So, as someone who used to be an engineer in semiconductor manufacturing facilities, this reminds me a lot of Sematech. That was a joint venture between American companies in the 90's, when there was a concern that we were falling behind Japan. I'm sure there will be people who try to claim otherwise, but my view from inside AMD (at that time still doing its own manufacturing) was that nothing much ever came out of Sematech. It was a lot of hype, but not much result.
If, at the time of the founding of TSMC, you had tried to get a consortium of companies, much less nations, to agree on the idea of a semiconductor foundry, you would not have been able to get agreement to do it. Consortiums can help to pool resources when everyone knows what needs doing, but even Intel has had a problem getting the latest generation of semi manufacturing going, and their problem sure wasn't a lack of resources. Sometimes the problem is the speed of innovation, and the more parties you have involved the harder it is to get agreement to try any given thing, especially if it is innovative (i.e. not certain to work).
I wish them good fortune, it would be good for the stability of the world economy not to have all the world's advanced semiconductors made in one region, but I am skeptical of whether or not this can make a big difference, no matter how much money is spent.
Most competitive chips in the world are produced by machines made in the Netherlands at ASMI/ASML
The US companies do what they do best: innovate business models and find ways to vendor lock in and own the market.
But who's been doing all the research keeping moore's law alive? Lithography?
For a country as small as the Netherlands, you can wonder if we could afford from a geopolitical point of view to be producing all the world's chips (answer: no, it would force other place to invest highly in competition out of strategic interest).
Hence the strategy of being long term profitable and to just sell the machines to everyone at the same price.
It does make it baffling why Intel is unable to produce 5nn chips with the same ASML machines TSC is using. It must be management failing Boeing style.
As for the rest of Europe. Im sure they can politically do this. But where will the money end up?
It will end up in the pockets of friends and families of politicians that will be in "the management".
So don't expect anything from this. The future most sold chip will still be Apple Silicon or Samsung Exynos in TSC's foundry or Samsung foundry on a machine by ASML using IP from ARM and NVidia
If they can execute, which I very much doubt, given the history of similar EU initiatives. The only example I can think of is Airbus. Those funds are usually funneled toward bullshit vendors that are specialised in milking such EU programs, with nothing to show for it afterwards.
Journalist or, more likely, EU press release office not very knowledgeable on the semiconductor industry choosing to mention the three largest countries by population in the headline, and the rest in a list embedded in the article. Journalist at Reuters probably just took the official press release and edited the grammar/wording a bit. I agree that the selection should probably be Germany, France, Netherlands, Italy if looking at the relative importance in semiconductors, but probably choosing by country population is a standard thing they do to avoid complaints.
Perhaps that's the point? If NL feels like they already have an effective domestic industry for their needs, there is no need to sign-on and invest resources here.
However, for these other countries, they have concerns that are not strictly economic, but also related to national security and economic flexibility.
I don't know their plans, but I wouldn't be surprised if a pragmatic solution wouldn't be to co-invest in domestic fab facilities with existing incumbents who agree to comply with domestic interests as relates to sourcing, labor practices, IP sharing, local hiring, training, and environment controls.
It doesn't necessarily mean "spend money to beat TSMC at the tip of the spear". I mean, at least, I hope it wouldn't. Not at first.
In kind of a similar vein, many years ago Germany decided to become kind of the silicon valley of optics and photonics (e.g., lasers and their ilk). While I don't think they are the dominant player today, they are certainly a force to be reckoned with, and they seem to have a developed a decent pipeline of ideas and people from university and government labs to a private sector that is probably subsidized.
Granted, it's a smaller business than semi, but it suggests to me that a national program to strengthen an industry isn't guaranteed to be a failure.
The EUV source inside ASML's lithography machines is from the German optics company Zeiss, and the lasers used in that system which generates EUV wavelength light by bombarding tin droplets is also from another German company, Trumpf.
Isn't the problem that European tech companies are sold to American companies? There are and have been countless of European chipmakers but they are usually bought by Americans.
