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President Obama Announces Semiconductor Industry Working Group To Review US Competitiveness (venturebeat.com)

Posted by msmash on from the strengthening-the-US-industry dept.

The Obama administration has announced the formation of a working group to study issues affecting the US semiconductor industry, especially as they pertain to the nation's economic and security interests. From a report on VentureBeat:Chips are the heart of everything electronic, and they have become a $330 billion worldwide industry. U.S. companies have held the leading market share in the industry -- which puts the "silicon" in Silicon Valley -- for decades. The Semiconductor Working Group includes 11 experts on chips and the broader economy. John Neuffer, president of the Semiconductor Industry Association, the U.S. industry trade group, said in a statement: "SIA welcomes this timely announcement, given new challenges facing the U.S. semiconductor industry, including unprecedented government investment programs from some countries and the increasing technological complexity involved in achieving new innovation breakthroughs. These developments have implications not only for the economy and society, but also national security. In fact, SIA earlier recommended the Administration form a public-private advisory group to help guide government policy related to improving the competitiveness of the U.S. semiconductor industry.

111 comments

  1. Lame duck quacks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Film at 11.

    1. Re:Lame duck quacks by s.petry · · Score: 2

      I was thinking "too little too late", but yours is funnier.

      --

      -The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.

    2. Re:Lame duck quacks by LifesABeach · · Score: 1

      It sounds like an eleventh hour plea of those that would hire 20 Americans to manage 2000 H1B's, given the hysterical public record.

    3. Re:Lame duck quacks by jafiwam · · Score: 1

      Film at 11.

      Well, at least he's trying to do some positive stuff to create a "Legacy" now seeing as he's realized he's trashed race relations and let the Clinton Crime Family funnel billions of dollars into their own pockets.

    4. Re: Lame duck quacks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It must make him sick whoring out his wife to campaign for the Clintons. She'll probably file for divorce when / if this blows over.

    5. Re: Lame duck quacks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It must make him sick whoring out his wife to campaign for the Clintons.

      It's going to be worth millions when he leaves office.

  2. do we want smog like china? by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 0

    do we want smog like china?

    as that is what is may take to get some factory's back hear.

    1. Re:do we want smog like china? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That or forcing children to work 12 hour days at $2.00 a day.

    2. Re:do we want smog like china? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'd trade that for higher pay.

    3. Re:do we want smog like china? by Tablizer · · Score: 2

      Better yet, tariff their goods if they don't follow decent pollution and labor laws.

      Why should we let our jobs slip away via lopsided conditions whereby other countries keep their labor cheap, oppressed, and poisoned so that their goods are cheap enough to get our consumer money in order to buy a fat military to use against us and our allies?

      We are double-kicking our own ass: jobs & military

      (I would vote for Trump if he weren't stupid in many other areas outside of trade. Our trade deals DO suck.)

      --
      Table-ized A.I.
    4. Re:do we want smog like china? by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 1

      Better yet, tariff their goods if they don't follow decent pollution and labor laws.

      ... and then repeal those tariffs when consumers see prices soar for half the stuff we buy, millions of American jobs disappear because China retaliates with their own tariffs and their imports shift to Europe and Japan instead, and Chinese factory jobs move to Mexico instead of returning to America.

      Protectionism is one of those solutions that is "simple, obvious, and wrong".

    5. Re:do we want smog like china? by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      China retaliates with their own tariffs...

      That's fear-mongering. China has much more to lose in a trade-war than we do such that they will likely work something out. Their economy is addicted to exports, we are not. Addicts don't readily give up their drug supply. (We are addicted to oil, but that's another story.)

      and their imports shift to Europe and Japan instead

      They already have more tariffs than we do. We are behind the game.

      Protectionism is one of those solutions that is "simple, obvious, and wrong".

      Corporate propaganda. And don't give me the typical Smoot-Hawley story. Smoot-Hawley was a bad idea for us because we were a net exporter at the time, for one. Plus, we don't have to kick in the tariffs all at once. We gradually ramp them up to give everyone time to adjust. Smoot-Hawley did it wrong.

      --
      Table-ized A.I.
    6. Re:do we want smog like china? by rogoshen1 · · Score: 1

      It's a trade off you see; as a renowned amateur sociologist/economist i'd wager that 90% of the social issues in the US are directly attributable to outsourcing industry.

      You take away the low-skill manufacturing jobs that are/were the bedrock of a modern economy, and you're left with scads of really poor, desperate people with nothing to lose.

      Look at the economic success stories of the 20th century.. China, Brazil, South Korea, hell even Poland to an extent -- they DID NOT improve their economic standing with that attitude. they build stuff in their country. they export stuff.

    7. Re:do we want smog like china? by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 1

      It's not just that.

      Part of the U.S. economy's strength is its renewable nature. Norway and Qatar are rich because of oil; but the U.S. has information and services. Much of the U.S. economy runs on retail, shipping, and other domestic services: internal trade makes us self-sufficient, such that our ability to produce food, materials, and energy allows us to pay each other to provide retail, construction, and business services. We get wealthier by taking advantage of international trade; but we're not huge on exports of non-sustainable goods.

      The U.S. has the world's largest fertile basin and can produce staple food and fiber (clothing) more-readily (i.e. with lower cost, namely lower human labor) than most nations; and our sewage system converts human waste into fertilizer pellets for farming, plus we use manure from dairy and chicken farms. We have an enormous shipping industry, our own automaker industry, and a massive healthcare and IT system (the Internet is a physical thing, run by data centers and cables; and it takes labor here to keep it running). Much of what we need and what we're good at making is made here.

      Importantly, all of that stuff is service and renewable goods. Food is renewable: it's made of sun, air, and soil, extended with GMOs (knowledge and information created by labor) and chemical engineering. Chemical nitrogen fertilizer is made using nitrogen gas as a reducer, not a feed stock: ammonia is rendered from the air, and then natural gas is burned to react the oxygen and get carbon, leaving Hydrogen and CO2. In the future, we could use Audi's eDiesel process to use nuclear, solar, or geothermal energy to make methane for the same purpose. We're not shipping natural gas and nitrogen fertilizer; we're shipping food, and new knowledge will find new ways to make food.

