EU Countries Back Billion-Euro Chip Plan Ahead of Talks With Lawmakers (reuters.com) 34
EU countries agreed to a 45-billion-euro ($46.6 billion) plan to fund the production of chips, putting the 27-country bloc a step closer to its goal of reducing its reliance on U.S. and Asian manufacturers. From a report: EU envoys unanimously backed an amended version of the European Commission's proposal, the Czech Republic which holds the rotating EU presidency said. European Union ministers will meet on Dec. 1 to rubber stamp the chip plan that will still need to be debated with the European Parliament next year before it can become law. The EU executive, which is hoping state subsidies will help the bloc achieve a 20% share of global chip capacity by 2030, came up with its proposal after a global chip shortage and supply chain bottlenecks hit car makers, healthcare providers and telecoms operators.
It's the good moment to do it (Score:5, Funny)
EU countries agreed to a 45-billion-euro
It's called writing a blank Czech.
Re: It's the good moment to do it (Score:2)
Smart Move (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: Smart Move (Score:2)
Re:Smart Move (Score:5, Interesting)
Taiwan is betting that China won't invade because "Taiwan's chip manufacturing can't be run by the Chinese."
No, Taiwan is betting that China won't invade because there are standing orders to destroy all the fabrication machines if even one Chinese military soldier sets foot on Taiwanese soil. Would China win and seize all of Taiwan? Of course but it would be a Pyrrhic victory as Taiwan would have nothing they wanted as a massive brain drain would occur during the invasion. China already has lots of land and people, they want technology and the skilled personnel to use it.
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Taiwan is betting that China won't invade because "Taiwan's chip manufacturing can't be run by the Chinese."
No, Taiwan is betting that China won't invade because there are standing orders to destroy all the fabrication machines if even one Chinese military soldier sets foot on Taiwanese soil. Would China win and seize all of Taiwan? Of course but it would be a Pyrrhic victory as Taiwan would have nothing they wanted as a massive brain drain would occur during the invasion. China already has lots of land and people, they want technology and the skilled personnel to use it.
Nope - Taiwan's National Security Bureau doesn't believe that, so there are no "standing orders" in Taiwan to destroy the fabs. Other countries, on the other hand, including the US, would probably destroy the plants as an insurance policy. [tomshardware.com]
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(Mainland) China is already the world's largest chip manufacturer, with Taiwan second. Even if there were such standing orders, and even if they were going to be carried out flawlessly, the only effect would be to suddenly make mainland China a near-monopolist in chip production. Waging war against China in retaliation for an attack on Taiwan would then cut off the world from almost all supply of chips - especially since in that case mainland China could have North Korea attack South Korea, the current thir
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(Mainland) China is already the world's largest chip manufacturer,
Yes... and they are at five to ten years behind the cutting edge which continually keeps them dependent on others for chip fab for building high-end goods.
Re:Smart Move (Score:4, Interesting)
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They aren't stupid. They are the longest term thinkers in the world. Even if they could make the fab work, the industry advances so fast that in just a couple of years it is no longer state of the art. There is no way to invade Taiwan and get a long term pay off on chip production. In their best dreams, it would be a boost for a few years but destroy any further chances to keep up for many decades afterwards.
I'm not saying entirely that they wouldn't invade Taiwan - just not for that reason. Quite the oppos
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Most people don't need the "latest and greatest." Just look at NVidia's fuckup with the 4090/4080. Never going to buy one. My specs for my video card upgrade are simple:
- Maximum of one 8-pin power plug extra (total of 225-250 watts);
- 41 mm max slot width (gotta fit 2 in the server case, and I'm not giving up my 8 port SATA 6 adapter card to make the room);
- 2x hdmi 2.1 outputs
- 12-16 gb RAM;
- 256 mb minimum internal bus width;
I can wait a year or two if necessary.
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You're almost certainly right that the Chinese can get there on their own. They have more engineers than any other country in the world and the most of the top 100 universities. I believe we're being really stupid to harp about China buying the machines like we do. As long as they can buy them eventually, they'll probably be OK with being a couple of gens behind. But, if they have to make the investment by themselves unlike anyone else in the world, they'll probably do it right and use their mass to feed th
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The running joke in China now is that Xi has convinced the rest of the world that the threat to Taiwan is to high to risk depending on fabs in Taiwan. So the whole world will build fabs and bankrupt TSMC, collapse the Taiwan economy and the Taiwan will come quietly because if the west doesn't need TSMC then no one will help feed them when they're poor except China.
