Platforms and Process Automation, Capital Utilization #4

[Arthur Hanson]

Semis of all types have given us the ability to save massive amounts of time, talent, physical and financial resources. Platform building of current and future forms will provide what would now be considered an extreme improvement of the application of all resources. Currently, there is massive duplication of efforts at almost every level both vertically and horizontally across industries and businesses. The future is going to belong to platform builders that use all the tools the semi industry has given us at every step of the numerous processes that so far have resisted automation. Platform builders will become and already have become key players in several areas and EDA is among the most advanced so far. Many degrees and skillsets will become obsolete as MIT Technology Review has called for the cessation of training radiologists several years ago for automated processes will do a better job in a fraction of the time, cost, and uses of resources of all type enabled by semis at almost every step of the process. Platforms builders will become key as they figure new ways to automate almost every process before us. Political skills will become of the key skills required of platform builders as they render old ways of doing things obsolete at an ever-increasing rate, displacing and disrupting more and more jobs every year. Automation is going to make much of how our current education and training set up vastly different as people will have to accept change at an ever-increasing rate. This downside will be only be accepted for the results are going to be dramatic increases in the velocity of movement of resources of all types including human, physical and financial making much of the current systems obsolete at an ever-increasing rate I call "The Great Acceleration". Platform builders will become the key players for their ability to deliver value will increase as all technologies advance presenting ever more options for improvement of any process and tool we touch. The revolution is coming and the choice will be to use it or get run over and rendered obsolete by it.

 

[Paul2]

Semis of all types have given us the ability to save massive amounts of time, talent, physical and financial resources. Platform building of current and future forms will provide what would now be considered an extreme improvement of the application of all resources. Currently, there is massive duplication of efforts at almost every level both vertically and horizontally across industries and businesses. The future is going to belong to platform builders that use all the tools the semi industry has given us at every step of the numerous processes that so far have resisted automation. Platform builders will become and already have become key players in several areas and EDA is among the most advanced so far. Many degrees and skillsets will become obsolete as MIT Technology Review has called for the cessation of training radiologists several years ago for automated processes will do a better job in a fraction of the time, cost, and uses of resources of all type enabled by semis at almost every step of the process. Platforms builders will become key as they figure new ways to automate almost every process before us. Political skills will become of the key skills required of platform builders as they render old ways of doing things obsolete at an ever-increasing rate, displacing and disrupting more and more jobs every year. Automation is going to make much of how our current education and training set up vastly different as people will have to accept change at an ever-increasing rate. This downside will be only be accepted for the results are going to be dramatic increases in the velocity of movement of resources of all types including human, physical and financial making much of the current systems obsolete at an ever-increasing rate I call "The Great Acceleration". Platform builders will become the key players for their ability to deliver value will increase as all technologies advance presenting ever more options for improvement of any process and tool we touch. The revolution is coming and the choice will be to use it or get run over and rendered obsolete by it.

Not so "optimistic."

The real economy is there to stay, and become even more prominent as trade with China will get more impeded.

Platforms are not magical money printers, and competition still works.

Besides actual process development, and top tier fabs, there is very few things in the industry which can really be locked down.

Here, I made a statement that the industry will have a one trillion transistor chip by the end of the decade, but the impact from getting one will be very tiny industry wide in comparison to universal availability of desktop PCs, and microcontrollers plunging below $1 mark.

The biggest change I see it the plunge in educated labour rates, and megatons of unemployed MBAs the West will have to accommodate in one way or another.

Western multinational giants are fading, and in the future their competition will come not only from China on which the West can easily legitimise sanctions, but very much democratic countries, and America's military allies.

And the last part gets more important with each day.

 

[Arthur Hanson]

I agree with much of what you say, but the leverage that tech allows is about to increase by several factors. Everything we know is about to be turned on its head. Changes and progress are speeding up and the tech revolution is about to go head-on into automation of literally everything. How we handle accelerating progress as individuals, organizations, and countries will be the key differentiator in how far we progress and deal with the invariable disruption acceleration of technology takes hold and becomes a permanent factor in literally everything. The sharing of resources that now are vastly underutilized is going to be the next great frontier with a payout that is beyond what most can even imagine.

 

[Arthur Hanson]

Not so "optimistic."

The real economy is there to stay, and become even more prominent as trade with China will get more impeded.

Platforms are not magical money printers, and competition still works.

Besides actual process development, and top tier fabs, there is very few things in the industry which can really be locked down.

Here, I made a statement that the industry will have a one trillion transistor chip by the end of the decade, but the impact from getting one will be very tiny industry wide in comparison to universal availability of desktop PCs, and microcontrollers plunging below $1 mark.

The biggest change I see it the plunge in educated labour rates, and megatons of unemployed MBAs the West will have to accommodate in one way or another.

Western multinational giants are fading, and in the future their competition will come not only from China on which the West can easily legitimise sanctions, but very much democratic countries, and America's military allies.

And the last part gets more important with each day.

Platforms will make degrees obsolete as the platform business allows the best of the best to constantly leverage their talents and the competition between platforms will be as intense as it is between Samsung and TSM. The economics of platforms over both research departments and the standard advanced educational model will become greater and greater and I see the EDA companies as first movers since they are already involved in platforms and this offers them the best method of rapid growth both product and economics wise.

Advanced semis of all types and advancing communications will enable this radical change. The entire business and educational models of the world are due for radical change and the pandemic will only accelerate this trend by knocking down barriers that special interests have carefully built and defended over the years. Just like major wars have changed the implementation of technologies, the pandemic has unleashed the ability to change the current wasteful systems in just about everything dramatically. These changes are going to radically speed up the obsolescence of not only how education and research are conducted, but ownership models of both IP and physical products in ways most can't even imagine. This will lead to a massive increase in capital and IP utilization in both speeds of implementation and advancement by spreading the costs over a much larger base. The leveraging of the best and the brightest will also come with many social and economic dangers if not handled properly.

Just like TSM does work for many customers that compete with each other and is able to spread costs over many customers, the same will be true of the platform builders. This will be critical, just like it is for TSM to maintain its almost unrivaled growth rate while protecting each customer's critical IP, yet spread IP process costs over a much larger base than any individual customer could ever hope to achieve.

All this will demand increased capital utilization as the increased speed of new technologies coming on board will demand it as the economically effective life span of nearly everything is becoming shorter and shorter even without these trends. Capital utilization of almost everything will have to go to a platform/shared model to make these new trends viable, increasing the velocity at an ever-increasing rate. Those that don't compete will lose.