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TSMC looks to double down on U.S. chip factories as talks in Europe falter

(www.reuters.com)
437 points adventured | 1 comments | 15 May 21 00:49 UTC | HN request time: 0.214s | source
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RcouF1uZ4gsC ◴[15 May 21 01:16 UTC] No.27161374[source]▶
> EU industry commissioner Thierry Breton, who has championed the Eurofab idea, also spoke with TSMC's Europe president, Maria Marced, last month. Although Breton publicly called the TSMC talk a "good exchange," a second person familiar with the matter said the TSMC talks in Europe have gone "very poorly."

Sometimes it seems that EU politicians want to be seen as cutting a hard bargain with industry that they actually harm themselves and the EU. A big example was with the COVID vaccines. The EU felt the need to be seen as striking a good bargain, that for want of a few Euros per dose, they missed out getting the vaccine much earlier. With chips, if you really want the EU to be at the cutting edge of tech, you need these cutting edge fabs in the EU.

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nerbert ◴[15 May 21 01:22 UTC] No.27161420[source]▶
Yeah, that probably mixed with the idea that they should leave the space to local players (who will magically develop a cutting edge know-how?)
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ericbarrett ◴[15 May 21 02:07 UTC] No.27161650[source]▶
It's not hopeless for the EU—many of the necessary machines for any reasonably recent chip fab come from European companies, e.g. ASML.
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blibble ◴[15 May 21 03:33 UTC] No.27162092[source]▶
buying a chisel doesn't make you a master sculptor
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1. wahern ◴[15 May 21 04:03 UTC] No.27162250[source]▶
If you've been selling the most advanced, most capable chisels for generations, unassailable, while your client master sculptors exchange titles.... I don't know what that makes you--kingmaker doesn't quite fit--but it's not nothing. It might make you wary of getting too close (figuratively or physically) to any particular client, lest you risk falling from grace as your client invariably will.