[HN Gopher] House Bill Funds CHIPS Act, Stresses R&D
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House Bill Funds CHIPS Act, Stresses R&D
Author : Trouble_007
Score : 72 points
Date : 2022-05-30 16:46 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.eetimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.eetimes.com)
| scottcodie wrote:
| Glad to see the US subsidizing chips for the entire world market.
| It's about time we pay our fair share to give back to the
| subsidizes that asian countries have been putting in.
| newaccount2021 wrote:
| xiphias2 wrote:
| ,, Despite new U.S. fab initiatives announced by Intel, Samsung
| and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., each has said those
| investments require tax breaks and other incentives beyond what
| states have offered''
|
| Tax breaks sound much more reasonable way to improve onshore
| manufacturing if that would be the real goal.
| [deleted]
| mikepurvis wrote:
| I think the issue here is figuring out how to make sure the tax
| breaks and other stimulus/incentives are "let's put some
| temporary fuel on this fire until it becomes self-sustaining"
| vs how it's seemingly gone for most other industries (ag,
| resources, banking, etc) where it becomes a long-term
| dependency and every new shakedown is anchored in a combination
| of emotional arguments and sunk cost fallacy.
| xiphias2 wrote:
| Chip technology looks like a critical long term dependency
| for all nations, and I don't think China will shy away from
| providing practically infinite incentives for it happening
| there.
| onepointsixC wrote:
| While it's good that the CHIPS act is being passed, it's far too
| modest of a bill considering how important semiconductors are to
| the US. Just compare it to the South Korean $450Bn bill[1]. In
| the 80's enormous foreign subsidization of commercial ship
| building by South Korea, Japan, and others, saw the near total
| loss of that key industry in America. Semiconductors must not be
| allowed to suffer a similar fate.
|
| [1]: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-05-13/korea-
| unv... [1 Non paywalled]: https://archive.ph/9Gs8q
| scottcodie wrote:
| US consumers got a lot of cheap chips from their subsidy. US
| businesses had to close because they couldn't compete but US
| consumers still won in the end. I wondering if the US
| government will have to subsidize this industry in perpetuity
| if the subsidized fabs can't become competitive.
| samstave wrote:
| > _but US consumers still won in the end_
|
| Sure, but the point is that an entire industry which added
| employment and other positives to the economy evaporated.
|
| By saying "customers won, because they could still buy stuff
| through sending money to companies and industry in other
| countries" -- could be argued as a loss.
|
| The US is so myopically built around consumption its
| sickening.
| scottcodie wrote:
| Your argument falls under the lump of labour fallacy, a lot
| of new jobs were created when we had cheaper chips. If it
| was a loss then it wouldn't have been an economic loss :)
| remarkEon wrote:
| The loss of commercial ship building in the US is something I
| want to learn more about. Did it happen simply because other
| countries subsidized their own industries and the US couldn't
| compete? Would love a long form history of that industry going
| back a few centuries.
| samstave wrote:
| Im sure environmental aspects play a role - the shipyards in
| asia are unbelievably huge.
|
| Plus the chinese shipyards build literal
| battleships/aircraft-carriers and cruise ships and cargo
| ships sitting right next to eachother - and its said they
| steal/share technologies from the various contracts/products.
|
| https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6520357/Satellite-i.
| ..
|
| ---
|
| And there is this:
|
| China builds mock-US ships in what seems to be for battle
| scenario training ops..
|
| https://www.politico.com/news/2021/11/08/satellite-china-
| us-...
| donthellbanme wrote:
| pfisherman wrote:
| Agreed. If you consider chips to be a strategic resource - like
| the food supply - then the government will need to step in and
| set a subsidy / price floor to ensure over production.
|
| Fyi, the US government subsidizes the overproduction of food so
| that we do not experience famine in the event that a
| significant portion of the food supply gets taken out (e.g. bad
| harvest, drought, etc).
| throwaway4good wrote:
| I know that it is the way us politics work but it is pretty wild
| skimming through the text and seeing just how many things are
| cobbled together. Eg:
|
| Sec. 30219G. Requirements relating to vaccine branding.
|
| Directs the President to ensure that every vaccine donated,
| procured, or financed by the U.S. Government is clearly branded
| with the U.S. flag.
| thatguy0900 wrote:
| I dont understand how the government actually follows all these
| rules (to the extent that they do). Imagine if your job
| requirements and duties was spread out in single paragraphs in
| thousands of hundred page long documents
| daemoens wrote:
| It's also on page 1011 of a 2912 page document. How would you
| ever know that something in there applied to your company?
| 01100011 wrote:
| Thanks to the Triffin Dilemma
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triffin_dilemma) the US is
| fighting an uphill battle to repatriate key industries.
