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EU

EU Sets 2030 Target To Produce Cutting-Edge Semiconductors (bloomberg.com) 76

The European Union is planning to produce its own advanced semiconductors by 2030, part of the bloc's plans to reduce "high-risk dependencies" on technology companies in the U.S. and Asia. From a report: Officials want to ensure that at least 20% of the world's cutting-edge semiconductors by value are produced in Europe by the end of the decade, according to a draft document obtained by Bloomberg. The document, which could still change, is due to be presented next week by the European Commission, the bloc's executive body. The EU has discussed potentially establishing a new foundry as part of a plan to boost semiconductor production in Europe, Bloomberg has reported previously. The EU wants to manufacture chips faster than the most efficient 5nm semiconductors made by industry leaders Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. and Samsung Electronics.

"A reduction in critical dependencies will enable the EU to become digitally sovereign and better able to assert European interests," the EU said in the document, which said its approach would seek to support "the open nature of the Internet." The so-called Digital Compass plan outlines the bloc's digital goals for the next decade. As part of that, it also aims to deploy 10,000 climate-neutral facilities to guarantee businesses have rapid access to data services, develop a computer with quantum acceleration by 2025 and cover populated areas in Europe with 5G by 2030. In addition, the EU said over the next decade it wants to double the number of unicorns, or companies with a valuation above $1 billion, by improving access to financing.

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EU Sets 2030 Target To Produce Cutting-Edge Semiconductors

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  • by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Thursday March 04, 2021 @02:09PM (#61123564)

    You know, because the GDPR does not actually permit using Windows that phones home in public administration in the first place?

    Anyways, the plan it complete bullshit, written by no-clue morons. This gem here clearly shows that: "develop a computer with quantum acceleration by 2025"...

    • MS-dependency...gas pipeline dependency. So much for a reduction in critical dependencies.

      https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/3... [cnbc.com]

      • The gas pipeline thing is mostly so their environmental numbers look good. Eyporting pollution, you know.

        Just like those French nuclear powerplants that power German household in the south-west of Germany, so Germany looks good in terms of nuclear power plants.

        • Just like those French nuclear powerplants that power German household in the south-west of Germany

          You're thinking of some non-existing power plants, since Germany keeps exporting more electricity than it imports. [cleanenergywire.org]

          • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

            by WindBourne ( 631190 )
            Germany imported 28,338,000 MWh of electricity in 2016 (covering 5% of its annual consumption needs). [worldometers.info]
            Fact is, that Germany both exports and imports. BUT, when they import, it is because they MUST import since their wind/solar is not enough. Basically, Germany uses their neighbors as batteries, just like California tries to. And this is ALSO why both Germany and California have had rolling blackouts, and will continue to have them into the future, unless they have a DIVERSIFIED energy matrix.
            • Germany imported 28,338,000 MWh of electricity in 2016 (covering 5% of its annual consumption needs).

              Germany exported 78,863,000 MWh of electricity in 2016.

              BUT, when they import, it is because they MUST import since their wind/solar is not enough.

              And when the French import they MUST import since their nuclear is not enough.

              What do you think is the point of the pan-European grid?

            • by gweihir ( 88907 )

              ... when they import, it is because they MUST import since their wind/solar is not enough.

              Bullshit. You nuclear apologists have no honor and will claim any and all untruths is it seems to support your demented narrative.

              • by WindBourne ( 631190 ) on Thursday March 04, 2021 @04:51PM (#61124234) Journal
                Bull shit. Nuke apologists? Uh no. I SUPPORT nukes, as well as geothermal, hydro, solar, and wind. Why? Because we fucking need ALL OF THE CLEAN SOURCES to stop polluting.
                The problem is that idiots like you continue to lie about everything and totally ignore reality and science.
                • by gweihir ( 88907 )

                  I happen to be a scientist and an engineer. I do not ignore science or engineering. But you have either no clue what you are talking about or you are directly lying.

