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Speaker 1: Have you been seeing all these shortages. It feels like

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Speaker 1: there's a shortage of everything.

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Speaker 2: Yes, there's a shortage on baby formula, there's a shortage

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Speaker 2: on tampons. I saw something about olive oil shortage olive oil,

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Speaker 2: which is creeping very close to there be.

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Speaker 1: A shortage of my patients.

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Speaker 2: I am very tired of all of these shortages because

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Speaker 2: as soon as something there's not enough of something, that

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Speaker 2: means people are going to start panicking.

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Speaker 1: We saw that in the.

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Speaker 2: Pandemic when there was a shortage of toilet paper and

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Speaker 2: hand sanitizer and chlorox wipes. And one thing that has

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Speaker 2: come across our radar but isn't really that new, is

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Speaker 2: the semiconductor chip shortage. Yes, and I feel like Christopher

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Speaker 2: Mims gave us a little bit of a heads up, like, hey,

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Speaker 2: some of these things are happening, but it's getting out

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Speaker 2: of control.

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Speaker 1: Now.

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Speaker 3: I want to know why we're still dealing with this

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Speaker 3: shortage and what's next? What are we going to do

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Speaker 3: about it? What's the plant? I'm Tti and I'm Zakiath

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Speaker 3: and from Spotify.

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Speaker 4: This is Dope Labs.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to Dope Labs, a weekly podcast that mixes hardcore

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Speaker 2: science pop culture and a healthy dost of friendship. So,

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Speaker 2: like we just said, there's been a lot of shortages,

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Speaker 2: one being the chip shortage.

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Speaker 1: But the chip shortage is a little bit more complicated,

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Speaker 1: changing a lot.

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Speaker 4: I guess whether or.

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Speaker 1: Not there is a shortage. It depends on what you

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Speaker 1: type into Google.

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Speaker 2: It seems like in some countries they got a lot

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Speaker 2: of chips, but in the US we might not have enough.

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Speaker 2: At some points, you know there's not enough chips, and

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Speaker 2: then at another point you got too much dip on

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Speaker 2: your chip.

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Speaker 3: This week, we're talking all about computer chips, or specifically

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Speaker 3: semiconductor chips. These tiny pieces of equipment that are in

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Speaker 3: every computing device out there. They're vital to how our

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Speaker 3: world runs, and right now there's a major shortage. We

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Speaker 3: wanted to know more about what's caused a chip shortage,

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Speaker 3: how it's affecting our lives, and what people are doing

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Speaker 3: about it.

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Speaker 1: Let's get into the recitation. So what do we know?

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Speaker 3: Chips, chips, chips everywhere. They're in everything.

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Speaker 2: Literally, they're in everything. Any device that operates on its

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Speaker 2: own without you having a cranket, it has a semiconductor

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Speaker 2: chip inside of it. And so when you stop and

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Speaker 2: think about that. Almost everything except like a table, and

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Speaker 2: some of these tables have chips in them too.

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Speaker 3: My desk was going up and down. It probably has

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Speaker 3: a chip.

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Speaker 4: It does have a chip.

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Speaker 2: They're in our refrigerators, they're in our cars, they're in

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Speaker 2: military equipment.

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Speaker 1: Almost everything you touch has a chip in it.

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Speaker 2: We know that there's a shortage and it's having an

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Speaker 2: effect on the economy.

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Speaker 1: So what do we want to know? Where are we

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Speaker 1: in the shortage?

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Speaker 2: Because I thought we have reached the heights of the

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Speaker 2: shortage in twenty twenty Right then it's twenty twenty one.

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Speaker 2: We went over what I thought the high was, and

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Speaker 2: so here we are now the shortiest of shortages. Okay,

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Speaker 2: I thought shortage meant we got a little bit. Y'all

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Speaker 2: still saying shortage? How we stealing out a little bit?

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Speaker 2: What's happening?

