America Urges Chipmakers to Build Factories in the US (reuters.com) 97
Reuters reports that the Trump administration "is in talks with semiconductor companies about building chip factories in the United States, representatives from two chipmakers said on Sunday."
Intel Corp is in discussions with the United States Department of Defense over improving domestic sources for microelectronics and related technology, Intel spokesman William Moss said in an emailed statement. "Intel is well positioned to work with the U.S. government to operate a U.S.-owned commercial foundry and supply a broad range of secure microelectronics", the statement added.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co, on the other hand, has been in talks with the U.S. Department of Commerce about building a U.S. factory but said it has not made a final decision yet. "We are actively evaluating all the suitable locations, including in the U.S., but there is no concrete plan yet", TSMC spokeswoman Nina Kao said in a statement...
The Wall Street Journal had also reported that U.S. officials are looking at helping South Korea's Samsung Electronics, which has a chip factory in Austin, Texas, to expand its contract-manufacturing operations in the United States.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co, on the other hand, has been in talks with the U.S. Department of Commerce about building a U.S. factory but said it has not made a final decision yet. "We are actively evaluating all the suitable locations, including in the U.S., but there is no concrete plan yet", TSMC spokeswoman Nina Kao said in a statement...
The Wall Street Journal had also reported that U.S. officials are looking at helping South Korea's Samsung Electronics, which has a chip factory in Austin, Texas, to expand its contract-manufacturing operations in the United States.
good luck with that (Score:2)
Good luck with that, Wall Street may have something to say. In the US short term profits rein.
But I thought for Defense all chips end to end had to be produced in the US, is that still true ?
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Re:good luck with that (Score:4, Insightful)
What is the difference? It's not like it's Trump's fault that those factories are not here right now... all that happened long before he even ran for office. Is it going to be his fault if he fails to bring them back over? Or will it be the fault of all the past administrations and legislatures that caused them to want to leave and then allowed them to leave?
But as usual, another loss for America that will be called a win for America depending on which politics are at stake.
You see, we all have been getting fucked over from both sides, but we only forgive one of them as the throngs run to the polls to ask for more of the same each cycle.
Re:good luck with that (Score:4)
...all the past administrations and legislatures that caused them to want to leave and then allowed them to leave?
What do you mean? How could any administration prevent any corporation shifting their manufacturing to anywhere?
You should be aware that big business wanted to move their manufacturing to China because they thought they could exploit the workers and the lack of environmental protections to make bigger profits. And they did.
When you mentioned "both sides" you were presumably referring to your political parties, but in fact this has always been driven by the corporations who fund those parties.
If Intel want to make their own chips in the US, nothing is stopping them. They could start building a factory tomorrow.
Re:good luck with that (Score:4, Insightful)
If I really have to explain the basics it is just going to take too long. But lets put it this way. Politics created the tools and atmosphere to get businesses out of the USA and into other lands... then along came free-trade agreements and special deals to keep those businesses in 3rd world markets. Why?
"but in fact this has always been driven by the corporations who fund those parties."
And this... you seem to be a bi ignorant of how this works. Government created subsidies to encourage businesses to do things... especially inside of their borders. This creates perverse incentives that does not benefit tax payers, but the tax payers allow it because it well "brings jobs" Great... now that we got how you got sold out covered lets move onto the next part.
Once you are sold out... how do you get back from that? Businesses now expect these tax breaks and subsidies or they leave when government will not bend over for them... Look, Musk is doing that to California right now! https://www.marketwatch.com/st... [marketwatch.com]
You see... you were sold a long time ago, and now you don't know how to get your own fucking government back. And as far as the Government preventing businesses from leaving the border... it is simple. You MFG outside of the border you face tariffs on your products to make them just as expensive to make there as if you did it inside of the borders... Simple enough. The other thing is to make corporate taxes attractive to businesses for them to come and stay and stop the bullshit shenanigans.
The world is not a level playing field... If a business moves their operation outside of the border they don't get access to the American market without paying the tariffs and we can even put that money to welfare programs.
But you see... you are just simply not going to make the choices necessary to fix this problem... because you have already sold out and you will never get enough people to break away from their precious "promises of jobs" parties that sell their voters down the river every chance they get! This is a problem at multiple levels of national, state, and local business politics.