                  Germany may have bought electricity, but it certainly did not need to. It was just cheaper to do so.

                  • I happen to be a scientist and an engineer

                    If you were a good one, if even one of these, then you would have realized that we were talking about IMPORTS, not NET IMPORTS. Shifting the goal post is a political or sloppy thing.
                    In the end, all of the west needs CLEAN ENERGY MATRIX, not just wind/solar. We can not depend on 1 that will be easy to attack.
                    Worse, Germany and all of europe is pushing for burning wood and trash and calls that clean. Nothing could be further from the truth.

                    • by gweihir ( 88907 )

                      Well, I have note before that you are a self-important cretin with no understandings of your own limitations. I do note so now again.

                    • well, good that we see eye2eye on each other. I have to say that for a scientist/engineer, you obviously have little clue of what you are talking about, allow your emotions to control what is possible.
            • There are many reasons to import.

              E.g. when it is cheaper than running your own coal plant.

              Basically, Germany uses their neighbors as batteries
              That is a pretty stupid point of view. As strictly speaking in the EU energy grid there is no "Germany" or neighbours. There are only companies and interconnected grids. Oops.

              And this is ALSO why both Germany and California have had rolling blackouts
              That is even more stupid.
              The only black out in Germany in recent history is more than 10 years ago. The old "east ger

        • The gas pipeline thing is mostly so their environmental numbers look good. Eyporting pollution, you know.

          Importing Russian nat gas does not export the pollution. If nat gas is burned as fuel, then Germany, like other European nations, will have more CO2, when they had those wonderful nuke power plants that were CLEAN.

        • by gweihir ( 88907 )

          Just like those French nuclear powerplants that power German household in the south-west of Germany, so Germany looks good in terms of nuclear power plants.

          And where did you hear that lie? Or did you make that up all by yourself? Because Germany is not buying electricity from France. It is rather the other way round, because France has a severe shortage of electricity due to their stupid nuclear strategy.

        • You perfectly well know that Germany is an electricity exporter.
          Nothing here is "powered" by French nukes. From time to time the French sell us power, so they no not need to power down their plants. We are basically helping them out, for historical reasons. https://www.baden-wuerttemberg... [baden-wuerttemberg.de]

          And just for your interest: south west Germany has no interconnect to France. The interconnect is close to Luxembourg. Oh, I forgot, there are two at EichstÃtten, AFAIK they go to France and don't come from there.

          The

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by cheesybagel ( 670288 )

        So the big issue with Nord Stream 2 is that Russia will be able to pipe gas directly to Germany. Instead of Russia being able to pipe gas to Germany via Poland or Ukraine. It increases Russian dependency how? The gas comes from Russia either way.

        It decreases costs to pipe gas from Russia to Central Europe because a) the pipeline is shorter than existing routes b) the pipeline can carry gas at higher pressure. This means Germany will get cheaper gas and Russia will get a larger slice of the pie. That's why i

        • by Tom ( 822 )

          No, the actual reason is precisely to bypass Ukraine and Poland - two countries which are troublesome in many different ways, and aren't friends of Russia at all.

          It makes sense to pass them by. It also makes sense for them to fight tooth and nail against it.

      • by gweihir ( 88907 )

        Nope. Gas pipeline is merely convenient. You should not listen to what politicians claim. They usually lie.

      • With a choice of Azerbaidzhan, Turkey and potentially Iran (after sanctions are lifted) and Cyprus/Israel (after all of them down there learn to share their toys) what exactly is your pipeline problem?

        All of these have access to South Stream and the way the pipeline deals and Eu regulations are structured, they are GUARANTEED at least 50% access. This is even if someone else owns the pipeline - Eu monopoly law.