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I prefer my solution - it can be done over the next 5 years, while China is still in the process of their military buildup:
Canada takes in 5 million Taiwanese immigrants;
The US takes in 10 million;
The EU takes in 10 million;
The fabs and other hardware either come along, or new ones are built in North America and the EU.
No more "China Strait" issues, no more "Taiwan" issues.
Chip making requires a lot of moving parts... (Score:3)
I think this is a good thing, overall, just for sake of not being dependent on the PacRim or other powers. However, unless there are definite goals, that billion Euros may disappear like the trillion the Fed threw in the market in 2020 to keep stocks up... which resulted in a 20 minute market bump while companies bought back their stock, and little else.
There are many different "chips" needed. A MCU tossed in an el cheapo lamp instead of a 555 timer needs far less work to be made than an automotive grade CPU. Then we get into mobile, desktop, and server CPUs, each with different needs (for example, some servers need cores with single-threaded performance. Others need tons of cores for VDI or parallel tasks.)
Two major things are making a usable CPU (floorplan, RTL, layout, what cores, what chiplets), and then fabbing it, where eventually, economy of scale can come into play and make life easy. No fabs, CPU designs are meaningless. You can test them in your Cadence Palladium racks until the cows come home, but until you get a good fab process, all that work is for naught.
Maybe Europe should come up with its own generic CPU that can address most tasks, then go from there. High end server CPUs with AI cores may not be as needed as dirt cheap MCUs that can handle automotive voltages and RF inside a vehicle hood. Once that is going, as one doesn't need a sub-micron fab process for those, then move to something along the lines of a CPU for phones.
Of course, this is an ongoing project. Money needs to be kept being put in to improve fab processes, improve the cores, and everything else in the chain. Throwing a few billion dollars may help in the short term, but this needs to be something kept funded in the long term.
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Maybe Europe should come up with its own generic CPU that can address most tasks, then go from there.
Like ARM? (or do you mean the EU, not Europe?).
Re: Chip making requires a lot of moving parts... (Score:1)
Re: Chip making requires a lot of moving parts... (Score:2)
Over-emphasis on chips (Score:2)
They also need to invest in unsexy endeavours like setting up factories that make sheets of FR4, 10k 0603 resistors, neon gas and various other materials nobody cares about until the sole country supplying it drops a big embargo on it.
Re:Over-emphasis on chips (Score:4, Insightful)
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They also need to invest in unsexy endeavours like setting up factories that make sheets of FR4, 10k 0603 resistors, neon gas and various other materials nobody cares about until the sole country supplying it drops a big embargo on it.
True. But all that's a lot less difficult than state of the art fabs en masse.
The EU loves subsidies (Score:1)
Most governments gives out subsidies like candy, but the EU seems especially bad. Even core EU countries run massive budget deficits, but the subsidies to seemingly every industry never stop. Bank bailouts. Agriculture. Military. Even IT. You name it, and there's a subsidy to be had.
Apparently money grows on trees...
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Even core EU countries run massive budget deficits
Not really. They aren't resource rich backwaters like Russia or Saudia Arabia, who trivially manage to stay in the blacks by dumping the hot shit they can dig from the ground they happen to dwell on into the developed world. Yet most EU countries manage comparatively well in terms of budget deficits and policies. Sometimes to the point where the anglosaxon school from west of the pond gets worked up about all that irritating restraint and urges more deficit spending.
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The EU is pledging $46.6Billion to this endeavour.
Which apparently is worse than "most governments giving out subsidies like candy"...
Meanwhile, the US earlier this year passed the Chips and Science Act, which grants direct subsidies of $52Billion and further tax credits of $24Billion to US-based chip design and production.
The EU zone as a whole currently has a combined national debt of about $12.6Trillion US dollars and runs at a ratio of about 86.4% of national debt to GDP.
The US on the other hand has a n
The results of MAGA (Score:1)
And the rest of the world gets another source of supply.
MAGA is great for the rest of the world, not so much for the USA long term.
The USA is about 4% of the world's population and its certainly not the greatest place on earth.
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Corruption (Score:2)
I predict the money will (a) end up in the pockets of local politicians and CxOs and (b) the chips produced will be largely useless for the industry.
Because, if they were useful, investors would find the funding in their own pockets.