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Analysis-Chip industry rethinks Taiwan risk after Pelosi visit but options limited

Daniel Nenni

Admin
Staff member
"Everyone is currently talking about business continuity plans," said Terry Tsao, president of the SEMI Taiwan industry group. "A small portion of companies have only started to make these plans recently. From what I've heard, most are foreign companies." Forty percent of respondents polled by the American Chamber of Commerce in Taiwan the week after Pelosi's visit said their companies were revising or about to revise their crisis contingency or continuity of operations plans in Taiwan.

"No-one really ever highlighted any kind of military action in their business continuity plans and now they are," he said. Unsettled by the Chinese drills, which showed how easily Taiwan could be blockaded, management had launched efforts to plan for disruption in supplies and other scenarios, he said: "I don't think anybody believes the political environment is going to get any better."

 
How's Intel Foundry looking now?
As we've discussed, Intel going into the foundry business has always looked like a good idea to me. Cloud companies are becoming vertical stacks down to the chip level, so the merchant chip business, especially the more profitable datacenter products, is declining over time as the cloud computing businesses capture a growing share of the enterprise computing market. And that's even before strategic security issues over Taiwan are factored in, meaning I would have this same positive opinion of Intel becoming a foundry even if Taiwan was fully secure. The critical question is, can Intel execute and be competitive with TSMC? Obviously, there's not enough evidence yet to answer that question. My opinion? Let's just say I haven't been a buyer of INTC shares yet.
 
As we've discussed, Intel going into the foundry business has always looked like a good idea to me. Cloud companies are becoming vertical stacks down to the chip level, so the merchant chip business, especially the more profitable datacenter products, is declining over time as the cloud computing businesses capture a growing share of the enterprise computing market. And that's even before strategic security issues over Taiwan are factored in, meaning I would have this same positive opinion of Intel becoming a foundry even if Taiwan was fully secure. The critical question is, can Intel execute and be competitive with TSMC? Obviously, there's not enough evidence yet to answer that question. My opinion? Let's just say I haven't been a buyer of INTC shares yet.

Semiconductor insiders have always known the importance of multiple foundry sources. The rest of the world is finally getting the message. The geopolitical situation is the worst it has been since I joined the semiconductor industry 40 years ago. It was my hope that the importance of the international semiconductor ecosystem would keep us at peace but my hope is fading. Intel could be the United States' leading edge semiconductor stronghold.

The US consumer still holds a lot of power if we would just use it more strategically. It is hard for me to see Russian products still on our shelves. Not only are we still trading with Russia we have a huge trade deficit. Same with China.
 
Semiconductor insiders have always known the importance of multiple foundry sources. The rest of the world is finally getting the message. The geopolitical situation is the worst it has been since I joined the semiconductor industry 40 years ago. It was my hope that the importance of the international semiconductor ecosystem would keep us at peace but my hope is fading. Intel could be the United States' leading edge semiconductor stronghold.

The US consumer still holds a lot of power if we would just use it more strategically. It is hard for me to see Russian products still on our shelves. Not only are we still trading with Russia we have a huge trade deficit. Same with China.
What Russian products are you still seeing in the US? Vodka? Since I don't drink, I see none. On the other hand, I understand the US still buys Russian natural resource products, like minerals. Is this what you're referring to?

One amazing thing about the US (and we are not alone in this conundrum) is that we refuse to allow much mineral extraction in the US, with inefficient permitting processes in the name of environmental protection, yet we are perfectly willing to buy most natural resource commodities from countries which have far less protective extraction rules. I suppose our NIMBY special interests and environmentalists forget this is one planet, and that mining in the US might be better for the planet than buying from less "enlightened" countries.
 
More trouble. The good news is that politicians know what a semiconductor is now. The bad news is that politicians know what a semiconductor is now.

 
How's Intel Foundry looking now?

One of Intel CEO Pet Gelsinger's major talking points was that a US/Europe based fab can provide more diversity and stability to the global semiconductor supply.

With the new Woofspeed, Globalfoundries, Samsung, Micron, Texas Instruments, SK Hynix, and TSMC's new fabs or facilities in North Carolina, New York, Texas, Idaho, and Arizona, they are going to provide significant capacity increase to the US domestic semiconductor production.

Consequently the Intel Foundry's talking points about non Asia based production has been mooted.

The competition and market condition Intel Foundry is facing now is probably no better than one year ago.
 
One of Intel CEO Pet Gelsinger's major talking points was that a US/Europe based fab can provide more diversity and stability to the global semiconductor supply.

With the new Woofspeed, Globalfoundries, Samsung, Micron, Texas Instruments, SK Hynix, and TSMC's new fabs or facilities in North Carolina, New York, Texas, Idaho, and Arizona, they are going to provide significant capacity increase to the US domestic semiconductor production.