| mjevans wrote:
| While more R&D is good, if their intent is to stabilize the
| production markets other changes are likely required.
|
| It must be at least moderately profitable to build and run _new_
| fabs that produce the simple 'jelly bean' components that have
| been in dire shortage.
|
| Inventories, both of sellable common 'ingredients' and also of
| shelf stable commonly desirable outputs should probably be
| reflected differently on asset books. Cutting buffers to the bone
| should not be good accounting practice as that encourages
| vulnerability. Laws need to change how that accounting is
| performed.
| xadhominemx wrote:
| Why would any laws need to be changed? Companies should and
| will just start holding higher levels of inventory as a
| business practice.
| JaimeThompson wrote:
| Companies should not spend billions on stock buybacks instead
| of keeping their factories in running order but the recent
| baby food issues in the US show that isn't always the case.
| bloodyplonker22 wrote:
| It's not one or the other, they can do both. You think that
| a company would rather do a stock buyback and NOT keep
| their factories in running order so their stock will tank
| right after they buy back their stock at a higher price?
| vkou wrote:
| Depends on the vesting schedule of the people doing the
| buybacks.
| xt00 wrote:
| So I wonder if anybody here could compare what Phoenix has vs
| Hsinchu in Taiwan. It seems like the closest the US has to what
| Taiwan has.. (Intel, new TSMC, various other fabs are there)..
| so making Phoenix the Mecca of semiconductor jobs in the US
| seems like a pretty smart goal .. while the federal govt loves
| to spread money around it seems wise to just say let's be real
| folks, it's way easier / efficient to pour gas on an existing
| fire than to build totally greenfield.. like pump tons of cash
| into the AZ universities for semiconductor work. But I wonder
| if people have some history / perspective on why people don't
| say "oh you want to work in semi area? Go to Phoenix.."..
| Kadin wrote:
| Seems a bit strange that Phoenix would be a desirable place
| to build a fab, given how water-intensive most processes are.
| Yes, the water can and should be recycled... but it just
| seems weird to build a plant like that in one of the parts of
| the country that will probably never have enough fresh water,
| compared to other areas where they can't get it out of the
| way fast enough.
|
| Is it the labor pool there that makes it attractive? Energy
| costs? Something about state/local subsidies?
| windowsrookie wrote:
| The reason I heard is that Phoenix is seismically stabile,
| and weather stabile. Both of those things can cause power
| outages which are incredibly expensive at a fab.
| 8note wrote:
| The water involved is mostly recoverable and reusable
|
| While there's cost involved, its shortage probably won't be
| a bottleneck?
| rocqua wrote:
| I recall a video by asianometry stating that best case
| water re-use is about 70%. That will be rough in the
| desert.
| daniel-cussen wrote:
| Just keep the MBAs with their Midas touch away from basic tech.
| Engineers are good enough at math to balance the books, it's
| not really harder than balancing a checkbook. I had better
| finances as a high school student than most Wall Streeters at
| the peak of their career. Got alpha they didn't, accounting for
| real is just mathematical horse sense.
| bsder wrote:
| One of the big problems in the US is accounting for
| inventory. If you're buying "tax-free" from a supplier, that
| part goes "onto your books" when it goes into your inventory.
| If you don't put that part into a product and sell it
| relatively quickly, you owe tax on that part as it sits on
| your shelf.
|
| There are some other issues with inventory taxation like how
| fast you can depreciate it (ie. for tax purposes, chips are
| treated like mechnical inputs even though chips depreciate
| _MUCH_ faster).
|
| This all _strongly_ discourages holding inventory.
|
| And even engineers running companies will come to that
| conclusion.
| Kadin wrote:
| > If you're buying "tax-free" from a supplier, that part
| goes "onto your books" when it goes into your inventory. If
| you don't put that part into a product and sell it
| relatively quickly, you owe tax on that part as it sits on
| your shelf.
|
| I admit to not being a CPA, but that... doesn't make a ton
| of sense to me. What sort of tax do you pay on inventory?
|
| My understanding is that it's not tax that's the issue, but
| the tying-up of capital in inventory that's generally being
| minimized. If interest rates are 3% and you have $1M in
| inventory, that's $30k per year in interest you're paying
| in order to hold that inventory, plus the physical costs of
| warehousing it.
|
| And the MBAs naturally look at cutting costs as the fastest
| and most direct route to improving profitability.
| bsder wrote:
| > I admit to not being a CPA, but that... doesn't make a
| ton of sense to me. What sort of tax do you pay on
| inventory?
|
| Welcome to the US taxation system.
|
| As I understand it, VAT solves a lot of this silliness.
| However, the US doesn't do VAT for a bunch of historical
| reasons.
| WalterGR wrote:
| > Efforts aimed at reviving U.S. semiconductor manufacturing and
| strengthening technology supply chains advanced this week with
| the introduction of a catch-all bill that funds "surge
| production" of U.S.-made chips while investing in broad-based
| technology R&D.
|
| There's a ton of Superfund[0] sites in Silicon Valley[1]. What's
| the current situation re. semiconductor manufacturing and toxic
| waste?