        The only place where "pipeline dependency" exists is in USA and UK propaganda. Especially UK w

    • by ljw1004 ( 764174 ) on Thursday March 04, 2021 @02:59PM (#61123764)

      Anyways, the plan it complete bullshit, written by no-clue morons. This gem here clearly shows that: "develop a computer with quantum acceleration by 2025"...

      Can you spell out why you think that's bullshit?

      It reads to me like they want an EU-based company or university research department that matches either DWave (Palo Alto, CA) or Google (UC Santa Barbera, and Mountain View CA) https://www.nature.com/article... [nature.com]. It sounds like they picked the phrase "quantum acceleration" to be neutral about whether they wanted real qbits or just quantum annealing. It reads to me that this sentence is a way to direct EU science and industry funding bodies to unlock funding in support of those goals.

      In what way do these goals indicate that the authors have no clue?

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  • All well and good and in nine years those cutting edge semiconductors will be used in all those electric vehicles swamping the road.

  • Should be more (Score:3, Interesting)

    by sikiriki ( 6723224 ) on Thursday March 04, 2021 @02:15PM (#61123606)

    They should develop a domestic tool chain much like China aims to do. EU is in the best position to do this, having ASML. They should just move EUVL light source R&D to Europe and make it european technology.

    • Re:Should be more (Score:4, Interesting)

      by MrL0G1C ( 867445 ) on Thursday March 04, 2021 @02:26PM (#61123652) Journal

      Makes sense and if the US does the same then the R&D and the competition should benefit consumers.

      • Does the US have an ASML equivalent?

        Looks like a very bad single point of failure for the world, right now, that company.

        • First off, ASML is also based in America, but more importantly, we have a few here

          Top 10 Semiconductor Equipment Suppliers for 2019 [vlsiresearch.com]
        • ASML (Netherlands) is pretty much the only player left in high-end lithography. Nikon (Japan) is barely holding on in this area. The US equivalent went away decades ago. The US is very strong in deposition and etch equipment (Applied Materials, LAM Research). At some level these are all multi-nationals - ASML relies on Zeiss (Germany) for key optical components and bought Cymer (US) awhile back for EUV/DUV light sources.
    • What's stopping them from buying up one of the various facilities in Dresden and refitting it to produce wafers using some bleeding edge process? As you point out the leading manufacturer of the equipment is already in the EU. Sure it'll be hideously expensive, but that's no different than anyone else who wants to produce cutting edge chips.
  • by EirikFinlay ( 6179140 ) on Thursday March 04, 2021 @02:17PM (#61123614)

    to understand that relying on foreign countries for your technology and medicines isn't a wise choice if you care about your national security... Thankfully they seem to have got the memo this time.

    Let's see how this will turn out, only time will tell.

    • No, they did understand. "But EU!!!"

      You could see a perfect example of that, when hotspots spilled over into neighboring countries and the obvious thing was to close the borders.
      They did not even bring any "But jerrrbs" pseudo-arguments. They went straight to "That is UnAcCePtAbLe!! Because EU!!!11one(lim (x->0) sin(x)/x)".
      And even though they started doing it a bit, what they say very clearly shows that their ideologistic stance has not changed a bit. They just see it as a temporary exception and act li

    • Foreign countries? The very first approved covid vaccine was developed in the EU and it is also manufactured there. Even Canada gets their vaccine from the EU.

      • Who talked about vaccines? We didn't even have the technology to make our own surgical masks. Do you know how many doctors and nurses perished in the past months because of this simple reason? Lack of technological independence is lack of security and future.

        • Eh? There are dozens of mask manufacturers in the EU, they do have the technology, but there is not enough manufacturing capacity for a pandemic.

  • Are they really not getting that China's exports are only a symptom of job creation schemes?

    They build entire cities for millions of people that are almost uninhabitated. Their entire economy is just so everyone has a job, regardless if the thing that is made is actually needed or bought.

    When you buy a Chinese product, that is too cheap to be true, you are actually doing them a favor! They would give it to you for free, just so people are employed.

