They won't use that technology to produce mobile phones or GPUs.
There are plenty of application were structure size, performance and/or power draw doesn't really matter.
E.g. Automotive / Industrial applications
There are plenty of application were structure size, performance and/or power draw doesn't really matter.
E.g. Automotive / Industrial applications
The Chips Act was marketed as an attempt to bring back "cutting-edge chips" to Europe, and to promote research and innovation. In the end it turns out to just be a huge government subsidy for a bog-standard fab which is at least a decade behind what TSMC is building in Taiwan.
Great for automotive companies who want to strengthen their supply lines, but pretty pointless when it comes to doing what it was actually supposed to do. Europe already has plenty of fabs like these which did not require billion-euro handouts.
That's great news for Germany then.
2. It's not as if BEVs are chip-free, and most of the chips used aren't ultra-high performance things that require the very latest generation fab equipment.
You are not going to use some 3nm EUV boondoggle process just to pump out voltage regulators or sub-100MHz microcontrollers, but you need tons of those for pretty much every application.
Sure there might be four or five CPUs on a modern process in a modern car, but there are COUNTLESS simpler/slower/cheaper chips required that are made on an older process and this is not gonna change anytime soon.
Less gigahertz and gigaflop, more kilovolt and kiloampere.
It's not a dumb approach.
I think that would be more credible if Global Foundries didn't already have "Fab 1" up and running that has a mature 22nm process.
This deal with TSMC at least seems like it provides a way forward with people that know how to execute. One that the Global Foundries option can't credibly provide.
But TSMC isn't willing to make those investments in Europe either. It's their goose that lays golden eggs, and keeping it all in Taiwan makes a lot more sense from a geopolitical perspective. The only reason they are now building this fab in Germany is because it is ancient technology to them and they are basically getting a free fab out of it.
There is pretty much no way forward for this. You'd have a point if a European company managed to sign a technology transfer for last year's node, but that's simply not what is happening here.
You'll have to excuse me if I'm being daft, but I assume this is not the CHIPS Act we have here in the US?
I'm aware Europe's trying (or has done) something similar, but if it's called the Chips Act this is the first time I've heard of it that way.
You can't tell the people you just want to subsidise the automotive industry.
And it can vary too, mass produced / generic chips can be more cost efficient if they can make more of them on a single wafer.
I thought a big part of the reason why that's the case in general is because the old fabs that house those old processes have already been depreciated - customers basically only pay for maintenance and the of raw materials.
But that doesn't really apply to brand new fabs.