographic thing going on in China also that is tending towards them going to war. There is a massive male/female disparity (caused by China's one child policy and the preference of families to have male heirs/children) so there are a lot of testosterone filled males with no opportunity to get wives and no outlet for those aggressive tendencies. War provides a "solution" to that dilemma (and yes, I agree, that's a horrible solution). I forget where I read it,
"Blue Balls" syndrome (Score:5, Insightful)
> There is a massive male/female disparity (caused by China's one child policy and the preference of families to have male heirs/children) so there are a lot of testosterone filled males with no opportunity to get wives [leading to aggression].
It was suggested that's also a likely cause of Middle East tensions in that polygamy means too many men have slim chance of marriage because if some men have many wives, mathematically a good portion get none and competition at the edge gets stiff (no pun intended). Too many agitated young men usually equals invasion. However, the theory was labelled as "racist", anti-Muslim, etc.
The solution to world peace may be more females.
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That'll solve itself in 20 or 30 years (Score:2)
I remember when Pakistan looked the other way while a bunch of their people did a major terrorist attack. I thought for sure the two were going to war. Nothing happened. It was bad for business.
Russia's a problem because Putin has so much power he can murder his fellow oligarchs in broad daylight. Xi can't do that. They occasionally throw on of the minor ones to the wolves, but the big guys are just as untouchable as Xi. That means unlike Ru
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A Modest Proposal (Score:3)
Perhaps China could send their excess males to die in Ukraine, seeing as Russia is running out. Or, as Russia has a gender gap that is only getting worse, perhaps Russia could send their excess females to China.
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UK to compete with TSMC? (Score:2)
Existing UK semi facilities look like discretes and sensors. Setting up for just a mainstream (not state of the art) CMOS process node like 45nm would be a major undertaking for one, and because of patents it would realistically have to be in partnership with a US fab like Global Foundries, or perhaps NXP. Not exactly blowing the John Bull horn, izzit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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After China was hit with the first round of semiconductor sanctions, its government decided on a policy of developing a 100% domestically owned semiconductor IP stack. The target is that by 2030 the Chinese owned stack will be competitive with whatever the global state-of-the-art is at that time. Last year there was industry talk that convergence might happen as early as 2028.
If China can do it, then so can Europe (but probably not the UK on its own). Unfortunately, I don't think Europe has the willingne
China's not going to invade Taiwan (Score:2)
China doesn't use war to get what they want. They're not Russia. They're quietly taking over Africa. They'll make some noise about Taiwan for their hardliners but they're not actually gonna do anything.
Of course, this assumes their current dictator doesn't go completely off the
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Of course, this assumes their current dictator doesn't go completely off the deepend in his old age like Putin did, which is always a possibility.
I think it is happening. You could look at what is happening inside China right now for evidence.
What happening in Ukraine is the result of Putin locking himself away for 2 years during COVID (he is immunocompromised due to cancer treatments) and then getting high on his own propaganda supply. While Xi isn't THAT extreme, the difference is in degrees and not orders of magnitude.
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One of the reasons China *doesn't* do more than sabre rattling on Taiwan is its looming demographic crisis. Even though it has a surplus of males, it doesn't have young people to waste.
That said, who knows what will happen if demography develops into a full-blown crisis. You can't count on people in a crisis not to do the worst possible thing.
Good luck with that (Score:1)
UK firms have done this to themselves by being greedy little sniveling worms. They don't "open" anything, require background checks just to get a SDK, etc. Won't tell developers how things work so they can be fixed ("It's too complicated, just buy a new one").
Uncooperative moneygrubbers.
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Re: UK should just give up (Score:3)
But we have the brains and cash
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Another boondoggle... (Score:1)
The Aisianometry YouTube channel did a video the last time the UK tried to build a local fab.. and how poorly it ended up fairing.
No national construction regulations / guidance.
Local civil planning boards that have no clue in what they are doing.
I'm not saying that they should let the fab operators run roughshod over municipalities - but seriously - have a plan, streamline approval processes, etc. You're going to need an external company (e.g. TSMC) pony up the money for the initial fab and train folks be
Domestic Chips? (Score:5, Funny)
There is a fish joke here somewhere ...
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It's not a domestic british chip until it's wrapped in newspaper, and the fat renders the paper translucent.
Bonus points if the ink is lead based and leeches into the product.
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(leaches... silly me)
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There is a fish joke here somewhere ...
We call them "domestic crisps" over here.
I Will Wait... (Score:3)
Just chips? (Score:2)
We found out the hard way how important embedded chips and certain metals are to many aspects modern production. But I suspect there are other components that are also potential bottlenecks.
Cars? (Score:3)
BritishVolt went under last week and so there won't be any batteries for e-cars, when the grace-period for the rules of origin of British produced cars run out.
There will be tariffs to pay and so the car industry will go to the continent.
No need for chips.
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"BritishVolt went under last week and so there won't be any batteries for e-cars, when the grace-period for the rules of origin of British produced cars run out."
Runs out at the end of this year.
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BritishVolt went under last week and so there won't be any batteries for e-cars, when the grace-period for the rules of origin of British produced cars run out.
There will be tariffs to pay and so the car industry will go to the continent.
No need for chips.
Not to mention that car manufacturing is now at a 66 year low. Won't be long now until the UK car industry are 5 blokes in a shed in Leicestershire.
Chips? (Score:2)
Are they going to make chips, or crisps? Or fries? I am confused.
Poor old Britain. (Score:3, Insightful)
Unfortunately, unlike the US or ooh, the EU, the UK doesn't have enough money to throw to make a difference.
They're doomed to being the sick man of Europe once more.
UK doesn't have enough money to throw (Score:2)
It will have import all the talent too. That may prove difficult.
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Hey I voted for the other brexit, not this one! You know the one with less brown people.
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And now look at this disastrous meritocracy we got.
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The Tories are just trying to enrich themselves and their friends as much as possible, while the ship goes down. Stealing the silver from the Titanic after they drove it into an iceberg.
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Too late - we already had it with ARM (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Too late - we already had it with ARM (Score:4, Informative)
ARM is not a fab
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ARM is not a fab
And funnily enough, practically all modern ARM cores are produced on nodes that "low single digit pounds" can't build a fab for. ARM cores were being piloted on TSMC's 7 nm node all the way back in 2019. The Pi 4 is produced on 28 nm, which might just barely be within that budget, as the best "value node" right now, but likely the Pi 5 will be on a better process node than that, and so once again out of reach. Broadcom was already using 16nm for ARM cores in 2020.
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I'm sorry, but... (Score:2)
Isn't this like a state or two from the US is planning to take on the rest of the world in a highly lucrative market? One everyone has known about for decades.
No. You can't just choose to "secure yourself" and "do it". Either it's not hard to make and you can make it yourself. Or it is hard and you need to pay the price or find a way to not need it.
I'm tired of capitalism. "Oh! ... you meant THAT giant waste filled pool we created a decade ago... Nope, not "ours"."
Is it truly impossible to split out p
What happened to globalization and free markets (Score:2)
From the same party that... (Score:3)
It's going to be as successful (Score:4, Informative)
Which Conservative Ministers family or friends (Score:3)