Consequently the Intel Foundry's talking points about non Asia based production has been mooted.

The competition and market condition Intel Foundry is facing now is probably no better than one year ago.
At the moment, virtually everyone is facing less than good market conditions.

On your list above, only TSMC and Samsung compete with Intel's emerging foundry business. Samsung has a functional fab in Austin (14nm and 22nm?), while TSMC has done nothing but publicly complain about its facility in Washington. TSMC does appear to be making excellent progress on fab construction in AZ, but I'm anxious to see how well the AZ and Taiwan teams work together, and whether or not the AZ fabs are productive in a reasonable time after they come online.
 
The competition and market condition Intel Foundry is facing now is probably no better than one year ago.

I don't agree. Intel is investing heavily in the ecosystem and with the Tower acquisition they are certainly a contender for the NOT TSMC business. I sat through the Samsung SAFE keynotes. They seem to think that the foundry business will hit $783B in 2026. There is definitely room for Intel Foundry.

Semiconductor Foundry Market 2022.jpg
 
At the moment, virtually everyone is facing less than good market conditions.

On your list above, only TSMC and Samsung compete with Intel's emerging foundry business. Samsung has a functional fab in Austin (14nm and 22nm?), while TSMC has done nothing but publicly complain about its facility in Washington. TSMC does appear to be making excellent progress on fab construction in AZ, but I'm anxious to see how well the AZ and Taiwan teams work together, and whether or not the AZ fabs are productive in a reasonable time after they come online.

Rick Cassidy is leading the AZ team and if you knew Rick you would have less concerns. He has been with TSMC for 25+ years here in North America and I credit him with the huge success with US customers.
 
At the moment, virtually everyone is facing less than good market conditions.

On your list above, only TSMC and Samsung compete with Intel's emerging foundry business. Samsung has a functional fab in Austin (14nm and 22nm?), while TSMC has done nothing but publicly complain about its facility in Washington. TSMC does appear to be making excellent progress on fab construction in AZ, but I'm anxious to see how well the AZ and Taiwan teams work together, and whether or not the AZ fabs are productive in a reasonable time after they come online.

Samsung has been in the US for 26 years. They currently have 14nm here which is targeted at automotive. 14nm is their all time best FinFET node for sure.

Samsung Foundry America Fabs 2022.jpg
 
What Russian products are you still seeing in the US? Vodka? Since I don't drink, I see none. On the other hand, I understand the US still buys Russian natural resource products, like minerals. Is this what you're referring to?

One amazing thing about the US (and we are not alone in this conundrum) is that we refuse to allow much mineral extraction in the US, with inefficient permitting processes in the name of environmental protection, yet we are perfectly willing to buy most natural resource commodities from countries which have far less protective extraction rules. I suppose our NIMBY special interests and environmentalists forget this is one planet, and that mining in the US might be better for the planet than buying from less "enlightened" countries.

It is unfortunate that mining anything ultimately destroys the environment around where the mining is done. I am pretty sure the transportation of the minerals and whatnot is the least environmentally bad part of the process.

Would be good for those in "the west" to have a few mines closeby to experience what its like.

Having grown up in a coal mining area , I can understand why folk dont want them in their backyard

Might open a few eyes
 
It is unfortunate that mining anything ultimately destroys the environment around where the mining is done. I am pretty sure the transportation of the minerals and whatnot is the least environmentally bad part of the process.

Would be good for those in "the west" to have a few mines closeby to experience what its like.

Having grown up in a coal mining area , I can understand why folk dont want them in their backyard

Might open a few eyes
I don't disagree, however you have to keep a few things in mind. Here in the US (and presumably in Europe as well) there are rules for restoring the land after use, not so in some random African nation. Another great example is rare earth metal mining. The PRC is massively scaling back production and cracking down on illegal mining operations that are poisoning there waters/soil. Meanwhile US rare earth mining is heavily subsidized because it cannot be cost competitive while following the extra EPA and OSHA regulations that must be followed here. One final example would be oil. Why would the US block the building of a pipeline to Canada on environmental grounds? Some nation in Asia will just buy it up and have huge tankers ship it across the pacific. The US will still need oil, so they end up buying it from the Saudis (like they were already doing) or begging Iran on your hands and knees (during the period of high oil prices within the US throughout 2022) only to ship that across the Atlantic. These tankers end up burning a bunch of fuel as well as running the risk of having an oil spill.

So while you are right the extraction has alot of unavoidable pollution (a great example being that drilling for oil causes CH4 to vent to atmosphere causing more damage than actually burning the stuff); there are still environmental/ethical gains to be made from extracting them in countries with stricter regulations or closer to where they are being used.
 
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