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Speaker 3: And what is anybody doing about it? What are manufacturers

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Speaker 3: doing about it? What kind of policy is around hopefully

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Speaker 3: relieving some of the pressures here? What's going on?

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Speaker 2: I think something that would be important for people to

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Speaker 2: understand is the importance of semiconductor chips, So how they work,

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Speaker 2: why they're so important, and why we should be worried

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Speaker 2: about it.

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Speaker 3: Let's jump into the dissection.

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Speaker 1: Our guest for today's lab is Al Thompson.

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Speaker 5: I'm Al Thompson. I'm the vice president of US and

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Speaker 5: Canadian Government Affairs at Intel.

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Speaker 3: Intel is one of the major players in the semiconductor

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Speaker 3: chip industry, and because these chips are in so many

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Speaker 3: things that we rely on, that industry is shaping our lives.

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Speaker 1: Ow broke down what a chip is.

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Speaker 5: It's a complex device that forms the brains of anything

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Speaker 5: that involves computing.

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Speaker 3: That includes phones, medical devices, cars, more and more modern

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Speaker 3: appliances have chips, and most of those chips are made

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Speaker 3: in Taiwan, South Korea and China.

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Speaker 5: It's one of the most complex products manufacturing in the world.

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Speaker 5: They're small as a fingernail. They're flat, but on the

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Speaker 5: surface you generally have three dimensional structures that can include

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Speaker 5: up the thirty layers of different circuitry on them.

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Speaker 3: So what's a chip made of?

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Speaker 2: The basis for every chip is that it's built on

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Speaker 2: a piece of silicon, and then on each piece of

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Speaker 2: silicon there are these things called transistors, and transistors are

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Speaker 2: what the device uses to function. It has switches and

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Speaker 2: amplifiers and things like that different chips have different responsibilities,

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Speaker 2: so not all chips are created equal. Some are used

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Speaker 2: for storing data, so if you think about your those

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Speaker 2: chips store data so you can access it whenever you

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Speaker 2: want to. Some chips are called microprocessors, so they perform

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Speaker 2: most of a computer's calculating functions.

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Speaker 1: You know, back in the day, chips weren't what we

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Speaker 1: know chips to.

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Speaker 2: Be now, where you can have thin laptops, AirPods that

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Speaker 2: don't have a cord, and all these different things. Fifty

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Speaker 2: years ago they would take up entire rooms, Like when

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Speaker 2: you're talking about the first computer, it took up an

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Speaker 2: entire room, and even things like oh, you know how

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Speaker 2: we say, oh, if.

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Speaker 1: There's a bug in my computer. Back then, it was

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Speaker 1: literal bugs.

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Speaker 2: That's where we get the terminology from the first computer.

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Speaker 2: Rug was a moth inside of this side of this

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Speaker 2: computer that took up a whole room. Everything is so

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Speaker 2: thin and so small because there have been so many

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Speaker 2: advances in chip technology.

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Speaker 5: The microprocessor was first created well over fifty years ago.

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Speaker 5: But you know, now the technology has evolved in terms

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Speaker 5: of the manufacturing process where you can stack different components

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Speaker 5: on top of each other. Even know the surface of

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Speaker 5: the chip itself is still pretty that so.

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Speaker 2: There's all of these pathways for electricity to move around

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Speaker 2: the chip and perform different functions. And also the most

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Speaker 2: sophisticated chips have hundreds of millions or billions of these

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Speaker 2: circuitries on them and that are interconnected by fine wires

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Speaker 2: and copper.

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Speaker 5: So on that small little piece of equipment you have

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Speaker 5: the ability to do everything from either store information and

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Speaker 5: those are called memory chips, or actually compute and make decisions.

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Speaker 5: We call those logic chips.

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Speaker 3: So chips have been getting smaller and smaller, but their

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Speaker 3: capabilities are increasing. To understand how that's happened, we need

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Speaker 3: to understand how the chip is kind of evolved.

