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Re:U.S. government takes 10% stake in Intel by pixelatedindex on Friday August 22, 2025 @06:08PM (#44990445)
> the US expects China to invade Taiwan and this will kill TSMC in the process.

Would it though? The TSMC foundries are pretty much in every continent. Are they just going to stop operating if this happens? Because that seems akin to killing a golden goose.

Also what is up with Global Foundries? I don’t hear a peep about them.

Re:U.S. government takes 10% stake in Intel by chneu on Friday August 22, 2025 @06:28PM (#44990667)
GF is like a decade behind in research. Without years to ramp up and update their fabs they're not relevant.
Re:U.S. government takes 10% stake in Intel by etempleton on Friday August 22, 2025 @08:08PM (#44991567)
Probably closer to two decades behind at this point.
Re:U.S. government takes 10% stake in Intel by internetter on Friday August 22, 2025 @06:32PM (#44990713)
Global Foundries is on 12nm. TSMC is at 3.
Re:U.S. government takes 10% stake in Intel by carom on Friday August 22, 2025 @07:07PM (#44991022)
TSMC gets their machines from ASML who licenses their technology from the Department of Energy. The US will be OK.
Re:U.S. government takes 10% stake in Intel by chrsw on Friday August 22, 2025 @07:35PM (#44991263)
If (or when) China invades Taiwan we will be better off than Taiwan but I wouldn't call us "OK" at that point. That will be a major disruption.

It will take decades for the US to get where Taiwan is now in semiconductor manufacturing, if ever. It's not just about building the most advanced chip factory. It's about re-aligning the entire nation's value system and culture to allow such development to happen in the first place.

We complain about the money we spend already. And now we're supposed to subsidize an entire industry to the point where we can build the most complex machines known to civilization at scale in a time-frame that matters to a global conflict that's potentially approaching soon? I don't see it.

Re:U.S. government takes 10% stake in Intel by voidfunc on Saturday August 23, 2025 @02:29AM (#44993753)
> It's about re-aligning the entire nation's value system and culture to allow such development to happen in the first place.

It's taken about 8 years to realign the US from a democracy to a fascist regime, something that was nearly unthinkable. This isn't a hard problem with the right propaganda and manipulation.

Re:U.S. government takes 10% stake in Intel by chrsw on Saturday August 23, 2025 @07:06PM (#44999828)
Yes but it's easy to go from democracy to fascism. It's harder going the other way. It's like going from a clean house to a messy house is much easier than going from a filthy house to a tidy house.
Re:U.S. government takes 10% stake in Intel by mkl on Friday August 22, 2025 @07:44PM (#44991333)
If it was that simple, Intel, Samsung, etc. wouldn't be behind TSMC. There's a lot more to it than just buying an ASML machine.
Re:U.S. government takes 10% stake in Intel by _zoltan_ on Friday August 22, 2025 @07:52PM (#44991411)
This shows me you are not aware of just how much work goes into EUV and beyond besides simply buying the machine.
Re:U.S. government takes 10% stake in Intel by hajile on Friday August 22, 2025 @09:00PM (#44991898)
I believe the most modern TSMC fabs outside of Taiwan are in Arizona. They are just moving to 4nm which is nearly 5 years old and just a revision of 5nm which is getting close to 7 years old.

TSMC aims to have N3 in Arizona by 2028 at the earliest which is 6 years after it first released. By that time, TSMC will have released N3X, N2, N2P, N2X, A16, and A14.

TSMC is heavily sponsored by the Taiwanese government and was created with the express purpose of making Taiwan so valuable that the West would be forced to defend them against China. Moving newer processes out of the country is against their national interests and they've made it clear that there's no plan to do that.

Re:U.S. government takes 10% stake in Intel by s3p on Sunday August 24, 2025 @08:31AM (#45003760)
The Arizona fab has been mostly a letdown so far and it's not even doing e2e manufacturing - all parts get shipped back to Taiwan for final assembly.
Re:U.S. government takes 10% stake in Intel by onepointsixC on Friday August 22, 2025 @10:51PM (#44992648)
Outside of Taiwan TSMC foundries are just pumping out already developed non leading edge fab processes. Everyone who matters to TSMC tech development is in Taiwan.
Re:U.S. government takes 10% stake in Intel by HDThoreaun on Saturday August 23, 2025 @04:27PM (#44998872)
The vast majority of TSMC production is in taiwan. If china invades the fabs will be destroyed. They pretty much would be forced to just stop operating, yes.