And do you want to know what else? Even California... with a dominant party that bitches about businesses not paying their taxes even bends over to give these businesses tax breaks. Who is on who's side here? One thing is for sure... no one is on "The People's" side. It's a "fuck you, pay me" world after all and folks like you wondering how a government keeps businesses from leaving are not helping.
Re:good luck with that (Score:4, Interesting)
Politics created the tools and atmosphere to get businesses out of the USA and into other lands.
At the behest of many companies. I mean good grief, you can't expect anyone to take you serious here thinking that companies are the victim here?! Like seriously?!
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Tariffs are easy to circumvent. I have to manufacture in the US? CanI import the raw materials, I mean, it ain't like everything is available on US soil, right? Great, I'll manufacture the chips in China, import those "raw materials" and etch the number on them in the US. Can I then stamp "Made in the USA" on them too? I mean, I did stamp that onto them.
Oh, I have to do more than 50% of the "value creation" in the US? No problem, I import those chips for 5 cents apiece from China (hey, how much I charge mys
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Actually, it should be simple to say, OK, you claim the chip is worth a few cents and the etching of the name is worth $100.00? Fine. You must sell a Generic version without the etching to any taker for no more than you pay to import it to yourself.
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Don't forget the big one. Any corporation building critical things ( such as chips ) in the US gets some sort of preffered status in getting government contracts./That's lot of business to lose to keep manufacturing overseas.
Imagine if the military said that any critical component of a weapons system had to be made in the US, That alone would drag business back to the US.
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And dramatically increase the size of the U.S. defense budget to pay for it.
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Oh, horsepucky. There's so much slop in the military budget (it's nothing like a "defense" budget) that we could cut it by 70% and still be spending more than anyone else. We spend more than the next 15 countries combined, 12 of whom are allies. Also keep in mind that doesn't include the (utterly unconstitutional) Black Budget or the alphabet soup of intel agencies. How cowardly must conservatives be to actually think that those numbers are defensible?
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Just checked the numbers on this. This is actually true.
China spends about a third of what we do.
But everyone else is so small by comparison you need to add 11 of them up to get that other two thirds.
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The good thing is that we're only spending 37% of the world total military spending, a decade ago it was 45%. The bad thing is that the reason our percentage has dropped is that other countries are wasting more money on war toys.
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What do you mean? How could any administration prevent any corporation shifting their manufacturing to anywhere?
There are two options: export the factories, or import the workers.
Either that or don't make as much stuff, because there is no way the US has enough people to manufacture all the things we use.
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I disagree, we have enough people in the USA to make what we consume. We did just that, and more, for decades.
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We did just that, and more, for decades.
OK, that's another option: reduce our consumption to what we can manufacture stateside haha. I'll bet you can guess how popular that will be.
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Sure we did. Back then a t-shirt cost the (value equivalent) of 30 bucks and a TV cost about 4000. You think you can sell either in this economy?
We earned good money and then we sent jobs overseas to get cheap goods in return. And we loved it, we had money from the jobs we still had back then, and we got cheap goods to buy even more crap than ever before!
Until we noticed that to buy stuff you first of all have to earn money. And when we noticed that, the economy went to hell.
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...all the past administrations and legislatures that caused them to want to leave and then allowed them to leave?
What do you mean? How could any administration prevent any corporation shifting their manufacturing to anywhere?
you answered this in the next sentence
You should be aware that big business wanted to move their manufacturing to China because they thought they could exploit the workers and the lack of environmental protections to make bigger profits. And they did.
However corporations only do this because the Government doesn't make it easy to work in the western world e.g. starting a mine for those rare earths to make batteries spend 10 years and 10 of millions on environmental studies and during that time the government changes 3 or more times moving the goal posts each time on electoral promises and other BS they s
Gov and Consumers allowed outsourcing (Score:3)
What do you mean? How could any administration prevent any corporation shifting their manufacturing to anywhere? You should be aware that big business wanted to move their manufacturing to China because they thought they could exploit the workers and the lack of environmental protections to make bigger profits. And they did.
Government allowed the importation of goods made in a region with worker abuse and environmental contamination. Countering this is very simple. You pass legislation that requires goods to be compliant with some level of worker and environmental protection.