    They want to compete with *that*? In a society where everyon

    • You ignorant mole. High tech semiconductors are not produced in China. But don't let that stop your verbal diarrhea.

      Another ignorant post brought to you by BAReFO0t.

  • Mainland China is an enemy country, not a country with an ephemeral enemy government.

    Trade adjustments should be FORCED because there is more to freedom than ceding control of our societies to predatory capitalism let alone becoming dependent on an active enemy of democracy. Outsourcing was done out of greed and the irrational hope capitalism would beget democracy. The West decisively lost that naive, childish bet and we need more than wishful thinking to cope with this emergent, hostile superpower.

    Business

    • Europe needs to be independent from the US before the next demagogue is elected (that's inevitable as the US like all empires declines) adding extra incentive for hardware and software independence.

      Yeaahhhh.
      So far, in all of America's 200 years, all we have had is Trump/W, and in both cases, the only real damage was to America, as well as W's invasion of Iraq.
      Its not like we have had Hitler, stalin, Putin, just to mention a few of the nightmares that came out of Europe EVERY CENTURY.

      • Honestly what happens to the US is none of my business. You can vote for the devil himself as far as I'm concerned if you leave the rest of the world alone that's fine with me.

        But he is right, depending on the whims of your current/next president is not a good policy for any country, EU included. We need to be technologically independent and right now we aren't. This is something that everyone should easily understand, a country without technological independence can't even be considered a real country nowa

        • THis is why I continue to back ALL western nations working together, but still doing similar things.
          We are all better off when we compete against each other, fairly and nicely.

          However, the reason why you folks are headed your way, has little to do with Trump and more to do with CHina having a LOT of control.
          For example, why would America ban businesses from working with you? We don't.
          BUT, I DO wish that you folks would join America and PUSH for ALL of the major tech companies to be broken up. THat
  • Trump highlighted just how dangerous it was to rely on the USA, so large economies are looking to reduce that dependance.
    Instead of MAGA, he has actually long term made the US weaker.
    • EU is doing the right thing. It is not about having dependency on America, but being forced to depend on America OR China OR Russia OR....
      The west used to work together, and we need to return to work together, not simply being dependent on 1 thing or another.
      For example, EU kept gutting NATO and then pushing America to take care of all their needs. After all, it was not us that wanted to go into Syria OR libya. It was Europe that pushed those nightmares.
    • Instead of MAGA, he has actually long term made the US weaker.

      There are other areas, like the Middle East where, by abandoning the Kurds, that's clearly true. However a stable peaceful Europe was a deliberate American creation after WWII and it was done for very good reasons. Trump's contribution to encouraging Brexit and the UK's fight with Europe is a problem, however Europe working out how to look after itself is very much in the interests of the USofA long term.

      • You do know that the Russians actually did way way more to win WWII than the USA ?
        • You do know that the Russians actually did way way more to win WWII than the USA ?

          The Russian people did far more than the American people to win the war in Europe, for sure. However Russia was actually involved in starting the war (look up Molotov-Ribbentrop pact) which is such an embarassment that they actually lie about the date of the start of the war. Look up "The Great Patriotic War" [wikipedia.org] and you'll find dates that chop off the whole beginning of World War II [wikipedia.org] so that they can pretend that Russia wasn't partly responsible.

          Later, during the actual war, Russia needed and got supplies of

          • Hungarians? Seriously?
            You do realise that Hungary entered the WW2 on Hitler's side, happily participating in mass murder of jews and helping him invade the USSR and Yugoslavia?

            • So, Hungary deserves to be there for the same reason as Germany; simply because Hungary was a Fascist country, to be in the Hungarian Resistance [historylea...site.co.uk] was close to a death sentence and with their lack of general support we should remember the individuals even more. Still, you're right, I should have put it more clearly in the "even" clause of the sentence, especially since I dropped other Fascist supporting countries like Ukraine.

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