IMHO Let Intel fail. Their fabs can be bought in bankruptcy by other chip companies that may be better run. Granted, a lot of those companies are currently fabless, but how many would change that with equipment bought at a fraction of the cost? TI, Micron, GF all have fabs. Qualcomm strikes me as a fabless that might give it a shot. I'm assuming the people and know-how would come with the fabs of course.

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Night_Thastus 3 days ago | parent [-]

There are a lot of times where I'd say a business should be allowed to fail - but this is a poor choice to do so.

* You can't just spin up leading edge semiconductor manufacturing on a dime. It takes decades and hundreds of billions to reach where companies like Intel and TSMC are now. It's so hard that it's essentially impossible for new entrants to catch up.

* The US has a strong interest in having local manufacturing, that no other power could take away in a time where it's needed.

>a lot of those companies are currently fabless, but how many would change that with equipment bought at a fraction of the cost?

Zero. Dumping the fabs on them would not help them. They're expensive and complicated to run. They don't have the knowledge to run the fab side of design (it's a joint effort on both sides to design a chip), nor the money or knowledge to improve those fabs and keep them up with the leading edge.

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florbnit 3 days ago | parent [-]

> You can't just spin up leading edge semiconductor manufacturing on a dime. It takes decades and hundreds of billions to reach where companies like Intel and TSMC are now. It's so hard that it's essentially impossible for new entrants to catch up.

You can if intel goes bankrupt. Why do people act like a bankruptcy consists of taking all the employees out back and putting them down then setting all the buildings on fire.

	▲	Night_Thastus 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		It's hard to retain knowledge and processes in a bankruptcy. Even if you manage to get ALL the equipment and the people back (far, far from guaranteed) sometimes you've broken the systems that let it work in the first place. (Not that Intel's has been working particularly well, as of late)