      Compare that to Norway and Qatar: they run on oil. When oil becomes scarce, its price will go up; at the same time, new knowledge will bring the cost of manufacturing solar panels down. The United States runs on energy, and buys (imports) oil from OPEC because it's cheaper than producing energy locally and, thus, allows the U.S. to use its labor force for other things, making the U.S. and all its citizens wealthier (more buying power). When that is no longer true--when oil is a costlier alternative than solar or nuclear--the U.S. energy industry will switch to nuclear or solar. It's notable that new nuclear plants are almost cheaper than natural gas, coal, and oil power plants today in terms of TCO: the up-front capital cost plus the fuel cost amortized over the life of the plant is practically on-par between nuclear and fossil fuels, and the fossil fuel plants can be the costlier of the two in many situations. This is a new development (nuclear has historically been much more expensive), so it hasn't just been public sentiment that's held nuclear back; it's been cost.

      So imagine oil doesn't become scarce for 100 years yet; but nuclear power becomes cheaper than oil power in 10 years. Well, suddenly we don't need to buy Qatar's oil, or Norway's, or Canada's. These countries lose the United States as a customer, quickly; 20 years later, the U.S. is producing its own power from nuclear fuel mined in Texas and California, because it costs us less--meaning we don't have to work to make as much export goods to sell and leverage for the purchase of fuel, and instead use part of that work to make energy and the rest to make more goods (for us or for export to buy stuff we actually want that someone else makes cheaper).

      In that scenario, the United States prospers, but the self-sufficient countries of OPEC falter in the loss of their oil market. They can try to slow the process by lowering oil prices, reducing their income from exports and selling their labor at a lower premium. They will become poor countries while the United States makes food and sells nuclear engineering services to Europe. China, meanwhile, will use its ultimately-renewable manufactur

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      Support my political activism on Patreon.
    8. Re:do we want smog like china? by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 1

      Actually, if you cut off people's livelihoods as such, unemployment soars in those areas and a lot of people go hungry. The same rules apply: they have limited income (limited people are buying, and the monetary systems everywhere have a specific amount of total income from which to spend in a given specific span of time), and all goods and services compete for that income, thus all workers providing said products compete for that income.

      Trade isn't "letting our jobs slip away". The average labor cost of a Chinese good is $3.50/hr; U.S. minimum wage is $7.25/hr, or twice (2.07x) as much. International shipping in bulk is minor, such that the per-good cost of shipping, e.g., a pair of jeans from China to the port at the U.S. is about 3 cents; the cost of shipping domestically is actually higher per-pair, because boats are huge and efficient at carrying large loads. That means the major cost--around 85%--in the price tag of a pair of jeans (or any good from China) is labor, and they would nearly double in price if made in American factories using minimum-wage workers.

      A doubling in price as such would have to draw from the same total income in a given year. People don't wake up with more money to spend, and businesses pay out of revenue: your paycheck isn't `new money[];`, but rather money from goods the company sold that you helped make.

      That means people would be able to buy only half as many of these goods.

      Now, involved in the price of each good is the cost of the marketing, the packaging, the shipping, the warehousing, the stocking, the retailing, the maintenance of retail centers (labor, materials--floor tiles don't make themselves, or ship themselves), the energy supply (electricity, natural gas), the utilities (water, communication). These costs aren't reduced per-good by moving their manufacture to America; yet the ability to purchase goods reduces.

      In other words: if you sell half as many goods, your cashiers still run 980 scans per hour, and half your cashiers become unemployed. Your trucks still carry 24,000 pairs of jeans each; half your truckers become unemployed, as do the proportion of mechanics, vehicle manufacturers, and fuel producers associated with them. Half your inventory workers don't have trucks to unload or shelves to stock, and become unemployed. Retail centers close down like so many Circuit Cities and Best Buys, and the buildings rot; nobody gets paid to power them, to maintain them, to clean the floors, to fix the lights, or simply for rent. A bunch of accountants and lawyers go away, too.

      Usually, when you create minor unemployment by technical progress, goods get cheaper. Technical progress includes reducing the barriers to trade so you can get at cheaper goods, e.g. if it takes half as much labor to grow pumpkins in the land over, but twice as much to grow potatoes, you each swap pumpkins for potatoes and not so many wages need paying, thus cheaper food. This reduction in cost leaves consumers with a fraction of their income unspent, and so they buy new things, which then creates new employment opportunities because someone has to manufacture, ship, and retail all those new goods.

      (By the way: the hot-blast furnace allowed manufacturing 86,000 pounds of iron using the same labor as the previous process required to manufacture only 400 pounds, thus making railways feasible, dramatically lowering transportation costs. This had enormous impacts on trade. Look up the history of the wooden shipping pallet as well.)

      In this case, you've found a way to create major unemployment by rolling back technical progress, reducing total consumer buying power: more must be spent on the same goods, so fewer goods are bought. The fractional cost per-good of shipping and retail isn't reduced, so those jobs are flatly lost. The factory jobs are hewn from a portion of what we lose--which would probably include Netflix, some healthcare, and other luxuries which we can no longer support. IT jobs and other high-level engineering

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      Support my political activism on Patreon.
    9. Re: do we want smog like china? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We now produce a lot of our own oil.

      No, tariffs will suck for people who work for or invest in the big multinational companies, but why should we listen only to them?

    10. Re: do we want smog like china? by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      No policy change will make everyone happy. That's not news.

      We now produce a lot of our own oil.

      along with the quakes, pollution, and explosions associated with it.

      --
      Table-ized A.I.
    11. Re:do we want smog like china? by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      Those so-called "other countries" are ancient and sophisticated cultures that were building elaborate temples and writing (albeit upside-down mostly) when our honky ancestors were swinging from trees.

      Imposing our environmental standards on them is literally cultural rape in the actual ass.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    12. Re:do we want smog like china? by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      I know that's the theory, and simulations tend to bear it out; but real cows aint spherical, and the military issue is rarely factored in.

      So far it looks like the benefits of open trade tend to trickle upward, and the simulation writers don't know why yet. Their models are missing something.

      Japan is fairly protectionist, yet has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the world. You may argue they have "less stuff" because of that, but it's up to THEM whether jobs are more important than stuff or vice versa. Equations and simulations cannot tell citizens which trade-off to select, only the impact.

      --
      Table-ized A.I.
    13. Re: do we want smog like china? by cavreader · · Score: 1

      "quakes, pollution, and explosions associated with it" These things are better than dealing with the lovely countries who make up OPEC.

    14. Re: do we want smog like china? by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      Rather than choose between shit vs puke, move away from oil.

      --
      Table-ized A.I.
    15. Re: do we want smog like china? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Move away from oil? This may happen in the future but it is impossible today. Only about 50% of a barrel of oil is used for distilling gasoline. The remaining amount is used for jet fuel, kerosene, heavy oil, and oil byproducts that petrochemical crackers provide for manufacturing processes. One example would be creating plastics that are used in things all around us.