European companies grow to a certain size, and are then either sold to an established American company or relaunched from Silicon Valley with American investments.
I think most of this is tax driven. American tax rules allow venture funds and also private wealth to accumulate and grow easier than European counterparts. The American government simply allows its business and private individuals to accumulate money via off shore companies in the Caribbean. The US deliberately allows this.
Genuine question - Has any major tech innovation/ product come out European industry (mainland EU) over the last couple of decades ? (not Academia)
Their biggest tech companies are Spotify and Skype. That's pretty underwhelming given that Spotify's biggest innovations are in product development and Skype became a subsidiary of an American company within 2 years of its existence.
Additionally, the 2 companies that seem to have industry tech talent: UK and Sweden, are not part of this deal.
ASML comes to mind. Dutch company building large lithography machines being used to create semi conductors.
The tech scene in mainland Europe operates completely differently from what you might be used to from Silicon Valley, but there is lots of stuff going on. If you only look at the European car manufactures and the endless amount of small-to-medium sized businesses involved in the supply chain. Lots of stuff going on.
EU power is in niches. There are many companies specialised equipment, are worth billions and if you are not in that niche you probably never hear pf them. For example most of electron microscopes are developed and manufactured in EU. (Actually more than 60% of world supply is manufactured in my home town of 350k)
Short answer: yes, there is plenty of innovation taking place in diverse domains ranging from elevators to energy grids to robotics to pharmacology/biotech to medtech to defence to telecommunications to green tech and so forth and so on.
If the criteria of tech innovation is a cloud-based xAAS then the list will be unfortunately short.
The semiconductor push was really expected for a longer time already and is (I think) obviously part of the aspirations in the strategic autonomy continuum. If the roles were reversed, that is, EU with some Asian countries owned and controlled the majority of all chip fabrication, it would make perfect sense for USA to start chip production of its own on its own soil.
25% of the worlds research is done in the EU and a lot of that leads to something. Sounds to me like you look for software for the average Windows user only. ESA and CERN alone leads to huge innovations.
Skype was great software, came out in 2003 (!) , at the time when whatsapp, facebook and twitter didn't even exist!
It was the first practical videocall software and pioniered the niche. It did more to improve my life than all social networks combined. I backed it with hard cash, paying for Skype premium or whatever it was called.
Then in 2011 MS bought it, and best as I can tell, has delivered no real improvement for the consumer.
The client was rewritten twice, now it's in JS, glitchy, slower and serves adds.
I think the world would have been better off with independant Skype, Zoom should have never become a thing.
You know, tech includes things like trains, aeroplanes, biotechnology, power, scientific instruments, chemistry... But yeah, it's HN, tech here means only FAANG.
What will actually happen: some countries will spend a trivial amount of money in a PR stunt with not coordination between the countries and result in no advance for the EU countries participating.
So, what would a new bleeding edge modern architecture and instruction set look like if one could start from scratch? I assume general computing so cell phones and servers are the target.
Under this line of thinking, EU or Britain should think twice about approving Nvidia's purchase of arm. Arm's British's one of the most influential technology company in the world. And with Apple's M1 and other arm chips movements lately, the future of computing will be moving to arm from x86. Arm is not financially strong right now, but there are so much potential to improve it's financials. Make arm remains an British company and build it in Britian should be one of the method to realize this semi dream
How will they be keeping talent? I heard workers in IT are paid low compared to other jobs and especially compared to similar jobs in North America, what stops them. from just going to US/Canada?
AFAIK, KiCAD got its recent boost from CERN. It would be a common good if europeans go further to push up development of open source tools for IC manufacturing. This will loosen world's dependance on US backed proprietary and extremely expensive technologies.
Is it just me, or do you also worry that something like this could easily head down the path of "design by committee" given the many countries and politics involved? Equal-to-current-best-practice is not good enough as a goal.
What something like this needs is a leader driven by a huge personal product/technology belief and vision, backed up by personal technical capability, and his/her ass on the line. Versus what I could see is some generic credentialed CEO being put in to the top position to "manage", with little penalty for failure.
