Computer chips, is the UK missing a trick?

[sxturbo]

So it's been announced that the EU are to pump 48 billion euros to boost chip production so they are less reliant on Asian manufacturers.

America recently announced they were investing 80 billion dollars so they arent reliant on China..

Boris and his government continually talk about investments to make the UK a super power and all that jazz, but I can't seem to find anything of real substance that we've made big investments in for the future...

Have the UK missed an opportunity that could have paved the way for us to be self sufficient on technology (like we once were)

 

[Notch7]

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company TSMC manufactures 50% of the worlds semiconductors.
and Samsung, which is South Korean manufacture about 25%


Its pretty scary the world is that dependant on 2 businesses for 75% of the market.


I don’t see UK getting a look in unless it’s gonna throw vast sums at it….obv it would be great if it was possible.

 

[Ihavenojob]

Britishvolt gets £100m boost to build UK’s first large-scale ‘gigafactory’ | Electric, hybrid and low-emission cars | The Guardian

 

[SFK]

Have the UK missed an opportunity t

Yes - we still have many experts and expert companies in semi conductors in UK, but v little production capability.

paved the way for us to be self sufficient

No. A new plant costing several billion and taking up a fair bit of space would be great for UK. But would not make UK self sufficient because a plant of that 'small' size would only make a few types of chips, not all the millions of types of chips needed.
- so no self sufficiency for all the chips that would say be needed in a car or phone.

But we should do it as would further improve UK knowledge and capability.

 

[gonch69]

Imagination Technologies UK company that China has been trying to snap up for s long time
Make all the chips for iphones so not that far behind

 

[Ihavenojob]

Britain’s ‘artificial sun’ nuclear fusion reactor releases record 59 megajoules of energy (msn.com)

 

[SFK]

trying

Already have been, they were bought up by a Chinese backed VC fund in 2017

 

[SFK]

For 5 seconds ==== 60 kettles of boiled water.
Give it another 10years.

 

[Ihavenojob]

For 5 seconds ==== 60 kettles of boiled water.
Give it another 10years.

They will spend billions perfecting it, then flog it off on the cheap, as they seem to do most of the time.

 

[SFK]

JET is a European project that the UK remains a partner in.
https://ccfe.ukaea.uk/research/joint-european-torus/
Its new bigger version is already moving to France.
https://www.iter.org/org/ITERinFrance
But we do remain partners.

 

[sxturbo]

Arm was sold off and is now Japanese

 

[fillyboy]

Arm was sold off and is now Japanese

nvidia have been trying to buy it for a couple of years but the sale looks as though it's been blocked so they will 'float' it instead, probably on the US stock market.

UK chip firm Arm sale by Softbank collapses amid competition fears - BBC News

Japanese conglomerate SoftBank has called off its planned sale of UK microchip designer Arm to US technology group Nvidia.

When the deal was first announced in September 2020 it was valued at around $40bn (£29.6bn).

SoftBank now aims to float Arm's shares on the stock market by the end of March next year.

The planned sale had faced major regulatory hurdles in the UK, United States and European Union.

SoftBank and Nvidia agreed to end their sale agreement "because of significant regulatory challenges preventing the consummation of the transaction, despite good faith efforts by the parties," the companies said in a joint statement to investors.

"We will take this opportunity and start preparing to take Arm public, and to make even further progress," SoftBank's chief executive Masayoshi Son added.

SoftBank did not give any other details about Arm's planned stock market listing, which has sparked speculation amongst investors over which stock exchange, or exchanges, will be chosen for the sale.

The statement also said that, in line with the agreement signed by both firms in 2020, SoftBank would keep a $1.25bn non-refundable deposit paid by Nvidia.

 

[sxturbo]

Yes the sales fallen through, SoftBank/arm still come out laughing with there 1.25 billion.

SoftBank is preferring the Nasdaq as it's more technology centred

 

[ajohn]

There were some real deal semiconductor plants in Scotland. Foreign owned but no idea what happened to them or if they have been kept up to date,

Chinese state-backed conglomerate Wingtech Technology is taking full control of the UK's largest semiconductor foundry, Newport Wafer Fab (NWF), for £63 million.

The UK has around 23 fabrication plants, some capable of producing over 1bn chips/yr. The silicon plants are mostly on older platforms. But there is also a high concentration of capacity to produce a type of next-generation chip called a compound semiconductor.

It's all a very fluid business so looking at production per country can be a bit misleading. The big boys produce something and the cheaper end catch up and grow. At that point the original big boys stop producing. This is how Taiwan has grown and China is getting in as well. Samsung is similar. An outfit like Intel is always upgrading and in some cases have a near captive market. It's not so much a case of copying despite what you may hear. It's more perfecting the processing and getting high yields in as small a piece of silicone as possible. Performance helps as well.

Choice of Scotland early on is interesting - vibration is bad news so look for solid bed rock.

 

[ReganAndCarter]

Have the UK missed an opportunity that could have paved the way for us to be self sufficient on technology (like we once were)

Not so much call for valves and transistors these days.

Maybe we could pitch in with the Europeans. Oh wait...............