      Incremental steps are being achieved. The current battery technology needs more work. Increased use of natural gas is providing a cleaner emissions. The adoption of electric cars will never go mainstream without a power distribution infrastructure similar to the current gas stations. Personally I want to go on trips longer than 300 miles and not have to worry where the next charging station is located. Wind farms and Solar power lack the necessary transmission infrastructure. Creating this infrastructure means modifying the current power grid or creating a totally separate grid. Either way you are talking about spending huge amounts of money and time.

      The biggest contributor to creating alternatives to using oil is the oil industry itself. Exxon, BP, and Shell are financing some of the largest R&D efforts. The executives in these companies are use to being at the top of the profit and power pyramid. These people are not stupid. They know the alternatives will eventually challenge their status and cost them money. In the very long run they also know that oil is a finite resources. Once the relatively easy oil fields production falls off the remaining concentrations of oil will be extremely expensive to get at. Their large investments in the alternative energy sector is to make sure they dominate alternative energy market just like they have done in the oil market.

    16. Re:do we want smog like china? by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 1

      I know that's the theory, and simulations tend to bear it out; but real cows aint spherical, and the military issue is rarely factored in.

      Actually, what I stated is based on an analysis of history, not model theory. It's part of why things get cheaper over time.

      Japan is fairly protectionist, yet has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the world.

      They do, at 3.20%. That's quite-low; anything under 2% is critical, and under 4% is usually not stably-maintained. Their labor force participation rate is 60.4%, comparable to the United States labor force participation rate of 62.9%; both of these are considerably-high, which can mean many things. A high LFPR can indicate more single-adult households (and thus less poverty) or it can indicate more dual-income households from poverty situations (and thus more poverty); both of these situations can occur even if the total wealth is higher.

      The number of employed/labor-force/population/employed-per-population in the United States has recovered since its low point in January, 2010. In millions, 2010: 129.8/153.5/309.3/41.97%; 2011: 130.9/153.3/311.7/42.00%; 2012: 133.3/154.4/314.1/42.44%; 2013: 135.3/155.7/316.5/42.75%; 2014: 137.6/155.3/318.9/43.15%; 2015: 140.6/157.0/320.1/43.92%. That means the labor force participation rate has gone down while the number employed, the number employed out of the whole population, and employment rate have all gone up. Those LPR/employed-per-population/employment-rate numbers are 2010: 64.8%/41.97%/9.8%; 2011: 64.2%/42.0%/9.2%; 2012: 63.7%/42.44%/8.3%; 2013: 63.6%/42.44/8.0%; 2014: 62.9%/43.15%/6.6%; 2015: 62.9%/43.92%/5.7%.

      Those numbers mean the number of jobs have grown faster than population. If we were to assume the same 64.2% labor force participation rate as 2010, the 2015 unemployment rate would be 5.87%; using the peak 67% labor force participation rate, it would be 6.07%. Our peak unemployment rate was 9.8%.

      You may argue they have "less stuff" because of that, but it's up to THEM whether jobs are more important than stuff or vice versa.

      As of January 2015, the United States has grown by 10.8 million jobs; 2.3 million of these are a result of population growth, and 8.5 million are a result of productivity increase. Free trade has been a large part of that; the other part has been lay-offs as we obsolete your job with better processes (e.g. automation).. My above post, describing the loss of millions of jobs if we "brought jobs back to America", illustrates the free trade component.

      So you can go ahead and argue to 8.5 million people that they should be jobless so you don't have to worry about getting laid off some time. You can also argue to 320 million Americans that they should be poor so you can have slightly-better job security. Tell the American People that you want America to decay into a third-world country because you're afraid that one day someone might find a way to do your job without you. I'm sure you can find some bullshit argument they'll buy, and a knife they'll use to slit their own throats at your command.

      --
      Support my political activism on Patreon.
    17. Re: do we want smog like china? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How is this different from the US industrial age? We had back then child labor, cheaper than European prices and a govt that subsidized industry against foreign competition. And Europe hired plenty of us workers for cheap labor....

  3. No study needed. Not competitive. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    As one whose jobs in the industry have been outsourced, repeatedly, I can assure you there are practically no semiconductors made here anymore. We are 'competitive' in name only.

    1. Re:No study needed. Not competitive. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Yes, but probably one of the issues on the table will be whether it would make sense for the Fed. government to subsidize the US industry, and if so, how that could best be done, and how would they monitor whether the plan was working.

    2. Re:No study needed. Not competitive. by rickb928 · · Score: 3, Informative

      As one who lives within a few miles of several working fabs, I can assure that high-value semiconductors are being made here.

      The cheap stuff (and a good share of the high-value stuff) is being made where it should be - where it is cheaper.

      Economics 101.

      --
      deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
    3. Re:No study needed. Not competitive. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Intel still runs fabs in Oregon and Arizona. Just not California, because water and power are so expensive, and both are needed in large quantities.

    4. Re:No study needed. Not competitive. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Except the high-value semiconductors can be made elsewhere where it is cheaper as well. You probably failed Econ101

    5. Re:No study needed. Not competitive. by lgw · · Score: 1

      Except the high-value semiconductors can be made elsewhere where it is cheaper as well. You probably failed Econ101

      High-end fabs can run a quarter to a half a billion dollars. Physical security is an important concern at that point. You don't build something that expensive somewhere politically unstable, nor nominally communist, if you can avoid it.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    6. Re:No study needed. Not competitive. by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 1

      Except the high-value semiconductors can be made elsewhere where it is cheaper as well.

      For the high end, bleeding edge stuff, it is best to have the fab close to the designers, and close to the vendors for the latest steppers. So the high-value stuff is made in America, because America is the cheapest place to make it when all the costs are considered.

    7. Re:No study needed. Not competitive. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      If by 'High-Value' you mean Intel, you are correct. Intel continues to lead in semiconductor production, but the business continues to move overseas at a steady pace.

      Here are the revenues for top semiconductor manufacturers in 2015 (in $M):
      Intel 51,400
      Samsung 37,810
      TSMC 24,975
      SK Hynix 26,298
      Micron 16,720

      These companies probably account for about 70% of the total dollar value of semiconductors produced. Samsung's and TSMC's share rises year by year. Micron has significant manufacturing capacity overseas (Singapore).

      It is not foolish to make sure that we don't let the industry slip away. China is pouring massive resources into semiconductors. So far the progress has been slow, but momentum is beginning to build.

