Biden Admin Shells Out $120 Million To Return Chip Startup To US Ownership (theregister.com) 45
Brandon Vigliarolo reports via The Register: Not everything in the semiconductor industry is about shearing off every last nanometer, which is why the Biden administration is splashing out CHIPS Act funding to those pursuing less cutting edge processor production. Case in point, today's announcement that Bloomington, Minnesota-based Polar Semiconductor could be getting up to $120 million in CHIPS funds to double production capacity over the next two years, along with a possible buyout to return the business to U.S. hands.
Polar, which manufactures semiconductors used primarily for the energy industry and electric vehicles, will use the funds to double its production capacity of sensor and power chips and upgrade its manufacturing kit, as well as adding 160 jobs to boot. Along with expanding production, the U.S. Department of Commerce said the funding would trigger additional private capital investment to "transform Polar from a majority foreign-owned in-house manufacturer to a majority U.S.-owned commercial foundry, expanding opportunities for U.S. chip designers to innovate and produce technologies domestically." In other words - sure it'll expand the output, but the real win is another majority U.S.-owned foundry for the White House to tout.
According to its website, Polar is currently owned by Korean conglomerate SK Group and serves as the primary fab and engineering center for Japanese firm Sanken Electric. Not exactly companies in countries with poor U.S. relations - but overseas owners, nonetheless. "This proposed investment in Polar will crowd in private capital, which will help make Polar a U.S.-based, independent foundry," said U.S. Commerce secretary Gina Raimondo. "They will be able to expand their customer base and create a stable domestic supply of critical chips, made in America's heartland."
Polar, which manufactures semiconductors used primarily for the energy industry and electric vehicles, will use the funds to double its production capacity of sensor and power chips and upgrade its manufacturing kit, as well as adding 160 jobs to boot. Along with expanding production, the U.S. Department of Commerce said the funding would trigger additional private capital investment to "transform Polar from a majority foreign-owned in-house manufacturer to a majority U.S.-owned commercial foundry, expanding opportunities for U.S. chip designers to innovate and produce technologies domestically." In other words - sure it'll expand the output, but the real win is another majority U.S.-owned foundry for the White House to tout.
According to its website, Polar is currently owned by Korean conglomerate SK Group and serves as the primary fab and engineering center for Japanese firm Sanken Electric. Not exactly companies in countries with poor U.S. relations - but overseas owners, nonetheless. "This proposed investment in Polar will crowd in private capital, which will help make Polar a U.S.-based, independent foundry," said U.S. Commerce secretary Gina Raimondo. "They will be able to expand their customer base and create a stable domestic supply of critical chips, made in America's heartland."
What's the big deal? (Score:3, Insightful)
$120 mil is pocket change for the US gov. Find me another scandal.
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The conservatives will mumble something about government spending being fungible without knowing what that even means
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Mentally unstable is the perfect description. The makeup wearing con artist praised Hannibal Lecter [newsweek.com]:
"The late, great Hannibal Lecter. He's a wonderful man,"
Can't figure out where Taiwan is located:
"If you take a look at President Xi of China, talking about Beijingâ"now they've got ships circling, they have planesâ"they're never doing anything."
And nonsensical ramblings about talking to Frank Sinatra about hot dogs:
"But I just had the best hot dog, so I said, Frank 'I'm sorry'. Now, Pavoratti was a good friend, he didn't have that same, he ate all the time, he didn't care."
But yeah, President Biden is the issue.
Vote buying - Minnesota swing state in 2024 (Score:2)
Watching multiple decades of presidential elections and you will see the incumbent visiting swing states, awarding government money/jobs to them
in order to turn his normal Presidential duties into a campaign boosting press tour.
Little of this has to do anything other than to secure votes. Presidents of both parties do this in each reelection cycle.
Consider these vote influencing Presidential actions for the 2024 election.
Rewarding and helping to secure his voting base:
https://www.ed.gov/news/press-... [ed.gov]
"The B
Scale (Score:3, Funny)
A couple hundred million here, a few billion there, pretty soon it starts adding up to real money.
Re:Scale (Score:5, Insightful)
The current annual US budget is about 18,000 "hundred millions".
So ya, 100 million is pretty much pocket change here.
There are probably better targets to complain about.
