More chip makers going 'fabless' to lower costs

USA Today ^

[maui_hawaii]

HONG KONG

[Servant of the 9]

PING

So9

[freebilly]

Makes sense. I've done print jobs offshore and have a couple of CD/DVD replication jobs lined up for China and Taiwan. Why incur the costs of running a production facility when the per unit fabrication costs run in the pennies overseas?

Now, on the downside of sending production to China, a lot of media brokers are sending "sensitive" industrial and/or gov't sector info overseas. The end user thinks the production is being done in the states, but the broker sends the stuff to China and increases his profit margin 25%-50%, and the Chinese are handed tech, gov't, & industrial info on a silver platter.

Oh, by the way, all the big CD/DVD replicators in the states are owned by the Chinese....

[Senormechanico]

Call me a "black helicopter" type, but I sure hope we don't completely get out of semiconductor production. We could wake up to an OPEC style "fab" monopoly in coming years. : (

SM

[oceanview]

first, no US fabs.
then low level chip design to China
then mid level
then high level

china owns the semiconductor industry in 10 years.

[maui_hawaii]

70% plus of the electronics manufacturing in the PRC is owned by Taiwanese companies. Another portion is owned by Hong Kong.

[StolarStorm]

Yep, managers and high level engineers are now being offshored. The middle class may not exist in a decade. Perhaps we can all be plumbers or CEOs.

[Yeti]

china owns the semiconductor industry in 10 years.

Just in time to be made completely obsolete by optical and quantum computing.

[Lazamataz]

first, no US fabs.
then low level chip design to China
then mid level
then high level

china owns the semiconductor industry in 10 years.

But that's a good thing, right? Cuz if we get into a shooting war with the Chinese, we want them to own all the specialty manufacturing plants for sensitive military electronics, right?

.......right?

[ikka]

The reality is that you are a fool to keep your investments in anything but cash.

Better to set up a series of offshore corporations which pay no taxes and set up interlocking financial instruments in different jurisdictions so that apparently you own nothing and yet still get profits.

[glorgau]

IBM still has fabs here. So does Intel. They don't waste money on the commodity chips.

[fire_eye]

I'm currently unemployed, and considering a "career change", as a result of this "trend".

But that doesn't bother me nearly as much as the cavalier manner in which American industry - aided and abetted by Government indifference - is letting a key technology leave the country.

Yes, IBM and Intel still have state-of-the-art fabs. But the Taiwan and Chinese governments have recognized this as a key technology and are carefully nourishing it, while ours focuses on farm subsidies and keeping the UAW from going on strike.

As one Silicon Valley exec put it years ago, "The policy of the American government is to support dying industries".

[Texas_Dawg]

Yawn...

[RogueIsland]

It's okay. Semiconductor fabrication is a "buggy whip" industry anyway. It belongs on the ash-heap of U.S. economic history along with such other candle-making industries as IT and Engineering. < /sarcasm >

[Lazamataz]

Yawn.

So you don't care that sensitive military hardware is going to be exclusively produced in China.

How you can sit there, with your teeth in yout mouth and your face hanging out, and tell me you are NOT a Chinese military agent is completely mindblowing. Just that answer alone tells me that you are actively hoping America lowers it's guard.

[Texas_Dawg]

No... I just don't live in Tin Foil Hat Land like you, Laz.

[Lazamataz]

Chip manufacturing is going to China, per this article. While we retain some capacity still, more and more players are ceding manufacturing to China. The trend is for us to be out of chip manufacturing outright.

So where's the tin foil?

[1rudeboy]

A "buggy-whip" industry is an obsolete industry. Try to keep your analogies straight, especially when discussing economics on a forum such as this one.

[Texas_Dawg]

You're not going to do anything but punish Americans with the federal totalitarianism you favor, Laz. You're fighting a losing battle. Invest wisely, Laz.

[Lazamataz]

You're not going to do anything but punish Americans with the federal totalitarianism you favor, Laz.

Don't you think PRC soldiers walking up and down mainstreet Chicago is punishment? Well, not to you, being as you are clearly a citizen of China. But to us, it would be.

You're fighting a losing battle.

Save your propaganda for someone who will swallow it.