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Comment by lumb63 | Hacker News Reader

This is huge. For one, it can decrease geopolitical risks for US-based firms. It also offers a chance to obtain higher-end silicon. Some companies can’t afford to use TSMC’s latest and greatest silicon because big companies have soaked up all the capacity. This offers an alternative route for them. Hopefully it will make the environment much more competitive.

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> Some companies can’t afford to use TSMC’s latest and greatest silicon because big companies have soaked up all the capacity.

Apple is single handedly bankrolling the latest and greatest from TSMC. If it wasn’t for them, the latest and greatest would likely be even more expensive/out of reach for “some companies”.

Not single-handedly, Nvidia also puts up multi-billion dollar investments in TSMC's fab technology. That's what put them on the 4nm node so early.

This is totally true, Esp. if Intel can be competitive. The dark side outcome is if it is really successful, it can really destabilize Asia by making the outcome of invading Taiwan less important to the west.

I would imagine TSMC and the Taiwanese government are keeping a really close eye on this and doing everything they can to mitigate their the erosion of their Silicon Shield. I wonder what exactly though...

>making the outcome of invading Taiwan less important to the west.

That's the whole point of the recent semiconductor investment boom, though. Reduce dependence on Taiwanese silicon so that we can care less about the geopolitics of the region.

The west essentially is getting tired of playing bodyguard to Taiwan; because as has been evident with the Ukraine invasion, the west is not willing to go to war to protect peace.

Sure, let's clown on the western democracies adequately measuring the threat of nuclear warfare.

Russia and China cannot win a conventional war against the West. For the West, it wouldn't be easy, it wouldn't be quick, but it would be a certainty. Maybe it would even take a couple of wars, like Europe in the 20th century. The only way for those two terrible countries to win is if they use nuclear weapons, and use them quickly. Western democracies know this, and act accordingly.

Is anyone trying making IOT type devices in geopolitically stable places (in so far as there are any). Espressif seems like a pretty clear leader right now, but perhaps that is only from a hobbyists perspective? If bad things happened we would have bigger problems then wifi enabled toothbrushes, but it seems like a niche someone should make more robust and diverse.

Can't IoT devices be made on older fab's like the 32/40nm and up fab's available in for instance Germany (GloFo)? There are more of them in other more-or-less stable regions.

Of course, but I imagine Intel's spare 14nm+++++++++++ capacity is pretty significant at the moment, which is best in class (non-TSMC division).

Shouldn't IoT be most sensitive for power consumption?

Usually more sensitive to price I think? Many IOT devices plug into wall outlets. For those that don't, I would expect the wireless capability to dwarf the power consumption of the chip itself, but it seems like newer fabs would definitely be a good thing.

Yeah. Depends on a lot, but only small independent things really care about power. For the rest, put a bigger battery on it or plug it in... and nearly the entire consumer market for IOT can just plug it in.

Future US made IOT devices will mostly be ARM Cortex M33 and M0+ microcontrollers. They have the latest cryptography and safety features built-in and nice libraries. It's surprisingly difficult to find out what fabs build them. Maybe someone here can chime in?

Those things mostly don't have built in wifi which is annoying, because then you need a separate chip for the wifi. Atmel is the exception, arduino even makes a dev board with it, but it is $35 vs $8 for a esp32 devboard.

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