A Texas semiconductor boom on the horizon?
news.utexas.edu
news.utexas.edu
I think this is a fantastic plan. Having an actual employer who will more-or-less take you by default is a much better value proposition for college than some other paths...
The proximity of the university campus to the existing A2/S2 lines should allow for quality field trip opportunities. I know how Samsung's management feels about strangers up on the catwalk, but that was the #1 thing that inspired me - Seeing the actual starship with my own eyes.
https://www.caiso.com/Documents/intensifying-heat-leads-to-a...
There is some silliness with the state government around renewable power, but it isn't like they've banned it. And if they did it would take #2 California a long time to catch up.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/09032023/inside-clean-ene...
The question then is really whether Texas has a better chance of expanding capacity fast enough to meet its needs than other states that are famously more restrictive around new construction and environmental impacts. I don't like the politics here and I still think the answer to that is clearly yes for this purpose.
Whoever mentioned water has a point though.
UT needs a wider incubation, financing, and entrepreneurial (undergrad/grad-student/community) ecosystem like Stanford. Critical mass of players brings with it more interested parties, and with it, that elusive "innovation". It should be okay to make money, okay to turn a PhD thesis into a startup, okay to launch side projects, and cool to fail and learn lessons. Not all paths must lead to a "corporate career".
The downstream costs of how we do standardized tests are bonkers.
The standard back in the early 2010s was still definitely TI-84 being about the most powerful calculator you could use for most tests that mattered. Those calculators are intentionally kept slow by TI because of these requirements.
My impression of the n-spire was that it had always been marketed much more towards professionals. The first one I saw in person was at an electrical engineering internship where my boss had just bought one.
Covets my vintage HP 48GX.
There's a nice profit margin on those calculators, but there's also a floor price for electronics at play because at some point, making outdated chips, LCDs, PCBs, etc. doesn't actually get cheaper. So graphing calculators will always cost $30-$100.
While they're wildly outdated, it doesn't make sense to arm kids going into standardized tests with Chat GPT, or even Wolfram Alpha.
Standardized test math is pretty simple. Either design the test so a scientific calculator is enough, or better, keep the numbers small enough that it doesn't matter and have answers as simplified expressions, e.g. 6*sqrt(2).
To be clear, I had already placed out of the calculus course that would have taught how to evaluate these integrals, so I wouldn't have been disadvantaged by it being required. There definitely weren't any differential equations in the course though; it seems like you might be overestimating the intensity a 100-level physics course required for people like me who never did physics again after.
I really believe there is something to be said for putting yourself through the mental strain of evaluating the integrals (or code) and that doing so contributes to you having a better feel for how it works on a conceptual level as well, you don't just get better at calculating by doing things the hard way.
If you can easily see the solutions and manipulations you can make to an integral by hand, then you are more able to quickly get a feel for what it represents just by looking at it. If you are not as experienced doing them by hand, just reading them is going to sap some of your brain power and energy, and you will be less able to reason about them abstractly as a result.
I think the whole "just learn the concepts" approach to almost anything is fundamentally misguided and not at all how representative of how humans really learn.
I do agree with you that in theory we can do better than asia, but that is too high of a milestone given that we are basically currently significantly worse than Asia on all fronts.
Adopting elements of the Finnish model would probably be an improvement.
With geometry, the style I was taught emphasized explanation of complex problems using proofs but building from first principles.
This is obviously the right way to do applied math. Then whatever engineer is building whatever the thing is that depends on the math can compute to whatever precision is necessary to keep the bridge from falling down or whatever.
Most uses of chips are in cheap consumer junk overwhelmingly made overseas for bottom dollar.
Second after that is actual serious uses for cars, not $1 electronics and more. And once you get into that category you have a finite market that is pretty much mature in terms of consumer reach. For all intensive purposes, the "EV demand surge" is over and existing semiconductors have caught up.
There's also a real fear that US sanctions have caused China and other countries to intensify investment in their own semiconductor manufacturing (the EU definitely is), which will ultimately hamper the demand for US fabs.
Additionally no one is saying to "not to do anything". Try all you want he is simply predicting the outcome of trying.
I don't understand your point. While true, those chips are made at historical process nodes using antiquated equipment. The plan isn't to buy antiquated equipment and try to compete. Friendly nations with low cost of labor and low geopolitical risk (ie., other than Taiwan) are perfectly capable of meeting our demands for old chips, given sufficient ramp time.
The lion's share of the value in semiconductors is at the leading edge. These are the chips that are used in phones, laptops, PCs, servers, GPUs, et cetera. The United States has never been interested in competing on volume.
We already are the world leader in producing (including manufacturing!) the cutting edge equipment that makes leading edge chips -- that is what we have denied China access to. The open question is whether we can "onshore" the actual manufacturing of leading edge chips again.
Strictly speaking, Intel has always kept their most cutting edge manufacturing onshore (Oregon), but I understand that has more to do with IP and cycle time reasons than cost.
An additional note: it is not necessary that a leading edge fab built today becomes a trailing edge fab in 5 or 10 years. There is a lively secondary market for used equipment specifically because of demand for the commodity chips you mentioned, so given that US labor costs are high, the old equipment would likely be sold and shipped to a low cost nation, and the US fabs repopulated with new equipment.
Like all the experts in the world can concur that China is better off with peace in the Pacific, but if Xi wants a war, he's getting a war.
I mention this because it's basically one of the biggest hurdles for a boom other than cost which you didn't mention. The US has to exceed Asia in terms of cost AND raw technological prowess if it wants a boom because it is currently behind by a huge margin.