    8. Re:No study needed. Not competitive. by unixisc · · Score: 1

      As one whose jobs in the industry have been outsourced, repeatedly, I can assure you there are practically no semiconductors made here anymore. We are 'competitive' in name only.

      Depends on how one defines semiconductor manufacturing, exactly. Intel still has fabs in NM and OR, and Global Semi has some in TX. There are also still some old fabs in the US. Now, the packaging is increasingly done abroad, and when you have a product, like a chip, manufactured, the 'Made in' label that you see applies to the packaging. So something fabbed in NM but packaged in, say, Malaysia will read 'Made in Malaysia'. That's the convention that is followed.

      Beyond that, though, this offshoring had happened way back into the 90s. I used to work in the semiconductor industry - the first a fabless flash memory company called SST, and the latter was Spansion, which was the flash memory spinoff of AMD and Fujitsu's merged operation. In the case of SST, we would get die from different fab makers - TSMC, Seiko Epson, Samsung and later GSMC. Our packaging was done in places like Amkor in the Philippines, and testing was done in test houses in Taiwan. In Spansion, 2 of the Fabs were in Japan (Fujitsu's former fabs) and 1 was in the US (Fab 25, which Spansion got from AMD). Here too, the manufacturing and testing was done in Asia - Thailand, Malaysia, China...

      So the semiconductor industry, depending on how you define things, has either been offshored right from the start, or has been here all along. Like I said in an earlier post on this page, the future of semiconductors has been hampered by the present crop being good enough, and market saturation being attained

    9. Re:No study needed. Not competitive. by unixisc · · Score: 1

      Nominally communist, no, but Japan, Taiwan and Korea have the state of the art fabs that you are talking about. Nobody is assuming that the Red Guards will roll into Taiwan, or that North Korean troops will overrun Samsung's fabs. Or that Pyongyang will lob nukes into fabs in Japan

    10. Re:No study needed. Not competitive. by unixisc · · Score: 1

      What happened to New Mexico? I thought that was where Intel had their fab

    11. Re:No study needed. Not competitive. by Zak3056 · · Score: 2

      You're off by more than an order of magnitude on cost. You're looking at 8-10 billion for a new high-end fab.

      --
      What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
    12. Re:No study needed. Not competitive. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Intel has several fabs...

    13. Re: No study needed. Not competitive. by rickb928 · · Score: 1

      There are others around here besides Intel, but they are specialty fabs, like RF power devices and specialized CPUs. Some are older facilities and amortized, others result of mergers and consolidations.

      --
      deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
    14. Re: No study needed. Not competitive. by rickb928 · · Score: 1

      There is always a reason. You learned that in Economics 101, right?

      --
      deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
    15. Re:No study needed. Not competitive. by lsatenstein · · Score: 1

      Once the fabrication has been successfully produced, a cheap lab (cheap in labor), can ramp up and make the expensive stuff and a very very competitive price.

      American chips are too expensive. That is not to say they are superb in quality to match their price, but only that the volume manufactured of said chips is not high enough to allow a lower cost per unit.

      --
      Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
  4. Prep the pleas... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    for reliable democrat votes from politically pliant foreign workers. Slavery is still popular with the democrat elites.

  5. It's already done. by johnsmithperson123 · · Score: 1

    The US and close allies control more or less the entire semiconductor business. There's no worry of say, China or Russia, competing anywhere in the foreseeable future.

    1. Re:It's already done. by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      The US and close allies control more or less the entire semiconductor business. There's no worry of say, China or Russia, competing anywhere in the foreseeable future.

      Russia? No. China...

      Here's the world's #1 supercomputer:

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

      The US decided to give China a leg up by denying them access to the top chips, thereby inviting them to dump a metric assload of cash (the US actually specified an imperial fuckton, but the metric assload is about a factor of 1.05 larger) on developing their own processes.

      And just in case you think they've simply brutalized it:

      https://www.top500.org/green50...

      It's also #3 on the Green 500 list. Below the best xeons, but not by far, 10% perhaps. It's also not clear what process they were fabbed on and more importantly where. They're also not general purpose processors, they're definitely dedicated number crunchers.

      Nonetheless, the system is performing well, very well. They've been very circumspect about the chip specs though.

      It's currently Intel, GloFo, Samsung and TSMC who can do 14-16nm chips. SMIC in China does have 28nm chip capability, however. For reference, Haswell chips were on 22nm (Intel had a 32 and 22 node, but no 28 node). They are behind, but they are not that far behind.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    2. Re:It's already done. by sexconker · · Score: 0

      Who gives a shit about supercomputers? The list is a measure of when you bought your CPUs/GPUs and how many you paid for. They're not a measurement of engineering or technical prowess and they're not a measurement of ability to DO anything with the compute power.

      If you want to drum up fear you've got to talk about the classified secret shit the government and military has access to. But you don't know what they have access to so you can't talk about it to drum up fear.

    3. Re:It's already done. by MachineShedFred · · Score: 1

      I'd bet a box of donuts that the chip China came up with is a direct rip of a Xeon. It's not like China would say "oh, that's Intel's patented IP, we can't use it."

      They are far more likely to say "Oh, the US wants to ban us from being able to buy this chip? We'll just reverse engineer it and make our own factory to crank them out." It's not like they'd have a hard time getting their hands on working Xeon chips, what with Lenovo being a Chinese company...

      --
      Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
    4. Re:It's already done. by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      I'd bet a box of donuts that the chip China came up with is a direct rip of a Xeon.

      Sounds like you owe me a box of donuts, unless you can find a 260 core Xeon. If you read about them, they're much more similar to Cell processors than Xeons in archiceture. With things like OpenCL and OpenACC and experience with GPUs, compiler tooling has improved a LOT since the Cell days, so I expect they're not such a bugger to program.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    5. Re:It's already done. by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      Who gives a shit about supercomputers?

      People who want to run large jobs very fast!

      They're not a measurement of engineering or technical prowess and they're not a measurement of ability to DO anything with the compute power

      You only get on the list if they actually work since you have to submit LINPACK scores. So the processors (a) work and (b) do so efficiently. The fact they can build a supercomputer with their own processors with similar flops/watt to an Intel based one shows they have some decent techincal chops.

      If you want to drum up fear

      your a moran

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    6. Re:It's already done. by slew · · Score: 1

      The US and close allies control more or less the entire semiconductor business. There's no worry of say, China or Russia, competing anywhere in the foreseeable future.

