Is automotive industry all that EU cares about? What about IoT/robotics? The fact that TSMC want to build only their older fab here is really disappointing to me.
England has some semiconductor industry and so does Germany, but less of it is top-spec tech from cash rich companies. Obviously “Europe” still cares about national security but is the money and politics comparable to the US military industrial complex?
You think Siemens which has none of those will be capable to churn out leading edge fabs just like that?
Lets face it, it's not a simple task.
That's why TSMC still has a significant process advantage to other manufacturers, even though all of them are customers of ASML and able to afford the most advanced EUV lithography scanners.
I'm not hearing any major challenges here that couldn't be overcome in the EU, considering the EU is capable of building some of the machines which are state of the art. yeah, you need capital and workforce and a bunch of other things. those aren't really blockers though. I think maybe there is no point, since it would cost more than TSMC, so better just buy the chips. at least until now, when there is a chip shortage and you regret not having a foundry. by the same logic there is no point to manufacture a lot of things in EU (or US) because it's cheaper to get them from China.
The fact that someone is willing to build these machines for you is a good thing.
If TSMC isn’t doing anything special why doesn’t the EU just build fabs then?
> I'm not hearing any major challenges here that couldn't be overcome in the EU, considering the EU is capable of building some of the machines which are state of the art.
So why don’t they do it?
Caterpillar does it with phones[1], and their main business is heavy industry. Why not auto manufacturers? Could easier access to smaller process nodes incentivize them to branch out into new markets like that?
When I looked into it, the most cited reasons were "that's not our business" (really? then what is?) and "it costs more than it's worth" (it doesn't, plus you get government subsidies for green initiatives).
No mention of contracts forbidding that, some manufacturers do forbid resale of whole units, but not of spare parts.
Caterpillar sold/licensed their brand for use in industries they're not competing in, btw, just like many other big companies.
Appliances aren’t quite as complicated, but I could still see how it would be a big change from the perspective of how they do business.
So, It’s probably not up to the EU to care about automotive, that must be Germany. France and Spain likely cares about other things and no one cares about cutting edge chips. EU can push from the top by easing state aid rules, I guess, however it must be a particular country to strike a deal.
Irbid question is attributed to former US foreign secretary Henry Kissinger who supposedly asked:
> Who do I call if I want to call Europe?
Like many famous quotes, it seems to be false: https://www.ft.com/content/c4c1e0cd-f34a-3b49-985f-e708b247e...
Even if he had said it, the EUs political framework has changed and there‘s now a “foreign minister”-like Post that is the EUs phone number for other foreign ministers.
Others have pointed out that the quote is false, but the real question is: why should EU answer to Murdoch phone calls?
He's just a billionaire with no political relevance.
People who really mattered had phone numbers to call, for example Henry Kissinger was a close friend of Gianni Agnelli, principal shareholder of FIAT.
Chips are a global industry, so yes, the factories will end up there but we will be able to buy chips subsidised by US tax payers. Many economists would claim that business and citizens would be more likely to efficiently allocate that $50B themselves. The increased tax on businesses in the US is going to hurt their innovation elsewhere in the economy, it just won't be as visible.
Governments picking winning industries has a very spotty track record. Often the industry does not turn out to be as crucial as thought, or subsidies end up in the wrong pockets. Every other generation this lessons needs to be re-learned it seems.
The chip shortage is creating an economic incentive to expand production capacity on its own, there is no need for subsidies but countries should accommodate new fabs by making them viable to build them in the first place.
One big problem with fabs is that they need specialized staff, they are not going to employ the average worker.
No chip factories get built in Europe or North America without significant subsidies.
You can't separate the two in the case of the US. Having the semi fabs in the US is an economic factor because it's a national security factor, even if it involved adding zero net new jobs because it was all automated by AI + robotics.
Insurance is a very important segment of economy. Risk limiting, prevention. Security, both cyber and physical. And so on. For a business they're critical to sales even though they're costs and not generative for the businesses in terms of sales, they help to make sales possible by protecting the business (like having shelter for your employees). Building fabs in the US plays that same role to the US economy, it's a form of insurance, and it also helps to maintain/retain tech know-how. It's absolutely critical to the US economy, when you consider the realistic context of the world, re the US & China (as opposed to running a spreadsheet economic scenario that involves no potential politics, conflicts or wars).
Semiconductors are critical now and will be more so in the future. The US has both the world's largest economy, most to lose in the tech sector, most powerful military (which depends on semiconductors and will more so tomorrow) and the most wealth of any nation. A superpower without a military is no superpower; the most wealth without a military to protect it, you won't keep that wealth for long. It's pretty obvious that's a very massive economic factor. Being brought to your knees as a superpower - both militarily and economically - by your primary global rival because you failed to build some fabs, would be particularly stupid. It's similar to the rare earth metals problem, both in terms of economy and national security.
You might be able to separate the fab context of economy from national security to a limited extent in smaller nations, where realistically there's nothing you can do to stand off against far larger nations regardless of what you do about semiconductors (you'll lose whether you build that fab or not). Such is not the case with the US however. The US has epic scale global economic interests that very strongly benefit from having global military projection and security.
France alone was the #2 supplier from 2015-2019: https://euro-sd.com/2020/03/news/16688/sipri-biggest-arms-ex...
You really can't blame Taiwan for not rushing to put its most cutting edge expertise in the EU.
That's 2,5 x f35's ( without maintenance) which really is just peanuts.
> "Without European technology, the Chinese navy would not be able to move."
You really think China couldn't buy tech from eg. Russia to make their "fleet move"?
What was the tech? Why was it that important?
https://www.businessinsider.com/tug-sailing-with-russian-shi...
Lack of money to maintain their army has been a recurring issue since the fall of the USSR.
My question still remains to have a realistic POV:
> What was the tech? Why was it that important?
Your statement only enforces my argument that they don't have enough money to maintain their fleet.
Which is also mentioned in the article itself.
https://www.france24.com/en/20200513-china-warns-france-agai...
Their most cutting edge expertise is in good part made in EU.