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To be fair... It'll take a lot more than a "couple" hundred millions to become anything more than a footnote in the annual US budget.
The current annual US budget is about 18,000 "hundred millions".
So ya, 100 million is pretty much pocket change here.
There are probably better targets to complain about.
The question shouldn't be "how much are we paying for it" rather, "what are we getting for it".
Is the US govt paying $100 mil of taxpayer cash to make a few people feel good about themselves or to benefit a small number of already rich people... or are they doing it to promote innovation, provide jobs or infrastructure, provide a product or service that may improve lives?
European governments often throw millions at pharma companies to develop new drugs or practically give them patents developed mostl
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The question shouldn't be "how much are we paying for it" rather, "what are we getting for it".
Yes. But not in the way you think.
Is the US govt paying $100 mil of taxpayer cash to make a few people feel good about themselves or to benefit a small number of already rich people... or are they doing it to promote innovation, provide jobs or infrastructure, provide a product or service that may improve lives?
No. The US govt should pay $100 mil on whatever the voters want them to- that's their job.
I'd like to think that means what you suggest, but as we know- it doesn't.
The will of the voters is pretty clear. We want our money spent on really stupid shit.
European governments often throw millions at pharma companies to develop new drugs or practically give them patents developed mostly at a publicly funded universities... with the proviso that they'll make the products in that country and sometimes to provide them to the citizens are a reasonable price. It makes sense when you think about the fact Johnson and Johnson, Ely Lily, et al. already have factories in the country. Easily turns out to be a win-win for all parties involved.
The US does the same, funding wise. In fact, most blockbuster drugs made anywhere in the world were funded by the US Government.
Where it gets weird, is the US doesn't require them to make the drug available at a reasonable pr
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Where does the article say it's a bad thing?
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Being having some competition to china in processor production is sensible to avoid monopoly, and for national security.
IMNSHO the only bad thing about CHIPS is that stands for "Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors". But at least is shows that the administration is spending their time on the material and the content of this legislation, because they clearly didn't waste any time coming up with that backronym.
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It doesn't and I don't think it is. Being having some competition to china in processor production is sensible to avoid monopoly, and for national security. IMNSHO the only bad thing about CHIPS is that stands for "Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors". But at least is shows that the administration is spending their time on the material and the content of this legislation, because they clearly didn't waste any time coming up with that backronym.
Are they though? It seems like CHIPS is just like any other government handout to big business. Lots of cash, with no real incentive behind it. I mean, sure, they have to make promises. But promises to the US government for any corporation seem to be entirely optional on follow-through. Most of them promising new manufacturing stir a little dirt for a few years, then turn tail and say, "Nope, can't be done." The more industrious companies say, "Maybe for more money it could be done," get their second-round
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Find me another scandal.
If the only thing you're interested in is scandals go read the New York Post or Fox News.
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A little quick math: $120e6/160 is $750e3 per new employee. What a bargain for the US taxpayer.
If that were the only effect, it would be a bad deal. But the track record of the CHIPS Act investments so far is really good. In just a couple of years, the act (with some help from the IRA) has nearly tripled US investment in manufacturing, with most of the growth focused on semiconductors and batteries. The federal government has provided only a few hundred million in seed money in targeted areas (like this one), but that has produced $150B in new construction of manufacturing facilities. Most new man
Trump’s Golf Trips Could Cost Taxpayers Over (Score:3)
$120 mil is pocket change for the US gov. Find me another scandal.
Trump’s Golf Trips Could Cost Taxpayers Over $340 Million.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/c... [forbes.com]
Remember? (Score:1)
All the people who came out applauding that we cut off the freeloaders just a few weeks ago:
https://tech.slashdot.org/stor... [slashdot.org]
Let's how many of them are outraged about this.
At least now we know what the ruling class is doing with that money.
Re: Remember? (Score:2)
$30 million per month, so $360 million per year or 3 times this. Iâ(TM)m not arguing against you but full disclosure and all that. Yes, yes, people call them handouts until their favorite cause is supported and then it is a good spend.
Worthless (Score:1)
What is needed is to spend some of this money on
Board making.
New end products from new start-ups that use these chips. Why new start-ups? So that they grow with these chips production.
$1-$4B spent on this would be far far more useful then simply giving more to Intel, etc.