Semiconductor sector usually has a No. 1 player which takes more than 50% of the market share of a specific application or business model. It is a very crowded field and very difficult to catch up to current leaders. Unless Europe has a game changing technology or business model, I am not optimistic about the outcome. They should think about working with Taiwan or South Korea instead of going alone. US end up persuades(orders) Taiwan to make sure TSMC builds a new plant in US.
For Europe to see it a success it does not need to be better than the established alternatives, it only need to reduce the prices by increasing competition.
[+] [-] rossdavidh|5 years ago|reply
If, at the time of the founding of TSMC, you had tried to get a consortium of companies, much less nations, to agree on the idea of a semiconductor foundry, you would not have been able to get agreement to do it. Consortiums can help to pool resources when everyone knows what needs doing, but even Intel has had a problem getting the latest generation of semi manufacturing going, and their problem sure wasn't a lack of resources. Sometimes the problem is the speed of innovation, and the more parties you have involved the harder it is to get agreement to try any given thing, especially if it is innovative (i.e. not certain to work).
I wish them good fortune, it would be good for the stability of the world economy not to have all the world's advanced semiconductors made in one region, but I am skeptical of whether or not this can make a big difference, no matter how much money is spent.
[+] [-] arnaudsm|5 years ago|reply
Intel is dying a slow death, ARM is leaving UK's control, and TSMC is slowly taken over by China. The tables are turning.
[+] [-] ralfn|5 years ago|reply
The US companies do what they do best: innovate business models and find ways to vendor lock in and own the market.
But who's been doing all the research keeping moore's law alive? Lithography?
For a country as small as the Netherlands, you can wonder if we could afford from a geopolitical point of view to be producing all the world's chips (answer: no, it would force other place to invest highly in competition out of strategic interest).
Hence the strategy of being long term profitable and to just sell the machines to everyone at the same price.
It does make it baffling why Intel is unable to produce 5nn chips with the same ASML machines TSC is using. It must be management failing Boeing style.
As for the rest of Europe. Im sure they can politically do this. But where will the money end up?
It will end up in the pockets of friends and families of politicians that will be in "the management".
So don't expect anything from this. The future most sold chip will still be Apple Silicon or Samsung Exynos in TSC's foundry or Samsung foundry on a machine by ASML using IP from ARM and NVidia
[+] [-] MrBuddyCasino|5 years ago|reply
If they can execute, which I very much doubt, given the history of similar EU initiatives. The only example I can think of is Airbus. Those funds are usually funneled toward bullshit vendors that are specialised in milking such EU programs, with nothing to show for it afterwards.
[+] [-] yvdriess|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sitkack|5 years ago|reply
I do agree that every continent should have a modern fab along with the supply chain to feed and repair it.
[+] [-] nraynaud|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] burlesona|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vmchale|5 years ago|reply
Lots of better stuff in the US, until recently when the stagnation in the US made it more feasible (and politics made things scarier).
[+] [-] b0rsuk|5 years ago|reply
It ain't much, but it's honest work.
[+] [-] MangoCoffee|5 years ago|reply
far from it
[+] [-] joelbluminator|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ElKrist|5 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STMicroelectronics
[+] [-] jng|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hans1729|5 years ago|reply
GER and FR are just bigger names
[+] [-] amelius|5 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_semiconductor_fabricat...
[+] [-] numbsafari|5 years ago|reply
However, for these other countries, they have concerns that are not strictly economic, but also related to national security and economic flexibility.
I don't know their plans, but I wouldn't be surprised if a pragmatic solution wouldn't be to co-invest in domestic fab facilities with existing incumbents who agree to comply with domestic interests as relates to sourcing, labor practices, IP sharing, local hiring, training, and environment controls.
It doesn't necessarily mean "spend money to beat TSMC at the tip of the spear". I mean, at least, I hope it wouldn't. Not at first.