      Actually China is a major player in the semiconductor business. Because they are a major consumer of integrated circuits (slightly less than 50%) many of the large fab companies have factories there (e.g., TSMC, TI, Samsung). They have a significant number of fabless business (e.g., HiSilicon, Spreadtrum, ZTE, Rockchip, etc), and they even have local pure-play fab companies as well (e.g., SMIC, XMC).

      On the fabless side, China's share (8%) is about double that of Japan and Europe combined. The US of course has the lion share of the fabless semiconductor suppliers at about 65%.

      On the foundry side, SMIC was founded back in 2000 by a veterans of TSMC and TI (and was found guilty of misappropriating TSMC tradesecrets which settled for $200M and 10% stake in the company). Of course even with all of that SMIC isn't on par with TSMC technology-wise, but you don't have to be at the bleeding edge to play a big role. UMC (the original taiwanese foundry) is also not on par with TSMC, but still a top 5 player. Right now, SMIC has about 1/2 the market share of UMC and Global Foundaries (TSMC of course has the lion share of the market at about 60%).

      China has already surpassed every country but the US and Korea in semicondutors in both the fabless and foundry business. They may not be able to be able to dominate the business, but to say they aren't "competing anywhere in the foreseeable future" is the complacent attitude that allowed Toyota and the other Japanese auto companies to become major players in the 80's. Being large consumers of IC tech, they are highly motivated to become self sufficient in this area.

    7. Re:It's already done. by GoblinKing · · Score: 1

      your a moran

      Just an FYI ... it is bad form to call someone a "moron" and misspell the word "moron" ...

    8. Re:It's already done. by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      The joke, you, whoosh etc.

      You lose marks for missing that "you're" was misspelled and there was no capitalization or punctuation.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    9. Re:It's already done. by GoblinKing · · Score: 1

      Yup. Missed that too. :D

    10. Re: It's already done. by johnsmithperson123 · · Score: 1

      It's more a money concern. If the US dropped a few billion they could build a 1000 petaflop machine in a few months.

    11. Re: It's already done. by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      It's more a money concern. If the US dropped a few billion they could build a 1000 petaflop machine in a few months.,

      Well, that's both kind of the point and missing it at the same time. The Chinese one is more powerful and nearly as efficient as the top US one. That means there isn't much of a tech gap. If it takes the US a few billion (i.e. 10x the cost) to go 10x as fast then there's not much of a cost difference either.

      If you can do the same thing for the same cost and same efficiency, then you're not really behind.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    12. Re:It's already done. by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      Haha no worries, easily done :)

      Plus Poe's law etc.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
  6. Obama's solution: more laws!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm sure Obama could pull out is pen and phone and make a law that makes US companies competitive.

    Right?

    Obama's BRILLIANT, isn't he?

    Isn't he?

    Lemme see how he's doing in Libya, Syria, Iraq, Russia, ...

    ummm, maybe not...

  7. Corporate tax reform by Kohath · · Score: 1, Interesting

    The biggest issue affecting US competitiveness is business taxes. That's why Qualcomm bought NXP instead of expanding organically or buying a US company. If Qualcomm brought their cash back to the US, the US government would steal (confiscate, loot, grab, appropriate, or otherwise take) billions of dollars of it. So companies like Qualcomm do what they can to avoid ever bringing money to the US. In this case Qualcomm bought an overseas company with overseas money instead, getting something of value in return for their money instead of wasting it on government.

    If Obama or anyone in his party cared about US industries succeeding, they'd reform corporate taxes. But they won't do that unless they can find other pockets to pick.

    1. Re:Corporate tax reform by Jzanu · · Score: 1

      Nope, that is all anti-tax fantasy. Reality is up-front research costs and plant development and refresh every year are still the major drivers.

    2. Re:Corporate tax reform by gtall · · Score: 1

      Oh, what U.S. company do you figure Qualcomm should have bought? NXP makes a lot of the processors that go into cars. They bought Freescale not so long ago which was spun out of Motorola when the big shots there were stitching together their golden parachutes. Texas Instruments is probably only the logical choice but it is second to NXP in the auto industry. And it might raise antitrust concerns given their other businesses.

    3. Re:Corporate tax reform by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      The biggest issue affecting US competitiveness is business taxes.

      That's disputable. If you factor in all the loopholes, US taxes are typical of developed countries, no higher and no lower.

      Anyhow, profits are too hard to measure for international corporations. They've got bits and pieces all over, in some places where the local laws make it hard for the IRS to verify as these corporations shift stuff around the globe to play tax shell games.

      Instead, base their US taxes on revenues in the US and any money shipped out of the US.

      --
      Table-ized A.I.
    4. Re:Corporate tax reform by NapalmV · · Score: 1

      Oh yeah, tell me about how it helped developing a burgeoning semiconductors industry in the Bahamas.....

    5. Re:Corporate tax reform by Archangel+Michael · · Score: 1

      It is easy to tax money you have, not money you don't have.

      My suggestion is this, tax money transfers out of the country. Followed by giving incentives to money flowing into our country. It isn't a tariff on goods coming into our country, at least directly, it is applied directly to the people / corporations transferring money over seas.

      If my view is correct, the money flowing out would slow, and money flowing in would grow, and a growing economy would likely be a problem of growth, not sluggishness.

      --
      Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
    6. Re:Corporate tax reform by sexconker · · Score: 1

      Base taxes on executive compensation, including all stock options, retirement plans, etc. Extend it to spouses, children, family members, and anyone else receiving compensation from the corporation (or any subsidiaries, parents, etc.) they're seen in a social setting with.

    7. Re:Corporate tax reform by hey! · · Score: 4, Informative

      Business taxes in the US are 39% on paper, but in practice average around 27% when you count deductions US law allows. The effective US rate is about the same as the average for OECD countries (27.7%) and is only slightly higher than the Netherlands' 25%. China's tax rate is 25% as well, although it goes down to 15% for certain industries. Both China and the Netherlands have a national value-added-tax (17% and 21% respectively); the US has in-state sales taxes in some states but no cross-state sales tax.

      Of course 2% of a 1.4 billion in profits is a lot of money, but even if the US dropped its effective rates to 25% I doubt you'll see a lot of new semiconductor fabs going up in the US.

      In an era of free trade, nobody's going to locate many manufacturing jobs in the US with a median wage of $51K when the median wage in China is $4755, and in Indonesia less than half that. The only reason to make anything here is to get something that you can't get elsewhere, and lets face it there are plenty of tax havens out there with lots of unemployed people. So what can you get here? Access to US universities and research centers. The US, at least for now, is a natural tech incubator. That won't last long under an austerity program.

