I wonder how long it will be till Elon decides to build his own chip foundry?

 

I wonder how long it will be till Elon decides to build his own chip foundry?

Ha. Google says:

Elon Musk has already made the decision and formally announced plans for his own massive chip foundry project called Terafab, a joint venture between Tesla, SpaceX, and xAI. The initial phase of the project represents a $16.8 billion investment in Grimes County, Texas, with ambitions to scale up significantly.Project Scope and LocationLocation: Grimes County, Texas (near the Gibbons Creek Reservoir, roughly 45 miles northwest of Houston).Scale: Planned to encompass over 100 million square feet of manufacturing space, which Musk has projected to become the largest and most valuable building complex on Earth.Manufacturing Partner: Working with foundational partner Intel to leverage advanced process technology and packaging expertise.Purpose and GoalsTarget Output: Designed to scale toward producing 1 terawatt of AI compute capacity per year to resolve internal supply chain bottlenecks.Applications: Supplying specialized chips for Tesla's Optimus humanoid robots and self-driving Cybercabs, alongside space-hardened AI processors for SpaceX orbital data centers.Vertical Integration: Designed to house logic, memory, packaging, and testing under a single roof to create an ultra-fast iterative design loop.

 

 

https://www.tweaktown.com/news/1130...with-no-more-dram-or-hbm-available/index.html
Memory capacity for all of 2027 has reportedly been booked and sold, with no more DRAM or HBM available
According to a new report, Samsung, SK hynix, and Micron's DRAM and HBM memory capacity for 2027 is now sold out with no additional supply available.


https://www.tweaktown.com/news/1127...-dram-capacity-booked-through-2027/index.html
Chinese memory maker CXMT has reportedly seen its DRAM capacity booked through 2027
As PC OEMs and hardware companies look to Chinese memory manufacturer CXMT to secure supply, this alternate source is also reaching its capacity.

This means that those of us not needing to buy additional RAM are probably fortunate.

 

Nice, one big juicy target. All of the eggs in one big carton. Is test and packaging going to be there too?

I would guess 4 to 5 years for the full initial equipment buildout (lots of long lead time, single source semi gear needed from already fully booked vendors) and maybe 2 years for initial, single process line wafer starts of production qualified wafers.

Not too far from the farm near Calvert.
google.com/maps/dir/Grimes+County,+Texas/Robertson+County,+Texas/@30.7098428,-96.9353337,239733m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m13!4m12!1m5!1m1!1s0x8646ebe291157dd5:0x19dd885f1f98376e!2m2!1d-95.9832577!2d30.4829853!1m5!1m1!1s0x8645dc697b7e0027:0x9ad6547a1fd70be3!2m2!1d-96.4929797!2d31.0080004?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI2MDgwNS4xIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

 

I would love to be a fly on the wall in the board meetings where they decide whether or not to capitalize a scale-up in production.

Someone's nervous.

In the past, you'd just take the demand curve to the bank and they'd happily give you cash.

The guys in the memory side of the semi house have been burned so many times I expect them to bank all that cash for a while.

https://www.theregister.com/ai-and-...he-ai-boom-is-the-wildest-ride-of-all/5269549

It’s a good time to be in the memory business. As the AI datacenter business booms, SK Hynix and Micron’s revenues have tripled in the last year, and Samsung’s has roughly doubled.

But while the trio have the AI revolution to thank for their good fortune, the deck is stacked for a reversal. Such is the memory business historically.

Semiconductor manufacturing is among the most complex and resource-intensive industries in the world, and building a new DRAM or NAND flash wafer fab is not a trivial endeavor.

Before the first chip can roll off the production line, financing must be secured, a location must been selected, permits must be won, and tens of millions of dollars of support facilities ranging from power conditioning and air handling to the ultra-pure water filtration systems must be deployed.

Even after the clean rooms are completed, hundreds of millions of dollars of specialized lithography, wafer transport, and test equipment must be installed and validated. And once everything is ready to be powered on, it can take months to dial everything in and bring yields to acceptable levels. This process often takes years even without delays.

So while there are a handful of new memory fabs already under way, anything SK, Samsung, or Micron starts today will take at least three years to bring online, and even longer to ramp production.

That means memory prices are going to stay high for the foreseeable future. A recent IDC report warns that we may not see relief from the RAMpocalypse until at least 2028.

 

All of the eggs in one big carton.

I use to work in a vertically integrated factory.

I miss it.