When you mentioned "both sides" you were presumably referring to your political parties, but in fact this has always been driven by the corporations who fund those parties.
No, the outsourcing was driven by US consumers. Companies that outsourced and took advantage of lax labor and environmental policies were rewarded with sales. Companies that continued to manufacture in the US or some other region with desirable labor and e
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Driven by consumers?
"I want chips made in China! I won't buy anything made in the US!"
No. The words you're looking for here is economic forces. Simplistically this implies "if we can make it cheaper, we'll sell more." but there are a lot of hidden factors in it such as "if I lower headcount my stock (which I am given as bonuses) will be worth more temporarily and I can sell it before the overall value of the company diminishes by the loss of actual value dropping part of the business will cause" or "outs
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Driven by consumers?
"I want chips made in China! I won't buy anything made in the US!"
No.
Obviously I was speaking in general not about chips specifically.
The words you're looking for here is economic forces. Simplistically this implies "if we can make it cheaper, we'll sell more."
That depends on the buyer. The sale is a buyer's decision. Hence the buyer is in control. Outsourcing occurred because buyers, consumers, considered nothing other than price. In healthier countries they give manufacturing locale some consideration, they consider the societal impact to a degree.
Now if you want to speak about chips, yes buyers have the power their too. For example, once upon a time buyers insisted on multiple sources so they
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If the US government wants to make the claim for bringing jobs back to the USA it is really quite easy. Simply mandate that any general use tech bought by the Federal government must be 100% US made, they are kind of stuck now with war hardware having made all sorts of corrupt NATO deals they are now stuck with, but general purpose product can be targeted. Phones for a start, cars for general use, desk top computers, notebooks, all the electronics can be mandated 100% US made, along with uniforms, building
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So yeah - great plan if you want everything to cost a lot more than it currently does. Where does that m
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The price of everything goes up, but now you have a decent job, and China is spared some superfund sites. (OK. Who are we kidding? The CCP will never clean up anything unless the place is going to host an Olympic event.)
The problem with "allow things to be made where they can be made cheapest" is that it primarily benefits a small subset of the population. Namely, those with the resources to have stock in multinational corporations. Stock that they don't need for living expenses. That policy dispropor
Re: good luck with that (Score:1)
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Who the hell is going to buy stuff made in the US if this farce gets up? If and product does the same job while offered at many times the price it simply won't sell. Without foreign sales there is no export income. How is the domestic sector going to hold itself up by tugging on market protected bootlaces?
Tariffs always precipitate disaster for economys that employ them long term. Without competitive pressure to improve productivity, manufacturers will just churn out the same old stuff assured of domest
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You're doomed, you're going to die.
This is about short term profits (Score:1)
Good luck with that, Wall Street may have something to say. In the US short term profits rein.
Yep, and how are short-term profits looking just now?
That's why companies will put in motion plans to move a LOT of manufacturing out of China, both to the U.S. and other places. Because the pain is very fresh, and will be felt for several quarters to remind them. After that it's all corporate momentum.
Re: This is about short term profits (Score:2)
Lots of cheaper places to build those factories than the U.S. though. I wouldn't count on too many coming here.
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How about building those factories up north, eh?
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Naw, remember, Canada is a national security threat to the United States, at least according to the numbskull in the whitehouse.
Re: This is about short term profits (Score:5, Insightful)
Cheaper, yes. But more attractive?
There's a very simple reason China is attractive as a manufactoring place. It has lax environmental standards, it has well trained workers that cost little and it is politically stable. How many places can you name where you can tick all these boxes?
That last one if often overlooked but it is one of the main reasons if not the main reason why corporations haven't packed their shit and moved to Africa a long time ago. It would most likely be heaps cheaper to produce in most places of Africa, but can you rely on your plant still being yours by the end of the year? Or, well, more than a pile of rubble?
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That plus the PRC resists exporting the raw materials in bulk, since they control a bunch of current production (due to lax mining / refining standards) they also can extort that fabrication happens there too.
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Re:good luck with that (Score:4, Funny)
Hey, profit before friendship. Why do you hate capitalism?
Re: good luck with that (Score:1)
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Good luck with that, Wall Street may have something to say. In the US short term profits rein.
But I thought for Defense all chips end to end had to be produced in the US, is that still true ?