      So until US wages drop by about 90%, even a major cut to effective business tax rates aren't going to make us competitive with China for commodity manufacturing jobs.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
    8. Re:Corporate tax reform by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Exactly! Why would any sane group of extremely wealthy people gathered together under the legal trickery of calling themselves a "corporation" ever be expected to pay taxes. It's preposterous! The Rich shouldn't have to pay anything to keep up roads, lights, sewers, or water pipes. Not to mention their complete lack of any support for the armed forces, police, air traffic control systems, harbors, coast guard. etc, etc, etc.
      That's what the poor are for, duh.

    9. Re:Corporate tax reform by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      Because capital controls have such a long history of success and lead to economic prosperity?

      Nations implement capital controls when they have already fucked up their economy and they can't stand people 'voting their money' with their feet. Not generally useful, capital has a million ways of sneaking across borders.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    10. Re:Corporate tax reform by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Taxes are part of the cost of doing business. If they want to avoid paying taxes they are avoiding doing business. Screw 'em.

    11. Re:Corporate tax reform by Kohath · · Score: 0

      The topic is competitiveness of US companies. I understand that you want to take or spend money you didn't earn. How does that help US companies compete with companies in countries where the governments are less greedy?

    12. Re:Corporate tax reform by Kohath · · Score: 1

      You mean like income and capital gains and estate and gift taxes already do?

    13. Re:Corporate tax reform by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Said the AC wearing clothes bought on sale from a corporation, who sourced the clothes from a corporation, while typing on a computer manufactured by a corporation, filled with parts from a different corporation, talking across a network maintained by a corporation, to a server that is kept alive by a corporation.

      There's a whole lot of bitching about "evil corporations" and "extremely wealthy people not paying their fair share" from people like you, and yet you still buy the shit they sell, and sometimes even are happy about the prices.

    14. Re:Corporate tax reform by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It is not anti-tax fantasy, but there is no convincing people like you so I won't bother. We'll just elect leaders who understand things and shut you up instead.

    15. Re:Corporate tax reform by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You mean pro-business success and pro-national success? Sure, but they aren't Republican -- those representatives don't work, and those president's don't govern.

    16. Re:Corporate tax reform by HornWumpus · · Score: 0

      Industrialized nations with lower corporate taxes generally have higher capital gains.

      Nations compete for capital based on after tax return on investment (ROI), that being: (NominalROI * (1 - CapGainsRate) * (1 - CorporateTaxRate)). If that number is not competitive the nation will get no investment.

      Of course ROI is noisy in time and not uniform across investments, but generally higher ROI corresponds to higher risk. 'Risk free' ROI is 0 or negative these days.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    17. Re:Corporate tax reform by Kohath · · Score: 0

      The topic is US competiveness. Maybe you don't have any ideas for improving that. But are you really saying that giving companies billions of dollars in financial incentives to do business in any country except the US is irrelevant to US competitiveness?

      Reforming business taxes is something that could actually be done. All it would take is government people deciding to be less greedy.

      Do you have any ideas that could actually be done? Please post them.

    18. Re:Corporate tax reform by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Smells like Republican horseshit to me. Yes, just lower the corporate tax rate and the market will just magically figure everything out for the best... Take your trickle-down cat piss and shove it deep up your ass.

    19. Re:Corporate tax reform by hey! · · Score: 1

      I'm saying that the argument about corporate tax rates misses the mark because (a) it's based on the statutory rate rather than the effective rate, (b) it ignores other taxes, (c) it ignores other expenses that the US is powerless to cut.

      We live in a world in which national sovereignty has been reduced to a degree that the Communists of old could only have dreamed of. Our options are limited. That's not saying that there's nothing we can do, but a race to the bottom is one that would hurt us a lot worse than it would China or Vietnam.

      So don't expect those old good-paying low skill jobs ever to come back. That's a fool's hope. Instead embrace a future where there are three roles: (1) farmers, (2) innovators, and (3) people who provide services to the other two groups.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
    20. Re:Corporate tax reform by Kohath · · Score: 1

      So you have zero ideas on improving US competitiveness then?

      If the tax is really just the same as other countries, then you'd presumably have no problem changing our rules to be just like other countries' rules.

    21. Re:Corporate tax reform by hey! · · Score: 1

      Oh, I do. I just don't think cutting the corporate tax rate will work.

      Your logic somewhat escapes me. I'm saying the marginal change in the corporate tax rate to match the Netherlands won't bring many jobs back. Just because it won't do what you intend it to do doesn't mean it won't do anything; it'll do a mix of good and bad things. Same with going with China's neo-mercantilist policy of giving breaks to specific industries.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
    22. Re:Corporate tax reform by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 1

      Actually, there's a good argument against high taxes, as well as against low taxes; the sticking point is what you define as "high" and "low".

      Businesses and anyone with an accounting sense and lots of cash flow definitely try to reduce their tax burden. Lower taxes reduce this pressure. There's a striking advantage to a presence in any locality, and that's balanced against the taxes. If business is 2% advantaged by having a major operation center in Germany (e.g. lower salaries, better access to technology, certain services are cheaper), but taxes are 8% lower in California, then the business moves to California and pays California taxes and comes out roughly 6% ahead.

      On the other hand, tax sheltering is a thing as well, but not as much of a problem as it's made out to be. The average actual business profit is around 10%, and some businesses are as low as 2%. Businesses send most of their income out to wages, or to other businesses. Import inputs are, obviously, not taxable (they're a business expense, not income); while wages are taxed. This leaves you with things like Apple's headquarters in Cupertino paying $2 billion in wages every year, fed from money pulled from global sales. Cupertino complains Apple shelters some $10 billion of money they want taxes from--even though Cupertino's economy gets an influx from global trade and wages, plus Apple buying power and utilities. Apple is an egregious example itself, standing alongside Microsoft, and not many others.

      That means lower business taxes to attract local businesses and, possibly, become a sheltering target (or make sheltering too much of a complexity hassle to bother with for larger businesses) isn't really worth much; but higher business taxes also aren't worth much.

      The economic plan I designed lowered business income taxes by about 12% proportional (around 4.5% marginal tax rate) as a side-effect; I didn't adjust it because I figured that was fine. It's irrelevant and I'm not going to start the argument about how business taxes should be much, much lower; and that would complicate my tax plan, which is what we don't need.

