Re:Intel ousts its chief engineer, shakes up technical group...
by objektif on Monday July 27, 2020 @09:45PM
(#23971462)
So we should just give up then and hand the IP to China? I do not understand this way of thinking Intel became Intel because of innovations they did.
Re:Intel ousts its chief engineer, shakes up technical group...
by egsmi on Tuesday July 28, 2020 @02:01AM
(#23972749)
Technically we’re selling it to China, not giving it. Notice:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiconductor_equipment_sale...
Samsung and Globalfoundires have fabs in the US that are close to leading edge. There are other fabs that are leading edge for other types of chips e.g. Texas Instruments
The fact is that the capital expenditure costs to create a leading edge Fab are insane, and economies of scale form a big moat. The economics do not really support more than a few leading edge fabs, and now that Intel has had internal issues they are behind. Maybe they will catch up- however throwing money at the problem does not seem likely to me to fix the problem. Moore's law is ending and the difference between die shrinks isn't as dramatic as it used to be. It remains to be seen if electron tunnelling can be easily be dealt with... However fabs are sexy and people will chase the money until the process breaks down.