Re:Worthless (Score:4)
Write your Congressman, there's a $3B bill for just for PCBs, unfortunately it's just sitting in subcommittees.
H.R.3249 - Protecting Circuit Boards and Substrates Act [congress.gov]
I would agree on startups though, I think the government has to get into the business of doing and funding more R+D, especially since public funding can and should carry with it the caveat that the research itself is public.
The whole point of this venture is to insulate the US from such a trade war situation. Every nation subsidizes it's tech sector, especially China. The lesson here isn't to do less it's to do more especially accounting for all those import vulnerabilities.
Or China could just make a peace treaty with Taiwan and everyone can take a big breath and resume the gravy train.
Re:Worthless (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Worthless (Score:5, Insightful)
What are the companies going to say when you ask them to restart? "We need money". A tax break, an exemption clause, these are all just subsidies.
Again, China subsidizes their tech industry heavily, they have state control options in all their largest companies, it's a big driving part of this whole onshoring initiative and they won't stop because of some notion of fairness or market principles.
Re: Worthless (Score:2)
Good answer, good answer.
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What is needed is to allocate some 2-4B from the 50B, and spend 1-2B on just start-ups that produce end-products that we can sell to consumers as well as others that can be used in local manufacturing. The
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The money is invested into the companies, and then once the company IPOs, then we sell our stock in the company (yes, some will go under).
What you are pretty describing is a Sovereign wealth fund [wikipedia.org] which I am onboard with fully, I think the US should absolutely have such a thing and invest in American companies but this is politically unviable unfortunately even though we have some in a backhanded type of way.
This can not be about subsidies, but needs to be about restarting the lines that are needed to take on the Chinese juggernaut (economic and military).
It is though, the goals you want to prescribe (which I think are good) and going to borne by subsides, tax policy and regulatory law including tariffs (see 100% tariff on Chinese cars recently). Subsidies are the American way of doing it
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I think the US should absolutely have such a thing and invest in American companies but this is politically unviable unfortunately even though we have some in a backhanded type of way.
But this is something that we ABSOLUTELY must do. Far too often we have allowed technology to flow elsewhere because private investors in America were short sighted. We need long-term investments for America's future.
If you want harsher laws against outsourcing and foreign ownership I am onboard 100% but I have my doubts if real laws like that are going to make it out of what seems like a forever split Congress. The fact the CHIPS act got passed is still good, we gotta work for what we can get realistically and use that to justify better in the future.
Nope. I am 100% against BOTH of these. We have several big issues that actually cause all of our downfalls. In addition, to corrupt politicians being bought and the others doing nothing about it (can not believe that ANY CONgress critter is in Trump's courtroom right now):
1) reagan changed t
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I was going to answer, but your comment doesn't actually have anything coherent to respond to. Sigh, probably the point in that I am responding to an AI troll.
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Because China will simply block imports from here
The goal here has nothing to do with exporting anything to China.
Re: Worthless (Score:2)
Not foreseeing, or knowing and not caring about, the national security implications that cheap labor created, is a problem.
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The problem is that the 50B that meant to restart America's electronics is being poorly used. Much of the chips manufactured in America ARE exported to
Re: Worthless (Score:2)
That headline should be taken out and buried (Score:4, Insightful)
FFS, reading two sentences in makes that headline out to be the ridiculous clickbait it is. Slashdot, please do better.
Re: Those words seem to be typed out a LOT lately. (Score:2)
Nor have most people.
I see a new fab business strategy... (Score:4, Funny)
And (Score:1)
Re: And (Score:2)
Who determines if someone is righteous enough to be supplied with the tools necessary to defend themselves?
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No man is an island. Same with global politics - on a rhetorical level, obviously, because plenty of countries are islands. To wit: if we don't help Ukraine, now, it's a near guarantee given Putin's goals that we'll be fighting a wider-spread - and much more expensive - war later. Which do you choose?
Yep, Putin's not going to stop at Ukraine, if we let him have that, Armenia and Georgia are next, Anyone who's not in NATO or Putin's puppet gets it next and beyond that even being in NATO won't help. Sure Puty-boi won't directly invade Finland and Poland... but they'll have to do some very lop sided deals (basically become semi-subservient to Putin's hegemony) to stay "independent".
If you think the US will be unaffected by the destabilisation of Europe, you're only fooling yourself. China will happily b