      Importantly, that plan lowered the cost of employees by shifting a payroll tax (OASDI, 6.2%) into a new tax that's an income tax replacing much of the existing general-fund tax. In other words: where an employer would hire you at $50,000 and pay $53,100 for you to take home $40,107 (single, 1-adult household) or $42,128 (married, 2-adult household), now the employer hires you at $50,000 and pays only $50,000 for you to take home $46,671 (single, 1-A) or $52,100 (married, 2-A, and yes that happens). The actual cost of producing things goes down, while the consumer income increases. This involves no tax increases; the system is just more-efficient than the current one, largely by stabilizing low-income households in such a way as to reduce the cost-of-risk, thus both reducing costs in existing economic activity and enabling new economic activities which replace inefficient public aid systems.

      I was bored one day and decided to solve poverty. I ended up solving or sharply-reducing most current economic problems. It's what I got in trade: I have a psychiatric disorder in which I have zero interest in social relationships and spend all my time alone, and also don't care about other people's ideals or values or morals, so I bluntly point out how the world really works and have to occupy myself. This is the result of a sad little man with no friends listening to liberals and conservatives argue about economic policy and working it out from a blank starting point rather than from an assumption that the current system is essentially-correct and needs to be nudged in one direction or another. (By the by, it turns out that the only economic system that actually exists is roughly-similar to what they call "capitalism", and can't be changed by any means; it can be optimized, though, because it's essentially a behavior--the economy has an overall psychology to it, and so can be affected

      --
      Support my political activism on Patreon.
    23. Re:Corporate tax reform by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or you reduce the staff required by 90%.

      Plus there's savings on distribution for the local market so maybe reduce the reduction in labour above.

      Plus you guys have the technical staff.

      Try to open a fab in the UK... oh yeah. That's gonna work....

    24. Re:Corporate tax reform by Kohath · · Score: 1

      I guess every country the the world except the US could have chosen the wrong tax rules, but there's no data or reasoning to support that conclusion. Some countries had business taxes more like ours for a long time, but every country eventually changed and the US is the only one stuck doing it the old way.

      No one should expect a miraculous difference from changing the rules to match the rest of the world. But a little economic growth and a modest increase in jobs and wages is really good for the people who get those jobs and see those wage increases. It would help the US be more competitive, which is what this topic is about.

      Additionally, it's morally the right thing to do. Taxing companies on money they earned outside the US, from selling non-US-made goods to non-US residents, is unjustifiable.

  8. Consortiums are normal in semiconductor work by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Same as in 80s, semiconductor industry has extremely high capital costs and extremely high research costs that inspire alternatives to absolute competition, largely so firms don't waste billions repeating the same research rather than moving the field forward for the benefit of all firms.

  9. I agree by 110010001000 · · Score: 1

    For example, the fact is that Pringles flavors have been horrible lately. Shrimp flavored Pringles? We need new ideas. The best idea in the last 10 years was to put ridges on Ruffles. But that isn't good enough in 2016 and beyond.

    1. Re:I agree by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      Come closer, I'll help you ruffle your ridges

      --
      Table-ized A.I.
    2. Re:I agree by sexconker · · Score: 1

      This 1100... dumbass again. Ruffles have always had ridges. That's the point of Ruffles.

    3. Re:I agree by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ruffles are a plot by liberals and their global corporation allies to get kids used to trilling their 'Rs for purposes of multiculturalism and "diversity".

    4. Re:I agree by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm guessing he meant Wavy Lays but brainfarted on the brand name. It happens hwen you get old.

  10. Is this what we want? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Assembly line work isn't bad. But soon there will be robots--and no one new was hired in the process. Are you sure you want to go this route?

    This is like that company that had their employees train their replacements; but worse: the employees are building their replacements.

  11. Next up - by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Tech Companies Announce Support for Trade Agreements

    (Now that they've been assured a generous handout in the next round of agreements.)

  12. We need better hardware design languages by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We need: More investment in R&D - particularly in hardware design languages. (see "chisel"). More open source designs and hardware to easily integrate. More people trained in cross-disciplinary hardware/software design. And faster, safer, cooler cpus, and embedded hardware.

    1. Re:We need better hardware design languages by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Investment in R&D for more secure architectures should be a higher priority. Computer security is a nightmare today, in large part because architectures are not amenable to implementing secure operating systems and applications. The RISC-V efforts afoot are admirable for open hardware, but it doesn't appear to address the numerous and very serious security flaws of conventional architectures.

      The Mill architecture is one option which looks to do so, offering a memory and protection system that fundamentally eliminates large classes of exploits, and also enables efficient microkernel implementations. It does that while simplifying the hardware and making it significantly more power efficient--the goal being DSP performance on general purpose code.

  13. Cherry Picking [Re:Corporate tax reform] by Tablizer · · Score: 1

    Addendum:

    The mentioned tax loopholes affect organizations unevenly such that some companies may indeed go overseas to avoid the US tax system. But that's more about being uneven than having high taxes.

    In general different countries will have different tax laws such that some portion of companies may find a better deal overseas even if the average tax difference is small or even better in the US.

    As an analogy, the typical things I buy at the market may favor me going to Store B over Store A. But, that doesn't necessarily mean Store A has worse deals in general; but rather just for my particular preferences. I'm not everybody. The companies that leave for tax reasons are not every-co.

    Focusing on just those that leave due to this factor is cherry-picking evidence. Some co's may move to the US from countries for similar reasons: for their particular domain or situation, it makes business sense at the given place and time.

    This unevenness is unavoidable because every country will have different tax philosophies and laws. As long as it works out in aggregate, we are fine. Some come; some go.

    --
    Table-ized A.I.
  14. Re:Obama's solution: more laws!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Not laws, but a study. Which means probably millions of taxpayer money will be pocketed with little to no work or results will be accomplished.

  15. Jump start by ITRambo · · Score: 1

    Obama's jump start to making America great again should have been done long ago. Why wait until he only has ten weeks left as POTUS? Is he trying to build a better legacy? I have little faith in Obama understanding what it takes to kick-start anything that will not involve government control..

    1. Re:Jump start by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, about Obama and companies ...
      Obama says success is not a result of someone working hard or being smart and that if you started your own business, you didn't build it yourself. (July 13, 2012).

      Obama: If You've Got A Business, You Didn't Build That

    2. Re:Jump start by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      Complaining is easy; propose an alternative to move the economy. The whole world is in a funk, by the way, not just US.

      All I've seen from the right is more trickle-down plans and either vague deregulation, or deregulation that turns us into a 3rd-world country.