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Speaker 2: The evolution of the semiconductor chip is defined by a

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Speaker 2: prediction that was actually made in nineteen sixty five by

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Speaker 2: one of the co founders of Intel, Gordon Moore, and

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Speaker 2: the prediction is called Moore's laws. He says that the

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Speaker 2: number of transistors on a semiconductor chip will double every

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Speaker 2: two years. If you have a semiconductor chip and there's

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Speaker 2: ten transistors on it, two years from then, there'll be twenty,

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Speaker 2: and two years from then there'll be forty two years

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Speaker 2: from then, it'll be eighty and so on and.

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Speaker 5: So forth, and that is continued to this point. What

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Speaker 5: More's Law has done is has allowed chips to basically

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Speaker 5: evolve and be able to go from what used to

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Speaker 5: be very large computer mainframes to your iPhone. And it's

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Speaker 5: an continual process that allows us to try to get

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Speaker 5: more transistors on a chip, that makes a chip more

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Speaker 5: energy efficient yet powerful from a computing standpoint, but making

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Speaker 5: the size smaller all at the same time.

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Speaker 3: I think the common misconception when people here computing is

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Speaker 3: to think only about computers. But like you said earlier,

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Speaker 3: chips are in everything. Your refrigerator, your car, for example,

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Speaker 3: brand new cars now are about four percent chip. That's

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Speaker 3: a lot. It's not just older as one chip. If

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Speaker 3: you had car problems, you know about the chips, okay,

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Speaker 3: and it's only expected to continue to increase.

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Speaker 2: There's really no aspect of our lives that's becoming less digital.

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Speaker 2: If you think about it, everything is becoming more and

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Speaker 2: more digitized. Like as we see advancement in any technology. Now,

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Speaker 2: I can't even think of something that doesn't have a chip.

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Speaker 4: Truly.

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Speaker 3: Your glass is the only thing I seen without a chip,

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Speaker 3: but those about to start clipping over Google.

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Speaker 2: Glass and everything like that. Mm hmm, I'm ready for that.

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Speaker 2: My friend want to be a I want to be

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Speaker 2: a robot. Put the chips in me, put it in me.

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Speaker 2: That's what I want.

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Speaker 1: Is that the goal for everything.

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Speaker 4: To be chip based?

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Speaker 2: I feel like that's possible and that is what we're

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Speaker 2: creeping towards.

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Speaker 1: But what is the ultimate goal?

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Speaker 3: So we asked l and he said, while COVID accelerated

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Speaker 3: digitization in a lot of ways, it's great because it

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Speaker 3: makes a lot of things more accessible for a lot

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Speaker 3: more people.

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Speaker 5: Technology allows people to have flexibility they didn't have twenty

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Speaker 5: years ago. I grew up in the eighties. There was

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Speaker 5: no cell phone. We had a landline. Did I have

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Speaker 5: a computer system, Yeah, but it was huge. There was

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Speaker 5: no such thing as putting an infotainment system in your automobile.

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Speaker 5: The infotainment system was the radio based on the intenna

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Speaker 5: signal that you got when you drove. So think about

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Speaker 5: all the things that we're able to do now due

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Speaker 5: to the improvement that the semiconductors made on everyday life.

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Speaker 5: There was no such thing as telehealth when I was

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Speaker 5: a kid. The ability to actually do your doctor's appointment

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Speaker 5: on a computer screen. And so when I say everything's

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Speaker 5: more and more digital, it's more the fact that technology

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Speaker 5: is enabling us to do things now in ways we

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Speaker 5: couldn't do ten or fifteen or twenty years ago.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, these things are a really huge part of our lives,

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Speaker 2: personally at work, just moving around in public spaces. But

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Speaker 2: how has the shortage affected those areas of our lives?

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Speaker 3: Well, because so much of our life has become digitized,

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Speaker 3: the chip shortage has kind of had waves of effects.

