Intel To Spend $7 Billion on Big Malaysia Chipmaking Expansion (bloomberg.com) 14
Intel is spending $7 billion to build a new chip packaging facility in Malaysia, a major Asian investment intended to address endemic global semiconductor shortages at a time Washington is advocating domestic production. From a report: The U.S. chipmaker intends to invest 30 billion ringgit on shoring up its advanced chip packaging capabilities in the island state of Penang, Malaysia's main investment promotion agency said in a press invitation distributed Monday. It will elaborate on its plans for the Asian country during a press briefing Wednesday in conjunction with Trade Minister Azmin Ali and Malaysian Investment Development Authority Chief Executive Officer Arham Abdul Rahman, according to the invite.
The event coincides with Secretary of State Antony Blinken's first visit to Southeast Asia. CEO Pat Gelsinger took the helm of the largest American chipmaker in February with a mandate to take back leadership of the industry from Asian giants such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Investors want Gelsinger to staunch market share losses and customer defections stemming in part from stumbles in upgrading technology. At the same time, years of global industry under-investment and a surge in Covid-era demand for computing devices have created an unprecedented shortage of the semiconductors needed in everything from cars to smartphones.
The event coincides with Secretary of State Antony Blinken's first visit to Southeast Asia. CEO Pat Gelsinger took the helm of the largest American chipmaker in February with a mandate to take back leadership of the industry from Asian giants such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Investors want Gelsinger to staunch market share losses and customer defections stemming in part from stumbles in upgrading technology. At the same time, years of global industry under-investment and a surge in Covid-era demand for computing devices have created an unprecedented shortage of the semiconductors needed in everything from cars to smartphones.
Look at that, not making shit in the US. (Score:2)
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2020 Cash on hand - $20.9B
AMD: 2020 Revenue - $9.7B
2020 Cash on hand - $0.77B
What are you talking about people buying AMD everything?
Re: Look at that, not making shit in the US. (Score:2)
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The chip packaging is already done in Malaysia so they aren't moving jobs out of the US for this.
Yes, but why aren't they moving jobs into the US? Sure, it's cheaper to offshore that activity - until some environmental or political disaster, or other supply chain disruption, kills the viability. Having chips and no way to package them is pretty much equivalent to not having chips at all.
The U.S. chipmaker (Score:1)
can't throw 7 billion dollar bone to the U.S.?
Re:The U.S. chipmaker (Score:5, Informative)
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Were you similarly outraged at the US gov't subsidizing foreign manufacturing over domestic when they threw money at both TSMC and Samsung to build in the US over Intel? Quid pro quo, Clarice.
Malaysia is one of the places China outsources to because it's cheaper than they are, like Vietnam. I hadn't heard about this, I should have, but I'm guessing that's why without reading the details.
Re:The U.S. chipmaker (Score:4, Informative)
Or perhaps it's because Intel has had a factory in Malaysia for decades now?
Chances are they're investing more money into expanding production at the factory they already have there.
The dies are made at the fab, then are shipped to packaging plants to be put into packages. Packaging isn't much of a value added thing, so you generally want it done as cheap as possible. The chip is fabbed in a first world country like the US (where the high value high paying jobs are).
Packaging is a somewhat dirty job because you're dealing with molten plastic and other materials that would contaminate the environment, so it's easier to package up the wafers, seal them, and ship it to a different factory elsewhere. The clean air requirements aren't so stringent at this point (it just has to be clean). Still have people in bunny suits though.
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My only concern will be the political issues going on in Malaysia now, which is connected to race and religion.
They had 3 Prime Ministers in the pass 2 years I think, and UMNO (the party associated with the disgraced ex PM Najib - he of the 1MDB scandal) is associating itself more and more with Islam due to the population which is majority Malay Muslims. And UMNO is currently back in power. And Najib has been given a Minister ranked post (although only called an advisor, it still has same rank as Minister a
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Not everything can be made in the US.
Also, they just wasted 25 billion on the military. Take some of that back.