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Comment by pjc50 | Hacker News Reader

US is making a lot of noise about it, but the current administration lacks the competence to actually do it. The US generally doesn't do this kind of state-directed enterprise dirigisme, outside of Boeing.

Remember Foxconn Wisconsin? https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/12/21217060/foxconn-wisconsi...

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Falling behind in state of the art of fabs is seen by the DoD as the same kind of strategic issue that leads to them propping up Boeing.

You'd think, if the people in charge had any sense, but it's really about lobbying, and Boing is much better at that than Intel.

> the same kind of strategic issue that leads to them propping up Boeing

I don't quite understand what you mean by this, what is the context of US support for Boeing?

Here's the backstory on Boeing and the military.

US air doctrine is that they will always buy air dominance, so Boeing will be funded for military programs. However, the US govt. historically has had the influence to tell military aircraft mfgs. what to prioritize, and what lines to drop.

An example is Northrop. They were told to drop the popular F-5 and F-20, and focus on the B-1 program. They were also told to merge with a competitor, but declined.

It's weird when you first study it, but the US Air Force wants zero risk missions into enemy skies.

So that's why they're ok with a handful of $200 million fighters and $2 billion bombers, if they're stealthy enough not to be seen.

(Stalin on the other hand is often attributed with saying, "Quantity has a quality of its own." I would argue a balance is needed between a perfect fighter, in the case of the F-22 with under 200 airframes mfg., and having 10,000 slightly less perfect ones, like the F-16.)

W: F-22 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-22_Raptor

If the public cannot stomach allied casualties, losing too many pilots might end a war even if the material cost of the planes was low. Quantity may have a quality of it's own, but maintaining public morale seems just as important.

That is a reason why you move so that when the time come (which is not chosen you we are not talking about us invaded china here but china just blockage of Taiwan say), you have option. If Taiwan has a strategic assets at least you do not risk a war ...

Guess that is why Taiwan also would not want the asset out.

There have to be a political deal. If USA and Taiwan is competent.

Oddly, at the moment there are people on American streets demanding casualties in order to get the malls open again.

(Coronavirus death toll now larger than Vietnam)

What's your assessment of ERI (Electronics Resurgence Initiative), especially their sponsorship of R&D for open-source EDA toolchains and open IP blocks for chiplets, e.g. OCP ODSA? There are many universities and tech companies participating and a budget north of $1B.

TSMC US-manufactured FPGAs could be a good compute platform for open-source hardware designs that can be rapidly iterated.

ERI: https://eri-summit.darpa.mil/what-is-eri

OpenCompute ODSA: https://146a55aca6f00848c565-a7635525d40ac1c70300198708936b4...

Toolchains and IP are not the issue . We're talking about actual manufacturing.

There is a secure foundry system for DoD use: https://semiengineering.com/a-crisis-in-dods-trusted-foundry...

GlobalFoundries only goes to 14nm. Many applications benefit from 7nm and below for size/weight/power.

> Toolchains and IP are not the issue . We're talking about actual manufacturing.

Of course. Let's say you're TSMC with limited capacity on your bleeding edge node, operating a price auction that drives up revenue against your fixed investment. Would you create another fab to compete with yourself, adding extra capacity, reducing price competition, and revenue?

Now let's say you can create a new fab that does not compete directly with the existing product line, e.g. because most of the capacity of the new fab will be occupied with new customers who could not previously make use of the Taiwan fab. Where would these customers come from? They can't only be the US customers who use the existing "secure foundry", as that would mean supply/competition problems for GlobalFoundries.

Any large supply increase in actual US fab manufacturing is going to require a large demand increase in actual US fabless semiconductor companies. Open toolchains and IP are a necessary, but not sufficient, step on the path to expanding the commercial US semiconductor industry, which would also benefit secure use cases.

This is only tangentially related to the current administration. Onshoring manufacturing has been a supposed policy goal of the President since 2016, and that hasn’t amounted to squat.

The tectonic shift is that it has suddenly become a priority for the permanent, unelected (i.e. real) US government for a different set of reasons.

Sounds like Foxconn is using the Wisconsin subsidies as part of an offshore money sink. Didn't Wisconsin evict landowners to build these empty buildings?

Beyond turning policy knobs it's not really in the administration's hands though. There's a lot middle and higher level managers saying "gee I really looked like an idiot when I couldn't deliver on my objectives because I was relying on supply in China" who are looking to avoid a repeat. Some stuff is gonna shift back regardless of what the administration does.

Definitely true in general, but it would surprise me if the Trump administration wasn’t involved in making this particular project happen, just on the strategic importance alone.

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