[+] [-] ajnin|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] batmansmk|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alphager|5 years ago|reply
Don't know about the others.
[+] [-] aduitsis|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] deltron3030|5 years ago|reply
German companies like Zeiss build parts for e.g. ASML.
[+] [-] analog31|5 years ago|reply
Granted, it's a smaller business than semi, but it suggests to me that a national program to strengthen an industry isn't guaranteed to be a failure.
[+] [-] herodoturtle|5 years ago|reply
"Isn't guaranteed to be a failure".
Sorry, I struggle to interpret sentences like this. English isn't my first language.
Please clarify?
Are you saying that "it is not definitely a failure"?
I can't figure out if it's the above, or if it is this:
"won't necessary fail"
More specifically, I'm not sure if the implication is optimistic or pessimistic.
I hope that makes sense - the nuances of English are a delightful journey of exceptions; something my programming brain struggles with at times.
[+] [-] magicsmoke|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] flexie|5 years ago|reply
European companies grow to a certain size, and are then either sold to an established American company or relaunched from Silicon Valley with American investments.
I think most of this is tax driven. American tax rules allow venture funds and also private wealth to accumulate and grow easier than European counterparts. The American government simply allows its business and private individuals to accumulate money via off shore companies in the Caribbean. The US deliberately allows this.
[+] [-] screye|5 years ago|reply
Their biggest tech companies are Spotify and Skype. That's pretty underwhelming given that Spotify's biggest innovations are in product development and Skype became a subsidiary of an American company within 2 years of its existence.
Additionally, the 2 companies that seem to have industry tech talent: UK and Sweden, are not part of this deal.
[+] [-] sfvisser|5 years ago|reply
The tech scene in mainland Europe operates completely differently from what you might be used to from Silicon Valley, but there is lots of stuff going on. If you only look at the European car manufactures and the endless amount of small-to-medium sized businesses involved in the supply chain. Lots of stuff going on.
[+] [-] skummetmaelk|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dejv|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jnurmine|5 years ago|reply
If the criteria of tech innovation is a cloud-based xAAS then the list will be unfortunately short.
The semiconductor push was really expected for a longer time already and is (I think) obviously part of the aspirations in the strategic autonomy continuum. If the roles were reversed, that is, EU with some Asian countries owned and controlled the majority of all chip fabrication, it would make perfect sense for USA to start chip production of its own on its own soil.
[+] [-] SSLy|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Daho0n|5 years ago|reply
25% of the worlds research is done in the EU and a lot of that leads to something. Sounds to me like you look for software for the average Windows user only. ESA and CERN alone leads to huge innovations.
[+] [-] ClumsyPilot|5 years ago|reply
It was the first practical videocall software and pioniered the niche. It did more to improve my life than all social networks combined. I backed it with hard cash, paying for Skype premium or whatever it was called.
Then in 2011 MS bought it, and best as I can tell, has delivered no real improvement for the consumer.
The client was rewritten twice, now it's in JS, glitchy, slower and serves adds.
I think the world would have been better off with independant Skype, Zoom should have never become a thing.
[+] [-] dariosalvi78|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lou1306|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] LunaSea|5 years ago|reply
Source: All other industries in Europe.
[+] [-] Gravityloss|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] russli1993|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ur-whale|5 years ago|reply
We've all seen it and already know the end of the movie.
Good luck to them, but I wouldn't build any kind of business plan based on the predicted outcome.
[+] [-] Zdup|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] monkeydust|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ruslan|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eating555|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mrlonglong|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ivan1783|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] supernova87a|5 years ago|reply
What something like this needs is a leader driven by a huge personal product/technology belief and vision, backed up by personal technical capability, and his/her ass on the line. Versus what I could see is some generic credentialed CEO being put in to the top position to "manage", with little penalty for failure.
[+] [-] guai888|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bogidon|5 years ago|reply
Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain
https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/news/joint-dec...
[+] [-] punnerud|5 years ago|reply
List of EU projects with associated legislations and projects: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/legislative-train/