It's also about risk diversification. Putting everything in one basket - US - that is currently being run rather incompetently at the moment and want to start trade wars with everyone - is not a good long term strategy for companies that depends on global markets.
Of course, the same thing - minus the incompetent part - goes for China. You would want to reduce the impact of something happening there as well.
Consumer goods (Score:2, Troll)
Given the events of the last few months, even looking at it from a national security perspective, we might do better to start producing something more prosaic than computer chips, like basic household goods that are currently in short supply.
IOW, chip fab doesn't seem to be the place to start.
The primary lesson from Wuhan flu is not about medicine, or even public policy (which certainly has been an eye-opener for some - although no surprise to constitutional origi
Re:Consumer goods (Score:5, Informative)
There are many fabs in the US already. Here is a list of Intel Wafer Fab locations:
Chandler, Arizona
Hudson, Massachusetts
Rio Rancho, New Mexico
Hillsboro, Oregon.
Fab production sites outside the United States include:
Leixlip, Ireland
Jerusalem, Israel
Kiryal Gat, Israel
Dalian, China.
Source: https://www.intel.com/content/... [intel.com]
Re: Consumer goods (Score:2)
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Didn't they also have fabs in Puerto Rico and Malaysia?
They have not had fabs in Puerto Rico or Malaysia.
They have had other manufacturing in those places.
Puerto Rico was making motherboards (found an article from 2001 about it closing)
Malaysia I think they're doing chip packaging (steps after the silicon is fab'd)
Probably other things as well.
They had a fab in Santa Clara, CA (along with many other companies that had fabs in "silicon valley") - but they discontinued doing fab work there quite a few years ago.
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We have chip fabs, we have PPE fabs, we have consumer products fabs. Just not nearly as much. GENERALLY the stuff in the US is high-end. The high-end market is small.
Re:Consumer goods (Score:4, Interesting)
...relying on just-in-time delivery with centralized distribution...
All that stuff is financially efficient, and the guys who run those huge companies love financial efficiency more than anything.
The banking panics in 2008 also taught them that the taxpayer will bail them out when everything turns to custard which is exactly what has happened.
The massive (massively profitable) company I work for has had their share price rise as a result of the covid-19 bailouts, because everyone is too big to fail right now.
TSMC (Score:4, Insightful)
There was a story yesterday about a fight to access to TSMC sub 10nm wafers. TSMC have about 50% of the global share of wafers with most of that in Taiwan. Can you imagine if China went to war with Taiwan what that would do to global chip supplies. Thems a lot of eggs in one basket!
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The performance flaws in Intel's current 10nm process is what is behind the big push for TSMC to locate a fab in the US, they've become a poker chip in the balance-of-power game between China and the US, with the future of Taiwan's "Silicon Shield" [google.com] in the balance.
Then again, if TSMC can just delay the issue a few years, it's quite possible that Intel's upcoming 7nm process will turn out to be competitive, and maybe the problem won't be so urgent anymore.
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Thems a lot of eggs in one basket!
That's not a bad thing. You can think of this like MAD for nuclear weapons. If China went to war with Taiwan and the global chip industry were disrupted it would turn the entire world against them including those it counts among its allies and neutral parties.
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That’s an interesting thought . Almost like America’s ‘too big to fail’ banks.
Um, Wisconsin? (Score:2)
good, but not enough (Score:3)
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"at a certain point it won't be any more expensive to operate those factories in the U.S. than it is in China."
Unfortunately, direct operating cost of labor is only one cost; toxic waste is another.
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Intel’s statement confuses me (Score:4)
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The statement makes it seem that Intel is willing to build foundries, but it already has multiple foundries in the US from what I know. [...] Also Intel’s foundries were largely for their own chips whereas TSMC and Samsung will make chips for anyone.
Yes, what Intel is saying is that they are willing to sell chips to the US government that they make in their foundries. I think they are just working to embed themselves in US DoD contracts. Never trust Intel, they will screw you.
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For Intel this is just a PR gig and an opportunity to convince more officials to use Intel products even though they will charge more. Intel isn't doing anything special, just trying to get themselves as possible mandatory sources for contractors ("CPUs must be manufactured domestically") by touting "security".
