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JKCalhoun parent
Perhaps then fabs should be considered important enough for the US then that a new entity, perhaps not unlike NASA, is created to create and run these.
kevin_thibedeau
There are already domestic semiconductor fabs dedicated to the defense industry. The issue is that military semiconductors ceased to be cutting edge in the 80s and now everything runs on old processes for the enhanced reliability. That's perfect for most applications except when you need a low power handheld supercomputer that only TSMC can make.
davedx
The US already has DARPA that does semiconductor research, particularly where it intersects the military.
readthenotes1
NASA seems to outsource a lot. Would you like Boeing to create the fab next door to you? What could go wrong??
rjsw
You would still outsource running the fab to Intel, just have a government body overseeing it.
chatmasta
This won’t solve the biggest challenge/problem, which is lack of talent for staffing the fab. In Arizona they had to import a bunch of temp workers from Taiwan just to train the locals. We don’t have the skills. If you want to involve the government, maybe we should be training units of the military to make their own chips.
luma
That’s the specific problem a well organized governmental body can address. Funding research through university and private R&D lab grants and spreading/licensing the knowledge to domestic companies. Fund grants for universities and scholarships to spread that further. Invest in multiple startups attacking the problem at different levels in the stack (semi manufacturing has a LOT of inputs).

There are loads of ways you can effectively steer an economy to stimulate growth while also meeting geopolitical needs through effective and liberal application of the national purse. DOGE seems to have different ideas about the value of such programs.

ecshafer
How many workers do we need? TSMC has 80k workers all in. 15-24 there is about 3 million US NEETs. I think that we could have a 10 year plan to get 80k people with EE/CE/NanoTech Eng/ChemEng/etc degrees. Make college free, or hell even a stipend for people to pursue "Critical Careers", heavily fund Phds in the same areas for US Citizens, and we will see workers with the skills.
nemothekid
This is the wrong way to look at it. The people in the US that you would want working in semiconductors aren't NEETs. They are at Facebook/Google/Jane Street/Citadel/McKinsey.

If I am a capable person working on delivering node improvements dealing with smaller and smaller challenges as the physics issues become quantum - I will eventually start to ask myself: why am I working on the hardest physics problems in the private sector for 150k/yr, when I can transition to Facebook or Jane Street, work equally (if not less) as hard and make 500k/yr?

The US has plenty of smart people. I'd argue more that the wealth inequality gap makes it _incredibly_ difficult to justify working for less, even in a field you love, when you can make top 1-4% of income doing something else.

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