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Speaker 3: So you think back TT when people were saying they

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Speaker 3: couldn't get cars, or was taking U so long to

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Speaker 3: get laptops early in the pandemic. Yeah, chip shortage, But

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Speaker 3: now it just feels like there's a shortage of everything

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Speaker 3: which could be related to the chip shortage.

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Speaker 2: So we've touched on some of the factors in the

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Speaker 2: chip shortage, but what we really need to understand is

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Speaker 2: how this even started.

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Speaker 3: All said is all about supply and demand.

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Speaker 5: So I would say, at the big picture, high increased

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Speaker 5: demand capacity that had increased, and then other components of

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Speaker 5: the supply chain had their own set of unique challenges

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Speaker 5: with made it harder to produce those components. All of

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Speaker 5: those things happening at the same time is what led

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Speaker 5: to the chip shortage that we face today.

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Speaker 2: Just like we've highlighted in a lot of other labs,

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Speaker 2: when COVID hit, it changed everything, and that is true

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Speaker 2: for this as well. A lot of things moved to

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Speaker 2: digital platforms in a really short.

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Speaker 1: Amount of time. Al said.

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Speaker 2: The supply chain shortages meant that there was about five

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Speaker 2: percent more demand then manufacturers could supply, but the pandemic

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Speaker 2: took that and pushed it to twenty percent.

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Speaker 1: That is four times larger.

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Speaker 3: People move so many things online, work, meeting, school, and

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Speaker 3: everybody needs to have a device, and then you need

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Speaker 3: better routeries, and then you need more and more and

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Speaker 3: more accessories, all of these things that were just driving

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Speaker 3: demand through the roof, but manufacturers of chips didn't have

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Speaker 3: the opportunity to increase output just as fast. So there's

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Speaker 3: this incredible imbalance. And then on top of that, in

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Speaker 3: different places, as the pandemic is ripping through the population,

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Speaker 3: there's worker shortages. Then there were companies having issues with

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Speaker 3: components having trouble keeping up with the demand to make chips.

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Speaker 3: Companies are dealing with this in a few different ways.

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Speaker 3: Intel specifically is spending between seventy to seventy five billion

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Speaker 3: dollars globally to increase their ability to produce chips, but

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Speaker 3: he says it takes time to do that.

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Speaker 5: It takes three years to build a semiconductor fab three years.

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Speaker 2: A semiconductor fab is a semiconductor fabrication plant, so it

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Speaker 2: is a special facility with the specific purpose of making

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Speaker 2: semiconductor chips.

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Speaker 5: So everything that we've announced within the last year or

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Speaker 5: two won't not be online until twenty twenty four to

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Speaker 5: twenty twenty five because the scale and the size of

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Speaker 5: the facilities are just so large that they take a

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Speaker 5: while to build and equip.

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Speaker 2: I understand to specialize, but I also feel like people

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Speaker 2: have thrown up apartment buildings and things like this. Is

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Speaker 2: that facility taking so long? Those things are going up fast.

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Speaker 2: It's like, Oh, they're breaking ground. Oh they're accepting applications

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Speaker 2: for lease that.

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Speaker 1: Pool and everything. How did you get that water up there?

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Speaker 5: Your first step is to build the facility itself, and

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Speaker 5: you're talking about something the size of four or more

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Speaker 5: football fields, so you're building out that actual physical structure.

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Speaker 5: The next component comes. You have to equip it, so

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Speaker 5: all that floor space generally has very sophisticated and large

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Speaker 5: pieces of equipment that either do things from using white

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Speaker 5: to essentially print the circuitry pattern on a wafer. That

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Speaker 5: includes the machines that move the wafers all around. There's

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Speaker 5: a huge amount of equipment that actually goes into the building.

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Speaker 3: Of the facility, and beyond just the physical facility. You

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Speaker 3: need people in the facilities to actually do the work

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Speaker 3: putting these chips together.