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superfund
|
| [1] "The Superfund Sites of Silicon Valley"
| https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/26/lens/the-superfund-sites-...
| rossdavidh wrote:
| So, I haven't worked in semiconductors since the mid-noughties,
| so keep that in mind. However, essentially every company in
| semiconductors in the 60's and 70's ended up with a Superfund
| site in Silicon Valley (back when the "Silicon" referred to
| actual chip manufacturing, not software). Fabs built in the
| 80's and 90's were much different in regards to how toxic
| chemicals were handled, and I believe have continued to
| improve.
|
| Some of this improvement came naturally, as the requirement for
| cleaner and cleaner manufacturing environment for the wafers
| themselves (to keep particulate contamination from lowering
| yield) meant that the chemicals were kept in enclosed systems,
| thus easier to keep from leaking out.
|
| Some of this came about because, from what I was told by "old
| timers", in the 60's and 70's part of the problem was that fabs
| were not thought of as being very dangerous. This sounds
| incredible now, but the risks people thought of from
| manufacturing then were those present in steel mills, coal
| mines, auto factories, etc. Big heavy things and molten steel
| and roofs that can collapse on you; physically obvious risks.
| It took some time to realize that semiconductor fabs were just
| as dangerous; no doubt longer than it should have, but the
| realization did arrive in time.
|
| I left the semiconductor industry because it was outsourcing,
| not because of concerns for my safety; in new fabs, there was a
| great emphasis on safety and the environmental impact (which no
| doubt raised costs relative to some of the other places that
| manufacturing shifted to).
| [deleted]
| lumost wrote:
| Manufacturing is generally pretty messy. But green tech has
| come a long way in identifying effective alternatives to toxic
| chemicals, as well as effective management and disposal
| techniques for what is toxic.
|
| Odds are good that re-shored manufacturing will be cleaner than
| older plants built in regions with lower environmental
| regulation.
| aaronbrethorst wrote:
| Meanwhile, the Supreme Court is about to gut the EPA's
| authority. Hope you're able to afford to move far away from
| plants that spew toxic chemicals!
|
| https://www.npr.org/2022/02/28/1082934438/supreme-court-
| to-h...
| [deleted]
| colechristensen wrote:
| Eh, I'm relatively in favor of limiting government agencies
| effectively making law up all by themselves. That is not
| the correct fix for a dysfunctional legislature.
| paulmd wrote:
| If you think Congress is dysfunctional now, wait until
| you require congress to individually specify safety
| limits for each compound, etc. You'll have congresspeople
| grandstanding about how restricting X chemical is killing
| hardworking small businesses in their state, etc.
|
| Which the court knows damn well will be the outcome -
| that's the _goal_. Keep anything from being done.
| colechristensen wrote:
| That kind of thinking leads to "the only way we'll get
| anything done is with a dictator" and it's not like that
| is an unprecedented outcome for a country. Fix what's
| broken, don't use authoritarianism as a patch for
| dysfunction.
| iancmceachern wrote:
| From my understanding the chemicals haven't changed, and
| can't really be changed. As far as i understand we will
| always need these crazy bad chemicals to make chips.
|
| What has, hopefully, changed is we aren't allowing companies
| to store it in leaking underground tanks, etc. All these
| superfund sites aren't a result if business as usual, in each
| case there is some major, systemic, intentional oversight and
| frankly corruption.
|
| Source - I've worked some in that industry designing
| automation for asml, applied, etc.
|
| Not in the semiconductor industry but a good example of the
| kind of thing that results in a super fund site is Rocky
| Flats in Colorado. There is a now famous news broadcast where
| the representative from the department of energy is saying
| "there is no fire" and a big fire can be clearly seen behind
| them.
|
| They were machining plutonium and uranium nuclear bomb
| triggers on lathes in special glove boxes with particle
| capture and ventilation systems that were supposed to scrub
| the air before venting it to atmosphere. These systems
| weren't properly maintained and they got clogged up with
| radioactive dust and caught fire. It was later found that
| they were dumping radioactive dust into the air, and had
| hundreds of barrels of radioactive waste in steel barrels
| that were rusted through leaking into the ground for decades.
| It's the only time one federal agency (the FBI) raided a
| facility of another federal agency (DOE).
