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.
Bear in mind that this could be a "thin edge of the wedge" situation. Where they get this "older" node stuff up and running, and if it turns out to be going well then they can think about newer process/node sizes.
> Bear in mind that this could be a "thin edge of the wedge" situation. Where they get this "older" node stuff up and running, and if it turns out to be going well then they can think about newer process/node sizes.
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.
But Global Foundries doesn't have the ability to do newer/smaller node sizes, so they can't "level up" at a future time. That is, unless Global Foundries makes some massive investments. Which they've not demonstrated any willingness to do, nor competence at doing.
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.
Nothing is stopping GloFo from licensing 7nm and beyond from Samsung, like they did for 14nm. Except indeed those massive investments.
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.
The problem with that is that this is essentially just a TSMC fab. If they wanted to, they could have easily used a newer node. And there isn't even significant technology transfer involved with TSMC having a 70% stake and there already being fabs with this level of tech in Europe at GlobalFoundries and others.
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.
No. Its irrelevant if you produce electric or combustion vehicles (or even household electronics in general): The biggest demand is for chips on an efficient (read: older) process.
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.
1. They do want to produce ICE cars for several more decades, yes.
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.
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.