Free Republic

World trade is truly global and interconnected. Perhaps the chip industry exemplifies this most. Apple sells phones around the world that rely on manufacturing by TSMC who is in turn supplied by a Dutch company few investors know anything about. And it’s that little-known Dutch company that quite possibly triggered Warren Buffett to make a huge purchase in its most recent quarter. You’re about to discovery why.Back Up a SecondLet’s back up a moment and examine what happened. In its latest 13F filing, Warren Buffett announced that his holding company Berkshire had initiated a new position in TSMC, the world’s...

NEW YORK – China’s semiconductor industry has lagged the US in patents and lagged South Korea and Taiwan in fabrication, but it hopes to leapfrog its competition by adopting revolutionary new chip design technologies. Advanced chips used in 5G smartphones and some workstations squeeze billions of transistors onto a fingernail-sized chip by shrinking the dimensions of the transistor itself to 3 to 5 nanometers. Most chips have gate widths of 28 nanometers and higher. Etching tiny circuits on silicon is enormously difficult. Only the Dutch manufacturer ASML makes the lithography machines that use the short wavelengths at the extreme end...

SEOUL – The middle ground between China and the United States is collapsing under South Korea’s feet as it is torn in opposite directions by the two giant economies it seeks to balance between. On the one hand, it is being “requested” to submit detailed information on its flagship industrial sector to the United States – which is also pressuring the country’s number-two memory chipmaker to halt shipments of advanced machinery to China. That move could halt an upgrade to a major DRAM fab, in a sector where large-scale capital investment is crucial. On the other hand, the country’s diesel...

The great computer chip shortage of 2021 will likely get worse before it gets better. This conclusion was reached following brief study and anecdotal review. Moreover, while COVID lockdowns may have initially triggered the shortage, several decades of shortsighted decisions and simmering geopolitical tensions make it much more than a matter of fixing a few broken links in the supply chain. Here’s why… The world’s top two leading chip companies are Taiwan’s TSMC and South Korea’s Samsung Electronics. These two Asian firms, combined, control more than 70 percent of the semiconductor manufacturing market. The U.S., which was once a leader,...

China Wants a Chip Machine From the Dutch. The U.S. Said No. Biden administration, continuing a Trump policy, seeks to stop ASML from selling China machines crucial to advanced microprocessors. https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-wants-a-chip-machine-from-the-dutch-the-u-s-said-no-11626514513 .