| nickff wrote:
| There have been a huge number of changes to the chemicals
| used in photolithography over time, specifically the
| photoresists.
| iancmceachern wrote:
| Yeah but lots of the super terrible stuff is in the
| surface prep and etching chemicals. All those crazy acids
| and bases that eat through everything, are highly toxic,
| and deadly in tiny quantities.
|
| https://www.prevor.com/en/chemical-risks-in-
| semiconductors-i...
| nickff wrote:
| My understanding is that photoresists are actually some
| of the most toxic chemicals in the process, and their
| heating/irradiation makes them especially dangerous.
|
| https://en.hesperian.org/hhg/Workers%27_Guide_to_Health_a
| nd_...
| iancmceachern wrote:
| The context of my comment was in response to the parent
| saying they've phased out/changed many of the worst stuff
| in the photo resist side and so I said there is still
| pretty bad stuff on the etch side and then you commented
| that there are worse chemicals on the photo resist side.
| We're in a weird circular argument.
|
| Point is - there are lots of bad chemicals used in
| semiconductor manufacturing, even today.
| [deleted]
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| _> crazy bad chemicals_
|
| Exhibit A: https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/sand-
| won-t-save-yo...
| sremani wrote:
| >> green tech has come a long way in identifying effective
| alternatives to toxic chemicals
|
| Enlighten us, how manufacturing 'silicone' has become less
| chemical intensive.
| throwaway743 wrote:
| FTFY: Silicon
| sremani wrote:
| between spelling nazis and reflexive downvoters .. who
| are entitled their respective actions.. what I am looking
| for is, how is the whole Quartz to Wafers process has
| become green and what kind of reduction and/or
| elimination of toxic materials has been achieved.
|
| A good proper justification of the claim from the
| claimant or supporters of that argument is useful.
| acomjean wrote:
| I don't have exact details but I did work in an
| civil/environment consulting companies (we worked
| remediating the GE silicone waste site in Upstate NY .. )
| which might be why people are senesitive to the
| spelling.[1]
|
| But generally those chemical engineers are pretty good at
| cleaning up the processes (it cheaper, also cheaper to
| ship manufacturing overseas...)
|
| The Resource Conservation and Recovery act https://en.m.w
| ikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_Conservation_and_Re...
|
| And toxic substance control acts seemed to rules of note.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxic_Substances_Control_
| Act...
|
| GE silicones
| [1]https://www.epa.gov/hwcorrectiveactionsites/hazardous-
| waste-...
| adrian_b wrote:
| In this case the spelling nazis had rightfully pointed to
| the correct spelling, because the wrong spelling is not a
| problem of style or preferences, but it causes a
| confusion between two different chemical substances, with
| very different properties and applications.
|
| "silicon" is the chemical element number 14, and this
| name, which is used in the English-speaking countries,
| was coined by someone who believed that it is a good idea
| for it to rhyme with "carbon" (actually a bad idea in my
| opinion)
|
| "silicone" is the generic name for a class of plastics,
| i.e. the polymers with a poly-siloxane structure. This
| name was coined by someone who believed that it is a good
| idea for it to rhyme with "acetone", because he
| erroneously believed that these polymers have a structure
| similar to ketones.
| karmicthreat wrote:
| It's not less chemical intensive at all. Some aqueous
| processes have replaced more toxic ones. But dissolved
| copper and solvent waste makes up the majority of ever fabs
| waste stream. TSMC/Intel etc have made pretty big strides
| in zero landfill hazardous waste. It just gets recycled and
| used in other processes internally or by other companies.
|
| I don't know what the Chinese fabs do, so I have no idea if
| pump their waste out into the environment.
| Kadin wrote:
| > dissolved copper
|
| You would think that dissolved copper would have some
| recovery value, given the price of copper.
|
| I am reminded of the waste from silver halide
| photographic processing, which at one point was just
| dumped into rivers (an unfortunate amount went into the
| Great Lakes); when the price of silver increased,
| suddenly it became worthwhile to recover the silver
| rather than let it go down the literal drain.
| tmaly wrote:
| I wonder how much of this funding will go to producing chips that
| are in shortage verse just a blitz of money at all chips
| regardless of supply?
| Kadin wrote:
| Given the lead time of building a fab and producing components,
| trying to incentivize the production of specific devices that
| happen to be in short supply right now is probably not a great
| plan.
|
| The market does a pretty good job of sending demand signals to
| producers, faster than the government can generally create and
| pass incentivizing legislation.
|
| But if you don't have the production capacity in the first
| place, encouraging that to be built out (which is a long-term
| process) does seem like something where government can
| meaningfully intervene.
| madengr wrote:
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