      More trickle-down won't work because the rich are already flush with cash. They don't expand biz because of insufficient consumers. Insufficient consumption is the current bottleneck. If you don't fix that, you don't fix the econ. Go!...

      --
      Table-ized A.I.
  16. Reminds me by I4ko · · Score: 1

    That strangely reminds me of one communist leader in the eastern block many years ago - he is giving a inaugural speech for a semi conductor plant, that goes something like this : "Congratulations comrades. With our scientific achievements this year we built a plant for semiconductors, next year we will build a plant for full". Little did he knew what a full conductor is not better than a semiconductor.

  17. tremendous by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

    When I'm president, we're not going to have these weak "semi" conductors, we're going to have full conductors, and they will be terrific conductors, believe me. Conductors we can be proud of.

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
    1. Re:tremendous by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      When I'm president, we're not going to have these weak "semi" conductors, we're going to have full conductors...

      A full conductor.

      --
      Table-ized A.I.
    2. Re:tremendous by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Crooked Hillary has spent her entire adult life trying to do this, she's had 30 years to bring a world class semiconductor industry here in America, and look what we have. Disaster. The worst in history. It's a joke, the entire world is laughing at us.

  18. Lame duck sellout by thunderclees · · Score: 1

    This could be translated as lame duck president prepares to dump taxpayer money on helping semiconductor oligarchs earn huge bonuses while laying off engineers that are US citizens and replacing them with "whatever" head shop maggots outsourced or on one of the many abused US work visas. Note that they are talking about labor and tax restructuring but there is no one representing US labor on PCAST.

  19. Copy-paste error by slew · · Score: 1

    Sorry, messed this sentence up...

    China has already surpassed every country but the US, Taiwan, and Korea in semicondutors in both the fabless and foundry business

  20. semis - not like other manufacturing by unixisc · · Score: 1

    Why not ban all manufacturing in the US so that only distilled water may flow down our rivers, and all carbon dioxide will be eliminated from the air?

    Re TFA, the semiconductor industry is one industry where the market has indeed worked thanks to one unique company - Intel. As is well known, I'm not a fan of the x86 architecture, but over 2 decades, Intel has achieved the volumes needed to make fabs that are generations ahead of anybody else - be it from Japan, Korea or Taiwan. If the semiconductor industry has stagnated, it's not b'cos of what it is in other sectors - the jobs being offshored everywhere else - but rather, the fact that it has come to a point where two new factors have kicked in:

    - Existing semiconductor products have hit the sweet spot of price, performance and power consumption. As a result, they are being replaced far less frequently than ever before. Take Intel itself - how essential is it to replace your Broadwell based laptop w/ a new one using Kaby Lake?

    - Process shrinks are no longer synonymous w/ cost reductions the way they once were. Previously, when silicon was manufactured in the 1 to 0.1 micron range, every process shrink was actually a cost reduction due to the higher #die/wafer. However, as we approach atom level scales, this increased number is far offset by process complexity in shrinking, as well as the increased cost of packaging such small die. As a result, process shrinks are no longer a cost down

    The attention being paid to semiconductors by the president would be better applied in getting things manufactured in the US again. One doesn't have to demand that no products from China, Laos, Philippines, Costa Rica, et al stop appearing on shelves in Nordstrom, JC Penney, Belk, et al. But the problem is that if one wants to buy something 'Made in USA', it's impossible to find that in most places, and when it can be found, it's usually orders of magnitude costlier than the imports. Given the unemployment and poverty levels all over the country, there is no reason why such products can't be at least at the same price range as the imports. That is where the focus ought to be

  21. Environmental Regulation Reform by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Please, dear god, can we get environmental permitting to happen in a time frame shorter than a decade?

  22. Re:It''s already done by unixisc · · Score: 1

    I'd think that Japan would be ahead of China as well - I believe that Fujitsu, Hitachi, Mitsubishi et al are still in the semiconductor business

  23. Want U.S. competitiveness? by moeinvt · · Score: 1

    Eliminate the personal and corporate income taxes and implement the revenue-neutral "Fair Tax"(fairtax.org). Then, allow a one-time, tax-free repatriation of any offshore assets held by individuals or businesses. Next, restore a sane trade policy where foreign producers won't be allowed a competitive advantage in the U.S. market based entirely on labor and environmental arbitrage.
    That would increase U.S. competitiveness in a huge way and begin a real economic recovery.

    1. Re:Want U.S. competitiveness? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Stupid shill - that just kills the poor at the benefit of the rich, even faster.

  24. Re:It''s already done by slew · · Score: 1

    I'd think that Japan would be ahead of China as well - I believe that Fujitsu, Hitachi, Mitsubishi et al are still in the semiconductor business

    The only significant output from Japan is Toshiba (NAND flash), Sony (image sensors), and Micron (DRAM).
    The companies you named there only account for less than 1% of world wide chip sales. Interestingly, Japan's $ share is much larger than their volume share.

  25. Translation by plopez · · Score: 1

    We want money! "public-private" + "competitivenes"+"security"=Pork!

    --
    putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
  26. They didn't include Dan Nenni by bezenek · · Score: 1

    Maybe Dan declined.

    For those not familiar with Dan: semiwiki.com

    --
    Omne ignotum pro magnifico.
  27. Timberland Homme Pas Chers by zhenyucuan · · Score: 1

    timberland Homme et, dans le même registre, chaussures et combinaisons du film Michel Vaillant produit par Luc Besson, qui est sorti cet automne sur les écrans suisses.Puma talonne désormais la marque Reebook sur le marché planétaire de la chaussure de sport, loin derrière Nike, lourd de 9 milliards de francs et Adidas 5 milliards. Un succès dû à un effet de mode très bien orchestré, mais aussi un capital de sympathie unique. Après l'équipe de football du Cameroun, Puma soutient l'équipe jamaïcaine d'athlétisme. Pas de sportifs connus, mais des affiches, des concerts gratuits et une nouvelle chaussure de ville aux couleurs du drapeau jamaïcain, la H Street, bien partie pour courir longtemps. Aujourd'hui, les dirigeants de OBH justifient l'opération en expliquant, comme l'avait fait Ernst Thomke, que le groupe pourra mieux se concentrer sur ses technologies propres alors que Bally, gagnant en autonomie, continuera ses activités dans le secteur des chaussures et accessoires de mode.

  28. Kreskin Predicts! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Easy predictions this working group will address:

    1) Semiconductors are critical.
    2) More Free Trade Agreements will help!
    3) The problem needs more study.

    Gee whiz, I should get named to that committee.