The article is a more interesting analysis than that. I hadn't realised how dire is the state of Taiwan's army. And the US is only just starting to help address that.
They have pretty decent airforce, and a respectable navy, but on their own they're likely insufficient to defeat a determined Chinese invasion - a sustained missile attack might take out most of their airforce on the ground, for example.
This remains the real point.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-67282107 ...William Chung, a research fellow at the Institute for National Defence and Security Research in Taipei, says Taiwan still cannot hope to deter China by itself. This is the other lesson from the war in Ukraine. "International society has to decide whether Taiwan matters," he says. "If the G7 or Nato think Taiwan is important for their own interests, then we have to internationalise the Taiwan situation - because that's what will make China think twice about the cost."..
Given its overwhelming importance for chip production, it's absolutely in western interests to deter any invasion. The economic consequences of a war would dwarf those of the one in Ukraine - whether that resulted in a quick victory for China, or a prolonged conflict destroying their chip fabs.
I remember covid when demand for chips surged and whole industries literally,stopped, like the car industry.
Localisation of chip manufacture is starting to happen but demand is rising too.
What happened with Covid, was that the car manufacturers cut production and cancelled orders for chips, but then the demand came back and the chips were on long lead times, as the chip production had been booked out far in advance and for more profitable chips.
Any war in Taiwan would be a whole lot worse - the chip factories themselves take several years to build, and the many cheap chips that go into cars and consumer electronics would get a whole lot more expensive. There’s a handful of chip factories under construction in the West, which will be able to mitigate the damage to some extent, but it will feel too little too late.
AIUI it's actually a fair bit more complex than that; changing fabs can actually be rather bothersome.
Cutting-edge chips (the likes of the top-end processors) are very tied to the fab process: you cannot even necessarily take a chip layout and shift it from one Samsung fab to another, even that nominally use the same process. But the same is true for chips that use older processes: it's fairly common for the layout of a chip (or at least the metal layer) to have to be altered when you move from one fab to another. Each fab has its own intricacies, and these get more numerous the more modern the process. Some tools can remove much of this pain, but it is still bothersome.
One of the biggest decisions made in any chip architecture (if you're a fabless company) is choosing which fab and process to go with. It's a decision you make right at the start of the project, and the further you go down the design process, the more complex it becomes to change. The decision involves not just ensuring cost or performance of the fab meets requirements; it is also that you have slots booked at the fab to make the wafers/chips at the right time. which means the chip designers need to hit that tapeout deadline...
IMV this is the main reason the chip shortage occurred; you cannot just shift any relatively modern chip between fabs; and fabs tend to be booked up years in advance for any volume.
The article is a more interesting analysis than that. I hadn't realised how dire is the state of Taiwan's army. And the US is only just starting to help address that.
They have pretty decent airforce, and a respectable navy, but on their own they're likely insufficient to defeat a determined Chinese invasion - a sustained missile attack might take out most of their airforce on the ground, for example.
This remains the real point.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-67282107 ...William Chung, a research fellow at the Institute for National Defence and Security Research in Taipei, says Taiwan still cannot hope to deter China by itself. This is the other lesson from the war in Ukraine. "International society has to decide whether Taiwan matters," he says. "If the G7 or Nato think Taiwan is important for their own interests, then we have to internationalise the Taiwan situation - because that's what will make China think twice about the cost."..
Given its overwhelming importance for chip production, it's absolutely in western interests to deter any invasion. The economic consequences of a war would dwarf those of the one in Ukraine - whether that resulted in a quick victory for China, or a prolonged conflict destroying their chip fabs.
I remember covid when demand for chips surged and whole industries literally,stopped, like the car industry.
Localisation of chip manufacture is starting to happen but demand is rising too.
What happened with Covid, was that the car manufacturers cut production and cancelled orders for chips, but then the demand came back and the chips were on long lead times, as the chip production had been booked out far in advance and for more profitable chips.
Any war in Taiwan would be a whole lot worse - the chip factories themselves take several years to build, and the many cheap chips that go into cars and consumer electronics would get a whole lot more expensive. There’s a handful of chip factories under construction in the West, which will be able to mitigate the damage to some extent, but it will feel too little too late.
Speaking of which, does anyone know what is happening with the car industry now?
Sales volumes are way up on 2022 which were up on 2021. Inventory is adequate at best so there are no deep discounts to be had.
BMW, Alfa and DS are all struggling for volume so they might be bargain lease deal out there on some of those if you're not too fussy about colour, etc.
I recently got an offer from BMW Finance for a 128ti (which is the FWD BMW it's ok to like, basically a Mini Cooper without the Nail Salon vibe) for £550/month which I thought was a good deal.
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Cutting-edge chips (the likes of the top-end processors) are very tied to the fab process: you cannot even necessarily take a chip layout and shift it from one Samsung fab to another, even that nominally use the same process. But the same is true for chips that use older processes: it's fairly common for the layout of a chip (or at least the metal layer) to have to be altered when you move from one fab to another. Each fab has its own intricacies, and these get more numerous the more modern the process. Some tools can remove much of this pain, but it is still bothersome.
One of the biggest decisions made in any chip architecture (if you're a fabless company) is choosing which fab and process to go with. It's a decision you make right at the start of the project, and the further you go down the design process, the more complex it becomes to change. The decision involves not just ensuring cost or performance of the fab meets requirements; it is also that you have slots booked at the fab to make the wafers/chips at the right time. which means the chip designers need to hit that tapeout deadline...
IMV this is the main reason the chip shortage occurred; you cannot just shift any relatively modern chip between fabs; and fabs tend to be booked up years in advance for any volume.
BMW, Alfa and DS are all struggling for volume so they might be bargain lease deal out there on some of those if you're not too fussy about colour, etc.
I recently got an offer from BMW Finance for a 128ti (which is the FWD BMW it's ok to like, basically a Mini Cooper without the Nail Salon vibe) for £550/month which I thought was a good deal.