EU Takes On United States, Asia With Chip Subsidy Plan (reuters.com) 25
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: The European Union on Tuesday agreed a 43 billion euro ($47 billion) plan for its semiconductor industry in an attempt to catch up with the United States and Asia and start a green industrial revolution. The EU Chips Act, proposed by the European Commission last year and confirmed by Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton, aims to double the bloc's share of global chip output to 20% by 2030 and follows the U.S. CHIPS for America Act.
"We need chips to power digital and green transitions or healthcare systems," Commission Vice-President Margrethe Vestager said in a tweet. Since the announcement of its chips subsidies plan last year, the EU has already attracted more than 100 billion euros in public and private investments, an EU official said. "The critical piece of the equation which the EU will need to get right, as for the U.S., is how much of the supply chains supporting the industry can be moved to the EU and at what cost," said [Paul Triolo, a China and tech expert at the Washington-based Center for Strategic & International Studies]. While the Commission had originally proposed funding only cutting-edge chip plants, EU governments and lawmakers have widened the scope to cover the whole value chain, including older chips and research and design facilities.
"We need chips to power digital and green transitions or healthcare systems," Commission Vice-President Margrethe Vestager said in a tweet. Since the announcement of its chips subsidies plan last year, the EU has already attracted more than 100 billion euros in public and private investments, an EU official said. "The critical piece of the equation which the EU will need to get right, as for the U.S., is how much of the supply chains supporting the industry can be moved to the EU and at what cost," said [Paul Triolo, a China and tech expert at the Washington-based Center for Strategic & International Studies]. While the Commission had originally proposed funding only cutting-edge chip plants, EU governments and lawmakers have widened the scope to cover the whole value chain, including older chips and research and design facilities.
Ban TikTok invest in technology (Score:1, Funny)
How's the song go? (Score:2)
Money for nothing and the chips are free.
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That ain't working.
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But that's the way we do it.
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Dirty deeds done with chips
Americans Should Be Happy (Score:5, Insightful)
This isn't some kind of zero-sum fight with the Americans. We all benefit from greater diversity in chip production among western democracies. Yes, there will be competition (and consumers will benefit from that) but almost the whole world wins by making sure that a conflict over Taiwan or elsewhere in the Asian sphere wouldn't risk a global chip shortage.
Almost everyone since you could make an argument that Taiwan losses if they are no longer absolutely critical to global microprocessor manufacture.
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"Almost everyone since you could make an argument that Taiwan losses if they are no longer absolutely critical to global microprocessor manufacture."
You could also argue that Taiwan wins when TSMC is no longer the strategic prize to be captured by China. And then leveraged to force US and EU to back down from sanctions.
If that scenario is off the table, then China has to deal Russia-like sanctions.
Question: Examples of Euro Chip design? (Score:2)
Are there examples of chips from European designers? ARM doesn't count, since UK left the EU.
In the mid '80s, I was part of a Siemens/Intel collaborative project. Intel provided the chips and operating system, and I think the compilers.
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Siemens provided the DBMS, the software development environment (part I worked on), manufacturing and system integration (chips into boxes). There were other contributions from Siemens that I've forgotten, I think the effort was about 60-40 Siemens/Intel. This was about the same time as the 286 line came out, and Intel soon lost interest in anything not running Windows.
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There is some RISC-V stuff that is being worked on. However, what Europe desperately needs are fabs. Chip designs mean nothing without that.
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Raspberry Pi!
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I thought Raspberry Pi was an ARM processor, and mostly about the board design, rather than the chips. (I admit to more knowledge of Arduino than Raspberry Pi.)
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ASML...
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Necessary infrastructure, for sure! But not chip design or fabrication/production by itself.
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Are there examples of chips from European designers?
NXP and Infineon design microcontroller cores. They don't do CPU, but the scope of this Chips funding is not focused for CPU but all microelectronics/semiconductors. Additionally STMicro: owns Freescale; manufactures numerous licenced cores from Atmel and ARM; is a key manufacturer of microactuators that integrate inkjet printer head (their major customer is HP) and camera autofocus.
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Ah, thanks! I figured there had to be some relevant examples!
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Also STM in the past was relatively advanced with FDSOI, they are partnering up to have another go at smaller nodes with it.
That's probably where the opportunities are, FDSOI/GaN/SiC/SiGe on larger processes. Not directly competing with TSMC/Intel.
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One thing worth noting is that the company who makes the lithography machines is European - ASML.
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EU is very unlikely to send money to the UK under this initiative, methinks.
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ARM doesn't count, since UK left the EU.
Oh really? Since when? After all, as Leavers will never tire to tell you, the UK left the EU, not Europe.
UK (Score:5, Funny)
UK is also going to subsidise chips, but you'll still have to pay for the fish.
In your face trade subsidy (Score:2)