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Semicon Is TSMC’s US fab a big win for Trump? Not quite

So, about that fab TSMC intends to build in the United States. At first glance, it seems like a big win for Trump, who has been adamant about restoring domestic

Credit: TSMC

manufacturing prowess. A 12 billion dollar investment for advanced semiconductor production, employing 1,600 people at the site and many more in the supply chain is certainly nothing to sneeze at. But what the Arizona facility won’t do, at least not any time soon, is reduce US reliance on Asian fabs for leading-edge semiconductors – another important ambition of Trump. After all, the fab is slated to start production of 5nm chips in 2024, by which time TSMC will already have moved to 3nm in Taiwan. So while customers like Apple, Qualcomm and AMD likely appreciate a domestic fab to ensure supply continuity in an unstable geopolitical climate, it’s unlikely that they will stop getting their chips from Taiwan. PvG

Semicon Chinese IC industry not exactly taking off

China will fall far short of its Made in China 2025 goal for domestic semiconductor production, IC Insight predicts. The market research firm projects indigenous IC production in China will represent 20.7 percent of its 208 billion dollar market in 2024, not even a third of the 70 percent goal in 2025. The picture is even bleaker if foreign companies operating fabs in China are taken out of the equation. China-headquartered IC companies accounted for only 6.1 percent of Chi

Security The coronavirus moved online

Public authorities all over the world reported sharp declines in most types of crime while quarantine measures were in effect. At least one type of crime, however, surged: cybercrime. Some digital thieves jumped at the opportunity to take advantage of the generally less secure connections people use to work from home, giving them an easier point of entry to install ransomware on corporate IT systems. Others were delighted with the fresh phishing opportunities the pandemic offers. Something along the lines of: “Your current bank card isn’t safe to use, please click here to receive a virusrepelling one.” Government offices and medical facilities, too, are frequently being targeted – to give the messages hackers send out more credibility, for example. Finally, some of the hacking is state sanctioned. Both the US and the UK claim foreign states have been attempting to steal coronavirus research from medical research organizations and pharmaceutical companies. PvG

na’s total IC market last year, which includes imports. Overall, China-headquartered producers accounted for 38.7 percent of domestic IC output in the country. All this is very bad news for China, as the US is moving to cut off its rival from advanced semiconductor technology. Thus, building its own semiconductor industry gained even more urgency for China, but at the current rate, this is going to take decades. PvG

Artificial intelligence Is coronavirus making AI dumb?

It looks like the coronavirus might have found its next victim: artificial intelligence. Fueled by global changes in buying habits and daily behavior, it seems that AI models are getting ‘confused.’ According to a report published in MIT Technology Review, many

of the machine learning models trained on tracking normal human behavior are solidifying what we already know – with the current pandemic, life is anything but normal. These hiccups in the algorithms are especially pronounced in the areas of inventory management, fraud detection and automation – forcing humans to step in to make physical corrections when things get too far out of balance. “Machine learning models are designed to respond to changes. But most are also fragile; they perform badly when input data differs too much from the data they were trained on,” says Rajeev Sharma, global VP of AI consultancy Pactera Edge. “It’s a mistake to assume you can set up an AI system and walk away.” CA