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Speaker 5: And then while you're also doing that, you're hiring the

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Speaker 5: workforce to be able to come in and manage it.

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Speaker 5: That workforce includes significant amount of engineering talent at the bachelor,

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Speaker 5: master's and PhD.

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Speaker 2: Level as well, and companies are trying to find different

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Speaker 2: ways to find workers because you need a lot of

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Speaker 2: different skill sets to make more chips.

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Speaker 5: We have to have construction workers, and those construction workers

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Speaker 5: have to be specialized welders and electricians to actually build

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Speaker 5: the facilities. Then if we get there, we have to

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Speaker 5: be able to staff them. Some of those workers could

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Speaker 5: be ensuring that engineering talent in the United States, most

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Speaker 5: of which come from foreign countries. If those folks want

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Speaker 5: to work in the US as engineers, at our companies.

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Speaker 5: We should hopefully have an immigration system that allows them

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Speaker 5: to do that.

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Speaker 3: That's such a great point. You need people. I think

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Speaker 3: a lot of folks when they think about semiconductor fabrication.

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Speaker 3: If they're thinking about it, they're thinking about machines, make

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Speaker 3: more machines. But you need talented individuals to do that work.

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Speaker 2: We're going to take a quick break, but after the break,

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Speaker 2: we're going to get into the policy behind chip manufacturing.

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Speaker 2: We're back and next week we're talking all about the

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Speaker 2: digital divide with a Cold Turner lead. We're gonna talk

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Speaker 2: all about who has access to Internet, who doesn't, and

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Speaker 2: how the gap disproportionately affects low income people and.

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Speaker 1: People of color.

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Speaker 2: We've been talking with Al Thompson, the vice president of

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Speaker 2: US and Canadian Government Affairs at Intel. So far we've

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Speaker 2: learned what a chip is, what it's made of, and

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Speaker 2: how basically everything in our lives is becoming more and

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Speaker 2: more digitized, which means more chips. Now, we want to

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Speaker 2: talk about the cost difference between manufacturing in the US

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Speaker 2: and in countries like China, Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan,

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Speaker 2: where we know they're doing a lot of chip fabrication.

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Speaker 2: This means we kind of have to understand the history

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Speaker 2: of chip making and some of the policy that's surrounded.

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Speaker 2: In nineteen ninety, the United States made around thirty seven

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Speaker 2: percent of the semiconductor chips in the world. Fast forward

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Speaker 2: to twenty twenty two and we now make around twelve percent.

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Speaker 2: Europe also saw a similar shift from making forty four

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Speaker 2: percent of the semiconductor chips to now only nine percent.

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Speaker 5: So thirty years ago, close to eighty percent of the

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Speaker 5: world semiconductors or manufactured in the United States and Europe,

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Speaker 5: and twenty percent or so were manufactured in Asia. It

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Speaker 5: is now completely reversed. Eighty percent of the world semiconductors

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Speaker 5: are manufactured in Asia, divided between Japan, South Korea, Taiwan,

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Speaker 5: and China. Why did that happen. That happened because foreign governments,

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Speaker 5: recognizing the foundational nature of semiconductors and their value, created

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Speaker 5: policies to attract manufacturing in those geographic locations, and the

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Speaker 5: United States didn't do the same.

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Speaker 2: So what China did is they made it more appealing,

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Speaker 2: and the way that they did that was by creating

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Speaker 2: these tax and tariff exemptions to sustain and develop its

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Speaker 2: chip industry. Tariffs are for the important exports of goods,

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Speaker 2: and so if there are exemptions that means that you

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Speaker 2: don't got to pay so much to or export goods,

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Speaker 2: that is very appealing.