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Though they are the largest US company running US fabs, Intel has never been a Trusted Fab. That mainly fell on IBM, and then Globalfoundries once they "bought" IBM Microeelctronics. (IBM actually paid GF to take it.) GF had to form a US subsidiary to run those fabs, since the parent org is actually the UAE. SInce GF cancelled 7nm development, that means the Trusted Fab program is stuck at the existing GF 14nm node.
As far as Intel's foundry business, they've been sinking money into it off and on for years b
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Ya, and with that rube in the White House, Intel could sell him chips for golf balls as high tech military munitions and he'd bite. He's not the brightest spark.
Foxconn Wisconsin part 2 (Score:4, Insightful)
Step two: Company announces a US facility and cuts a ribbon standing next to Trump. No details given on plans for the building.
Step 3: Trump administration claims a triumph in bringing jobs to the US. Supporters eat it up. MAGA.
Step 4: Building stays empty. Jobs created: 5 janitorial and maintenance positions.
Step 5: There's no step 5. Step 3 was "mission-accomplished".
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Step 1: Trump, state governor, etc, announce a new foundry while standing next to a big sign with what the building would look like in some state Trump needs to win.
Step 2: Give the company loads of tax breaks, tax credits, and loan guarantees.
Step 3: Trump Administration claims triumph in bringing jobs to the US. Supporters eat it up. MAGA!
Step 4: Fence built around the land. Only permanent job created is the security guard at the entrance.
Step 5: No step 5. Step 3 was "mission accomplished."
Re: Foxconn Wisconsin part 2 (Score:2)
Everything Critical should be Made Domestically (Score:5, Insightful)
Not just semiconductors. How about pharmaceuticals, machine components, electrical grid components, etc. It doesn't all have to be made 100% in the US, but most should be above 50% and rampable to 100%+ in a few months.
This is a national security issue.
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While I totally agree, the problem is that over MULTIPLE decades, the trend has been opposite moving more and more to (primarily) China. Moving industry back to the US means moving sources of pollution (including CO2 production) back to the US. Also, it won't be profitable unless we somehow block goods from China with tariffs or something. So then China will block US goods from going to China (such as farm goods). So, it is a great idea and I am 100% in favor, but it is not like you can just snap your finge
Re:Everything Critical should be Made Domestically (Score:4, Insightful)
Not just semiconductors. How about pharmaceuticals, machine components, electrical grid components, etc. It doesn't all have to be made 100% in the US, but most should be above 50% and rampable to 100%+ in a few months.
This is a national security issue.
Absolutely right.
Now imagine OTHER countries coming to the same conclusion.
The US market is no longer more than 1/2 of the world market. By forcing the dominant global companies in these industries to build factories in every one of its major markets, you create inefficiencies that allow local companies to compete in local markets.
This sounds great for local companies, but not so good for global players. Now guess which country has more huge global multinational corps selling things around the world.
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Not just semiconductors. How about pharmaceuticals, machine components, electrical grid components, etc. It doesn't all have to be made 100% in the US, but most should be above 50% and rampable to 100%+ in a few months.
Sure. Define "critical" first. Then list all the inputs and people required to make those critical bits. Then list the inputs and people required to make those inputs. Lather, rinse, repeat because it never stops. The web of production and commerce today is so interconnected, you can't in any reasonable sense define what's critical and all the things it takes to make those critical things.
Let's look at one of your examples: pharmaceuticals. Let's pick just one good one, say Lipitor. To make that takes, I as
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Go look for videos on any sort of manufacturing process. The amount of specialized gear always makes my jaw drop. Where were they made? Who operates it? Who installed and maintains it?
Usually some small German company....
Someone coined them as "Hidden Champions". Tiny, but heavily specialized companies, usually owner-run somewhere in the Black Forrest leading the world market for one type of machinery or manufacturing equipment..
What blew my mind was learing that there is a company with 50-70 people. No one ever heard that name, but half the car license plates worldwide are stamped using their license-plate-stamping-machines.
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Usually some small German company....
No doubt. I remember reading an article about the rise of small producers in China. One example which stuck with me was a profile of three or four guys who have a forge and stamping machine in a shed somewhere. Their unbelievably mundane product? The metal bits which lets one adjust the length of bra straps. It's astounding just how specialized we get (and remember, specialization drives productivity and productivity drives wealth).