On breaks, my favorite thing was to sit and converse with the tool and die maker in the machine shop.

Is that even a job in the States anymore?

 

On breaks, my favorite thing was to sit and converse with the tool and die maker in the machine shop.

Best way to spend your spare time, without a doubt ...

 

I use to work in a vertically integrated factory.

I miss it.

On breaks, my favorite thing was to sit and converse with the tool and die maker in the machine shop.

Is that even a job in the States anymore?

I worked in some major shipyards, those guys are amazing.

 

 

Ha. Google says:

Elon Musk has already made the decision and formally announced plans for his own massive chip foundry project called Terafab, a joint venture between Tesla, SpaceX, and xAI. The initial phase of the project represents a $16.8 billion investment in Grimes County, Texas, with ambitions to scale up significantly.Project Scope and LocationLocation: Grimes County, Texas (near the Gibbons Creek Reservoir, roughly 45 miles northwest of Houston).Scale: Planned to encompass over 100 million square feet of manufacturing space, which Musk has projected to become the largest and most valuable building complex on Earth.Manufacturing Partner: Working with foundational partner Intel to leverage advanced process technology and packaging expertise.Purpose and GoalsTarget Output: Designed to scale toward producing 1 terawatt of AI compute capacity per year to resolve internal supply chain bottlenecks.Applications: Supplying specialized chips for Tesla's Optimus humanoid robots and self-driving Cybercabs, alongside space-hardened AI processors for SpaceX orbital data centers.Vertical Integration: Designed to house logic, memory, packaging, and testing under a single roof to create an ultra-fast iterative design loop.

I saw that yesterday and it's planned to be up to 100 million square meters in size. It's very big.

 

I saw that yesterday and it's planned to be up to 100 million square meters in size. It's very big.

Big things require big wallets, or lots of poor taxpayers.

I prefer billionaires and their investors.

 

Big things require big wallets, or lots of poor taxpayers.

I prefer billionaires and their investors.

The taxpayers are poor because the system the billionaires rule makes them poor on purpose.

 

The taxpayers are poor because the system the billionaires rule makes them poor on purpose.

Weird: I'm a taxpayer, but I am not poor.

I must be one of the billionaires!

 

Weird: I'm a taxpayer, but I am not poor.

I must be one of the billionaires!

You can be a taxpayer being a billionaire.
You can be be a taxpayer and be not poor.
But what I was talking about is that the majority of people are poor taxpayers. Look at the median salary of your state or country.
Also, many people think they are closer to the billionaires than being homeless, so the revelation can cause frustration. But this frustration can be channeled to raise awareness to which class they belong.

 

You can be a taxpayer being a billionaire.
You can be be a taxpayer and be not poor.
But what I was talking about is that the majority of people are poor taxpayers. Look at the median salary of your state or country.
Also, many people think they are closer to the billionaires than being homeless, so the revelation can cause frustration. But this frustration can be channeled to raise awareness to which class they belong.

Going way off topic guys. It takes billions to make modern chips. It's only going to get more expensive in the future.

 

Going way off topic guys. It takes billions to make modern chips. It's only going to get more expensive in the future.

Sorry for that.
One thing I found interesting:

TSMC is a publicly traded company with a dispersed ownership structure, meaning no single entity holds a controlling majority. The largest individual shareholder is the National Development Fund (NDF) of the Taiwanese government, which holds approximately 6.4% of shares, providing strategic national interest without operational control.

The majority of ownership is held by global institutional investors, who collectively own roughly 73-80% of the company. Top asset managers include BlackRock (~5.1%), Vanguard (~3.9%), and Capital Research Global Investors. Morris Chang, the company's founder, holds a minimal estimated stake of around 0.5%.

 

 

Weird: I'm a taxpayer, but I am not poor.

I must be one of the billionaires!

There is a whole huge realm between those two extremes. A lot depends on how "poor" gets defined.
I am also "not poor", but far from being a billionair.
And I recall reading that the richest 10% own more that the other 90% by a fair margin. I am not sure what that tells me.

 

There is a whole huge realm between those two extremes. A lot depends on how "poor" gets defined.
I am also "not poor", but far from being a billionair.
And I recall reading that the richest 10% own more that the other 90% by a fair margin. I am not sure what that tells me.

It's the old (revised?) 80/20 rule. It's universal, and applies across domains.

Nature does what nature does.

If billionaires were taxed at 100%, some other 10% would have 90%.

But the pie would be much smaller.