danox

tht said:

If it is an actual picture of the facility, it has solar PV over the parking lot. Love that! Hopefully they have tens of MWHr level batteries too. Solar over parking lots should be required all over the USA. Everything in the desert areas of Arizona needs to be painted white or high albedo as well. Not a pleasant place to be during the heat season.

I don't see this notion of owning this supply chain as viable anymore. So, the argument is moot.

30 years ago, the economics were such that it was possible. Development costs for fabs and customer bases were sufficiently low such that it could be done. Multiple micron-level fabs existed, that served that needs of a mainframe market or other small niche. Intel was ahead with leading edge fabs, but small companies could follow 6 to 12 months behind them with a near equivalent fab. AMD had its own fabs. Didn't Texas Instruments have its own fabs? TI! Before they gave up. IBM amazingly held on for a long while just serving their mainframe market.

Today, you need to sell into the entire population of the Earth to support the development of a leading edge, Angstrom level fab. It's Highlander rules, where there can only be one. It costs so much to develop a leading edge fab now, you need to have billions of chips shipped from your fab to make it worthwhile. To do that, you need to play a game of geo-politics, carving a path such that the chips coming out of the fab can be used everywhere in every nation.

If you don't do that, you will not get enough revenue to pay for the development of the fab. So, the notion that one nation can own the supply chain while serving the enter world is a fantasy. It's not even a fantasy. It's like saying gravity is optional or energy isn't conserved. The economics aren't going to work out.

Intel, IBM, Xerox, Motorola Schaumburg, Illinois, and US Steel failed due to management changes, the inability to recognize the importance of long-term product iteration and the need for ongoing research and development.

One other problem in America is the blame game, where production workers are blamed despite management’s bad decisions, which is another on going long term issue.

In America, MBAs, accountants, financial/bankers, and lawyers often end up running companies, especially in specialized fields like technology, pharmaceuticals, and high-end manufacturing. However, these elements should not be allowed to make strategic decisions or to run such companies, support yes run the company. Hell no….

Another big element is the time it’s gonna take to turn things around and no one in America wants to hear it but it’s probably overall two decades or more which is going to be a big problem in America because that’s stretched over five administrations oh boy……

DAalseth said:

Big corporations are not your friends.

The rich are not your friends.

The oligarchy are not your friends.

JinTech said:

Pretty soon Apple will be forced to just sell the hardware in the EU and let users decide what operating system they want on the phone! /s