IOW, Heinlein was mostly wrong that specialization is for insects. It's fine
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How dare you bring a well thought out, reasoned, and written argument to /.! :)
I wish that I had points to mod you up but then I couldn't have written you this message.
And to add evidence to your argument, look how well things have gone when Trump has used "National Security" to try and move production of goods, such as steel, back to the US. The nations he hit with tariffs replied with targeted tariffs of their own causing much harm. And, in the case of steel, to save approximately 20,000 jobs in that indu
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How dare you bring a well thought out, reasoned, and written argument to /.! :)
I must be a slow learner. I'm still waiting for the outraged rebuttal, which is when I usually eject from the conversation.
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Sure just write the check. Oh what's that? Your industry is following the "best cost country" sourcing regime? You're tendering items by reverse auction?
You can't just build it and have people come when the very reason these things don't exist is because people voluntarily left in the first place.
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The problem is that it would go against the "free market", which for some is basically dogma, all other concerns be damned.
So the first challenge is to convince that the "free market" needs to be set aside for this issue to be solved. The second challenge is to convince that it's worth to put in place either additional regulations or significant subsides.
Incentives are Needed (Score:1)
You mean after we pushed them all offshore? (Score:5, Insightful)
So, we bring them back to the US. Where are they gonna set up their polluting plants? California. yeah, don't make me laugh. Az? Probably not enough trained workers. Texas? Maybe, but I suspect in the next 20 years or so Texans are gonna have 1 too many exploding chemical plants to put up with such stuff. Anywhere else? Where?
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It does not take that many worker bees once it's built and running.
Modern fabs are just one big machine. Raw materials in one end, wafers out the other.
The goal is no bees at all. Bees need air and light. The machine doesn't like that.
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" California. yeah, don't make me laugh. Az? Probably not enough trained workers. Texas? Maybe, but I suspect in the next 20 years or so Texans are gonna have 1 too many exploding chemical plants to put up with such stuff. "
Turns out, those are all places where fabs are actually located.
It could work... (Score:2)
Not "America" (Score:2)
"American federal government officials", please. On any given issue, America has 330,000,000 different opinions. There's no one thing "America" wants.
It's very misleading shorthand to talk of "America wants this" or "China wants that." Try substituting "The American population" for "America" and see if the sentence still seems plausible.
Sure, sure, sure, we can do that! However: (Score:3)
Oh and by the way you really think we'll be exporting any of those? Think again. The manufacturers in Asia (and elsewhere for that matter) will not just dry up an blow away on one wind, they'll produce for other companies just as cheaply, and those other companies in other countries will make their products with non-U.S.-produced ICs.
There isn't a simple solution to this problem. People have got used to inexpensive tech. Now you're going to either raise the price out of reach, killing the tech industry, or you're going to drive them towards cheaper imports that have nothing to do with U.S. companies, again likely killing the tech industry.
The only real solution I can see at the moment is to stop wanting so much tech. Good luck with that, too.
Why does anyone listen to Trump anymore? (Score:3)
Even if the White House has someone to work on this, it will be some incompetent who got the gig through cronyism. This isn't anywhere near funny and the consequences can be horrible: Former Labradoodle breeder was tapped to lead U.S. pandemic task force. [reuters.com]
In late January HHS Chief Alex Azar appointed Brian Harrison as the lead for coronavirus response
So getting chip production back in the US will go nowhere. This story isn't even a good waste of time.
I know what happened he said (Score:2, Insightful)
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America has chip factories in the present. I'm sure the current administration can spin that negatively on Obama too.
At the Briefing About Chip Factories... (Score:2)
At the briefing about chip factories Trump was probably thinking about Pringles and got concerned that American has so few factories making them. Thus the sudden importance of having one built.
Intel and Security (Score:2)
"Intel is well positioned to work with the U.S. government to operate a U.S.-owned commercial foundry and supply a broad range of secure microelectronics"
With all of the problems being found in the processors lately I'm wondering if they are talking to the right company. /s
Nasty stuff (Score:3)
First day working for Intel, I had to go to orientation at the fab in Chandler, AZ,
even though I was hired just to write code in a lab 5 miles away.
The primary lesson from the trainer was:
This is not about electronics. This is a chemical plant.
We use the purest, most potent chemicals available. It is very dangerous here.