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Speaker 3: You're basically subsidizing the cost to manufacture something. If it's

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Speaker 3: cheaper for me to make my chips in China, I'm

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Speaker 3: making the chips in China. And so it's advantageous for China,

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Speaker 3: right because you may say, well, why would they make

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Speaker 3: such a deal. Not only are the chips being made

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Speaker 3: in China in their country, that also reduces China's reliance

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Speaker 3: on chips from other countries, so they don't have to

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Speaker 3: look to Taiwan or you know, any other country to

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Speaker 3: do this. We've seen this recently in India, Japan, and

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Speaker 3: South Korea. They've all passed tax credits and subsidies for

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Speaker 3: chip makers. Recently, the European Union has been looking at

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Speaker 3: finalizing its own Chips Act legislation, which will hold billions

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Speaker 3: of dollars in funding to make up for that large

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Speaker 3: drop in chip production. So that created a huge gap

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Speaker 3: in the cost of operating and manufacturing in these different places.

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Speaker 5: At the end of the day, there's a thirty percent

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Speaker 5: cost difference between building and operating factories in Asia compared

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Speaker 5: to the United States.

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Speaker 3: Thirty percent feels big to me, So what are we

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Speaker 3: going to do to close that gap. Congress actually passed

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Speaker 3: the Chips Act that's part of the National Defense Authorization

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Speaker 3: Act in twenty twenty one.

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Speaker 2: The bill has around fifty two point five billion dollars

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Speaker 2: in funding for the semiconductor industry.

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Speaker 3: But passing isn't the end all, be all. They haven't

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Speaker 3: formally budgeted out any of that funding. In order to

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Speaker 3: actually put the dollars behind the Act, we need to

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Speaker 3: fund the Bipartisan Innovation Act. Alice saying companies want Congress

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Speaker 3: to pass that bill so that they can get the

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Speaker 3: money the fifty two point five billion that people said

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Speaker 3: when we would get in twenty twenty one with the

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Speaker 3: Chips Act.

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Speaker 5: What the Bipartisan Innovation Act would do is eliminate that

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Speaker 5: cost delta a thirty percent. If you take away that

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Speaker 5: cost delta, it's much easier to drive investment here. That

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Speaker 5: has two benefits, not in terms of just job creation,

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Speaker 5: but it improves supply chain resiliency because over the last

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Speaker 5: half a century, company rewarded for the efficiency of their

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Speaker 5: supply chain, not necessarily the resiliency of their supply chain.

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Speaker 5: Our CEO pac Ellsinger always says that we've need a

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Speaker 5: transition from a just in time delivery system to a

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Speaker 5: just in case delivery system in supply chain, and the

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Speaker 5: Bipartisan Innovation Act is designed to support industry by removing

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Speaker 5: that thirty percent cost gap, so it's much more cost

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Speaker 5: competitive to build facilities. In the United States.

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Speaker 2: All said, the way for companies to shift to a

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Speaker 2: more resilient supply chain is to go from a just

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Speaker 2: in time manufacturing model, which is when companies create items

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Speaker 2: as needed to adjust in case model, where companies do

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Speaker 2: the opposite of that, where they make enough product in

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Speaker 2: advance and have it in excess.

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Speaker 3: It feels like we're hitting on this distinction between efficiency

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Speaker 3: and resiliency, and so when it comes to chip manufacturing,

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Speaker 3: what does it actually mean.

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Speaker 2: A big part of this is having a more diverse

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Speaker 2: supply chain so production doesn't stop if one part of

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Speaker 2: that production process is compromised.

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Speaker 3: And that's part of what this push for chip factories

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Speaker 3: in the United States is about. But funding for those

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Speaker 3: factories installed in Congress in June. Global Wafers a Taiwanese

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Speaker 3: semiconductor maker, the third largest one in the world, said

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Speaker 3: they would build a five billion dollar factory in the

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Speaker 3: United States, but only if the government helps pay for it.

