[fullmetal]

GK3 -- Intel's chip plant projects don't actually reshore very much imo.  The demand for semiconductors is high enough that even increasing domestic capacity is unlikely to decrease dependence overseas (plus, Intel doesn't outsource much of its production overseas, though I hear rumblings that this could change at 3nm).  Additionally, I need to see Intel's foundry model in action before I believe that Intel will be economically viable at soaking up domestic semiconductor demand.

Good points.  Last I heard Intel out sourced roughly 20 percent of its non CPU chips, mostly going to TSMC and UMC.  However, I do think they intend to bring back more CPU production to the USA.  I think a large percentage of their chips are made in Taiwan and there could be lots of issues with Taiwan down the road depending on what China decides to do.  We IMO we need to get enough production back to allow us to function if things fall apart in Asia.  Now is the time to start the change, not when things hit the fan.

I bet they're maintaining the Altera etc. fab contracts for any and all acquisitions...but Intel also has at least a few non-US fabs too.  Not sure what nodes they're fabbing.

But of course, the US (much less the world) needs more than just Intel silicon.  Reshoring a substantial amount of production would be good, but there aren't enough semiconductor tools in existence to equip new fabs, and the number of equipment engineers and techs required to staff those fabs is way higher than the US can handle right now.  The expertise required to use and maintain those tools is quite specialized, and those skills aren't taught in universities because those jobs just aren't that lucrative.  A local fab has an agreement with a community college to teach such skills, but this doesn't scale in the way that we need.  TSMC's Phoenix fab has already cannibalized a bunch of the local fab's engineers and sent them over to Taiwan for a couple years' training before the Phoenix site is ready to start work.

tl;dr - we're bottlenecked hard by tool availability and labor supply.  (not to mention helium, argon, neon, etc since the market for those is substantially supplied by Ukraine/Russia)

[fullmetal]

GK3 -- Intel's chip plant projects don't actually reshore very much imo.  The demand for semiconductors is high enough that even increasing domestic capacity is unlikely to decrease dependence overseas (plus, Intel doesn't outsource much of its production overseas, though I hear rumblings that this could change at 3nm).  Additionally, I need to see Intel's foundry model in action before I believe that Intel will be economically viable at soaking up domestic semiconductor demand.

Good points.  Last I heard Intel out sourced roughly 20 percent of its non CPU chips, mostly going to TSMC and UMC.  However, I do think they intend to bring back more CPU production to the USA.  I think a large percentage of their chips are made in Taiwan and there could be lots of issues with Taiwan down the road depending on what China decides to do.  We IMO we need to get enough production back to allow us to function if things fall apart in Asia.  Now is the time to start the change, not when things hit the fan.

I bet they're maintaining the Altera etc. fab contracts for any and all acquisitions...but Intel also has at least a few non-US fabs too.  Not sure what nodes they're fabbing.

But of course, the US (much less the world) needs more than just Intel silicon.  Reshoring a substantial amount of production would be good, but there aren't enough semiconductor tools in existence to equip new fabs, and the number of equipment engineers and techs required to staff those fabs is way higher than the US can handle right now.  The expertise required to use and maintain those tools is quite specialized, and those skills aren't taught in universities because those jobs just aren't that lucrative.  A local fab has an agreement with a community college to teach such skills, but this doesn't scale in the way that we need.  TSMC's Phoenix fab has already cannibalized a bunch of the local fab's engineers and sent them over to Taiwan for a couple years' training before the Phoenix site is ready to start work.

tl;dr - we're bottlenecked hard by tool availability and labor supply.  (not to mention helium, argon, neon, etc since the market for those is substantially supplied by Ukraine/Russia)