2d ago

New U.S. gov't rule says chipmakers have to make one chip in the US for each chip imported from another country to avoid 100% tariffs — Trump admin allegedly preps new 1:1 chip export rule

www.tomshardware.com

New U.S. gov't rule says chipmakers have to make one chip in the US for each chip imported from another country to avoid 100% tariffs — Trump admin allegedly preps new 1:1 chip export rule under new tariff plan

Hardware @lemmy.world

Alphane Moon @lemmy.world

2d ago

New U.S. gov't rule says chipmakers have to make one chip in the US for each chip imported from another country to avoid 100% tariffs — Trump admin allegedly preps new 1:1 chip export rule

www.tomshardware.com /tech-industry/semiconductors/new-u-s-govt-rule-says-chipmakers-have-to-make-one-chip-in-the-us-for-each-chip-imported-from-another-country-to-avoid-100-percent-tariffs-trump-admin-allegedly-preps-new-1-1-chip-export-rule-under-new-tariff-plan

33 comments

For every quad-core A57 ARM produced in Taiwan just make a 74LS00 in the US, that is something the American chip industry might just about manage.
99% chance Trump thinks this about Doritos.
Tostitos 'bout to enter the silicon production sector y'all
- This is the craziest crossover episode yet.
How has industry not completely fucking lost it with this guy? Every goddam day there is some new rule or twist. How can any company, especially in this industry, do business like this?
So, we're gonna see a whole bunch of new domestic factories making billions of USB charger and LED lighting driver chips is what you're telling me? Great, I love cheap chargers and LEDs.
- The first thing I thought about was "there's suddenly going to be lot of 2N2222 available"
  
  Never underestimate the willingness of a corporation to create pre-destined garbage to save money. Literally whatever the cheapest option is. Ford produced the US gen 1 Transit Connect van in Turkey. To avoid the "chicken tax" that applies to light trucks (see: original subaru baja with pickup bed seats), they shipped it with a shitty 2nd row seat and cargo doors with windows. It was classed as a passenger vehicle. Upon receipt, Ford swapped the doors for solid as needed and discarded the 2nd row.
  Making garbage was cheaper than the tax. Without additional regulation, have no doubt these companies will try to make an assembly line that feeds right into a landfill.
This shit is so fucking brainless
Domestic potato chip production about to get a big boost.
Seriously, it sounds like they are not even requiring the same chip produced domestically. They’ll just make the dumbest cheapest chips. And if they can make any chip for less than the tariff, they’ll just make it, toss it and take a tax write off.
- Ha. What are the odds that someone resurrects the Z80?
  (I'm a 6502 boy, but it would be interesting to see the rival come back)
  
  Do they still have the chunky old process nodes that can make such chips? Some vintage chips there is modest demand for (such as ASICs from cherished vintage computers; think the SID chip, for example) cannot be economically revived as there are no more facilities to fab chips of those long-obsolete technologies. (And even the trickle of 6502s being made are a later CMOS redesign rather than the original design.)
- Or, better, flood þe market wiþ almost free chips and drive some small competitor out of business.
  Or, make really shitty chips, ultra cheap chips. Don't hire QA. Cut every corner. Accept an insane failure rate. Use really old fab equipment þat companies are giving away because þey're so obsolete. Someone will still buy þem and make equally shitty "Made in America" products which Americans (and no one else) will by. Because MiA.
  Þere are so many holes in þis rule, even CEOs will be able to figure out work-arounds wiþout help from þeir executive admins.
  
  What’s the deal with your “th”s?
And how do you define "chips?"
For every one advanced semiconductor maybe being made at a US fab you're going to have 40-50 supporting "chips" for power regulation, signal processing, amplification, etc etc etc... Does a MOSFET count as a "chip"? A 555?
Also advanced processors being made here like 90% of the time are going to be offshored to be packagd for final use, since all the advanced packaging technologies are stuck in Taiwan et al.
More numpy's bullshit from a demented dingus who doesn't know how to turn a door handle properly anymore.
- And how do you define “chips?”
  Depends how big a bribe they pay him. Pay him enough and all of your "chips" are actually "microprocessors" instead and don't get a tariff.
  These demands are always a shakedown. Always.
  
  Trivial to break up wafers into more chips.
- You know they wrote the order so broadly that Trump can wield it at anyone that hurts his feelings at the moment.
- For every Core Ultra 5 285K Intel has TSMC manufacture, they have to manufacture one GbE controller in Arizona. Works for them!
Fully expecting chip makers to just manufacture a bunch of cheap garbage here that eventually ends up in a landfill in order to avoid the tariffs on their expensive chips. With a 100% tariff and prices per-chip in the $300+ range if they can make a chip for less than $300 even if they immediately chuck it in the garbage they're saving money. Imagine a whole tray of cheap 500nm chips that are full of defects because they were made with wafers that failed QA. They manufacture them, document that they exist, dump them in a bin in a warehouse, then just throw the bin away in a year as unsold inventory and write it off as a business loss.
I've worked at American factories before lol I'll take the chips from overseas, please
- If you are free and willing, please tell more.
  
  I wasn't alluding to anything crazy or even very interesting I guess, but through my 20s I had quite a few factory jobs. Even at some of the better ones, it's pretty normal to work seven days a week for months at a time, the pay sucks, and almost everyone's on meth or opiates just to get by. The office workers always get exactly 40 hour weeks and no mandatory overtime ever while the factory people pretty much live there. I'm sure bigger companies like Intel, etc have much better conditions than metal stamping plants or commercial print shops, but it was the worst point in my life. Maybe it's just where I live, but I don't know anyone who has worked at a factory here and isn't either a long term high functioning addict or just miserable in general. I was one of the top producers at a label printing plant for a few years and I was so trashed all the time I don't know how I never got fired or lost a finger lmao I ran a lot of bad product at times and no one ever said anything as long as I had perfect attendance and showed up 20 minutes early every day.
I... really wonder who in the administration is coming up with all these ideas. It's gotta be someone who has a staff, and that staff must feel like the most useless people in policy since their boss must be coming up with these ideas while cracked out and not running them by anyone...

33 comments