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Luke James is a freelance writer and journalist.\u00a0 Although his background is in legal, he has a personal interest in all things tech, especially hardware and microelectronics, and anything regulatory.\u00a0 ","collapsible":{"enabled":true,"maxHeight":250,"readMoreText":"Read more","readLessText":"Read less"}}), "https://slice.vanilla.futurecdn.net/13-4-18/js/authorBio.js"); } else { console.error('%c FTE ','background: #9306F9; color: #ffffff','no lazy slice hydration function available'); } Luke James Social Links Navigation Contributor Luke James is a freelance writer and journalist. Although his background is in legal, he has a personal interest in all things tech, especially hardware and microelectronics, and anything regulatory.
usertests I can buy that getting everything into one building may lead to optimizations and cost reductions. But I didn't hear anything about paying the ASML toll or how they can possibly get to 50x production of everyone else combined. Whereas Substrate ("likened to a fraud") at least has the idea of beating ASML at its own game. Reply
TerryLaze Isn't $20billion a fart in the wind compared to the FABs already producing chips in the USA? Not even counting the $100+ intel invested in the last years or the $100+ that tsmc invested in USA FABs. (those don't produce yet) Reply
Zaranthos I won't be at all surprised if he ends up with a USA based chip fab that outperforms many other fabs. If he can get Tesla bots doing labor he'll eliminate much of the domestic production argument that labor is too costly in the US. He also continually gets underestimated about his ability to do what the so-called experts say is impossible. According to much of the media and experts Tesla was never supposed to achieve mass production goals, SpaceX would fail, X (Twitter) was doomed to fail as well but still dominates the market space by far. Even if he doesn't outperform he probably still saves money in the long run by making chips in house instead of paying someone else to do it. Reply
usertests Zaranthos said: I won't be at all surprised if he ends up with a USA based chip fab that outperforms many other fabs. If he can get Tesla bots doing labor he'll eliminate much of the domestic production argument that labor is too costly in the US. He also continually gets underestimated about his ability to do what the so-called experts say is impossible. According to much of the media and experts Tesla was never supposed to achieve mass production goals, SpaceX would fail, X (Twitter) was doomed to fail as well but still dominates the market space by far. Even if he doesn't outperform he probably still saves money in the long run by making chips in house instead of paying someone else to do it. That figure, he said, represents about 2% of his companies’ eventual needs. If he "eventually" wants 55-60x of current global fab capacity, that seems unlikely. SpaceX has done well and the Falcon 9 capability would outlast the company if it suffered financial problems. Tesla, X, and xAI all face big problems. If the AI bubble bursts, the market won't be kind to Terafab and space datacenter plans. At some point, risk beats hype. Car companies are hard. A car company transforming into a robotics company is a crazy gamble. Reply
thestryker Who's going to license all of the IP required to make this functional? I absolutely believe such a facility can be made, but no company in their right mind is going to license manufacturing nodes or product technology to make it function. That would mean either buying up smaller companies or developing it themselves both of which are expensive and would take a while. Then there's also being beholden to ASML's timelines since they can only make so many EUV machines per year. Lastly they need sufficient support companies which may be tricky at this scale though I imagine money greases this wheel since Samsung already has fabs in the general area so it should just be expanding existing infrastructure as opposed to entirely new. Reply
DataMeister What is the purpose of referring to the number of chips being made by the gigawatts or terrawatts of electricity being used instead of the actual number of chips? Reply
usertests DataMeister said: What is the purpose of referring to the number of chips being made by the gigawatts or terrawatts of electricity being used instead of the actual number of chips? It could be a manipulation: The other will be a higher-power chip hardened for the space environment, which Musk says will run hotter than “terrestrial” designs to minimize radiator mass on satellites. But gigawatts/terawatts could be a good way to measure the satellite fleet since the sats are going to take in and dissipate predictable amounts of power. Reply
CelicaGT More announcements to bump stock price. I'm reasonably sure this project will not get past the paper stage just like all the others. Reply
bit_user Zaranthos said: I won't be at all surprised if he ends up with a USA based chip fab that outperforms many other fabs. It has taken teams of researchers decades to achieve current lithography nodes. It's not easy for someone to come along and just spin up a completely new foundry, unless they license or steal the IP for it. I don't know who would license Musk 2 nm-equivalent technology, or who he would acquire to get it. For a while, I was worried he'd buy Intel. Zaranthos said: If he can get Tesla bots doing labor he'll eliminate much of the domestic production argument that labor is too costly in the US. Although Taiwanese fab workers are paid less than their US-based counterparts, that's not the main reason TSMC has gotten ahead. Semiconductor fabrication is the ultimate high-value manufacturing, which is why Intel could compete in the past. What's currently holding them back is not labor costs. Zaranthos said: He also continually gets underestimated about his ability to do what the so-called experts say is impossible. He also has a long history of underestimating hard problems and completely missing his stated goals. Hyper Loop and fully-autonomous self-driving are two of the bigger examples. Zaranthos said: X (Twitter) was doomed to fail It's still failing (i.e. losing money), but we lack visibility because he took it private and then merged it with his AI company, which he then merged with SpaceX. He's just playing a shell game to hide all the money it's losing under the one rock that's (still) successful (i.e. SpaceX). Reply
bit_user thestryker said: Lastly they need sufficient support companies which may be tricky at this scale though I imagine money greases this wheel since Samsung already has fabs in the general area so it should just be expanding existing infrastructure as opposed to entirely new. Samsung's expansion plans should already be stressing suppliers, I'd imagine. Furthermore, what supplier is going to take a gamble on expanding capacity, on the basis of Musk's crazy scheme? Reply
Key considerations
- Investor positioning can change fast
- Volatility remains possible near catalysts
- Macro rates and liquidity can dominate flows
Reference reading
- https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/elon-musk-formally-launches-20-billion-terafab-chip-project#main
- https://www.tomshardware.com
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Informational only. No financial advice. Do your own research.