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Speaker 3: They're going to put a twelve billion dollar plant in

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Speaker 3: Phoenix to produce the most advanced chips, but the CEO

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Speaker 3: Mark Lucid. Development would only move forward if the government

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Speaker 3: would make up for TSMC's running costs difference between the

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Speaker 3: United States and Taiwan. And although Intel had previously had

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Speaker 3: plans to have a twenty billion dollar factory in Ohio,

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Speaker 3: because those funds haven't been distributed, Intel put a freeze

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Speaker 3: on construction and postponed its groundbreaking ceremony not a week,

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Speaker 3: but indefinitely until Congress funds the chip pack. There are

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Speaker 3: a lot of roadblocks to even starting to address this shortage.

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Speaker 3: We asked ol what other ways the supply chain could

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Speaker 3: look different.

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Speaker 5: Instead of having a supply chain where eighty percent of

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Speaker 5: it is concentrated in one part of the world, and

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Speaker 5: of that half that eighty percent is concentrated in two countries,

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Speaker 5: meaning anything that would go wrong in that part of

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Speaker 5: the world could lock down the supply chain, a resilient

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Speaker 5: supply chain means weight. We have robust manufacturing and passing

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Speaker 5: in Europe. We have robust manufacturing passed in the US,

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Speaker 5: so there are no more single points of failure. What

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Speaker 5: the just in time delivery system essentially rewarded was keeping

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Speaker 5: things concentrated in low cost areas that will allow you

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Speaker 5: to manufacture cheaply, ship it and get it just in

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Speaker 5: time to where you need to put it back on

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Speaker 5: a store shelf or put it into a product so

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Speaker 5: it could be shipped. And that works in terms of

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Speaker 5: speed and cost. But the problem is that creates single

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Speaker 5: points of failure, and if one of those points fails,

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Speaker 5: you can't get the product out the door. So what

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Speaker 5: happened in the auto industry. What happened in the auto

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Speaker 5: industry was the chip that essentially control rolls your window,

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Speaker 5: or warms your seats, or controls your power system. If

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Speaker 5: there's a problem manufacturing one of those, that small chip

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Speaker 5: is the reason why our new car can't move off

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Speaker 5: a lot.

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Speaker 2: This means more factories to produce these chips and meet

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Speaker 2: a demand that has skyrocketed.

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Speaker 5: So demand for chips is going to increase every year

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Speaker 5: by five percent between now and the end of this decade.

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Speaker 5: To meet that demand, meeting meeting people needing products that

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Speaker 5: include semiconductors, capacity or the number of facilities has to

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Speaker 5: expand globally by fifty seven percent.

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Speaker 2: Al says a success of a semiconductor company is driven

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Speaker 2: by the ability to invest more in Moore's law, that

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Speaker 2: law that says there should be more transistors on a chip.

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Speaker 4: Every two years, it should double.

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Speaker 2: So that chips can evolve and become more leading edge.

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Speaker 2: These go into our iPads, our computers, our cell phones.

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Speaker 3: I'll send. Any efforts to address supply chain shortages in

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Speaker 3: the future need to be a balance of chips that

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Speaker 3: are already in production, so kind of mature chips and

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Speaker 3: new cutting edge chips.

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Speaker 5: The challenge and the reason why it's so hard is

439
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Speaker 5: the chips that you need tend to be the older chips,

440
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Speaker 5: and those are harder to maintain over time. Because More's

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Speaker 5: law requires you to kind of continue to push forward

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Speaker 5: toward more capable chip and all of the resources not

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Speaker 5: necessarily in physical material but tools and manufacturing processes. You

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Speaker 5: don't have as much of that as you used to

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Speaker 5: ten to fifteen years ago.

446
00:23:32,920 --> 00:23:35,920
Speaker 2: So it's not necessarily the materials that are the issue

447
00:23:36,080 --> 00:23:39,120
Speaker 2: in the chip shortage, it's the manufacturing technology.

448
00:23:39,200 --> 00:23:41,639
Speaker 1: We need more of the older chips.

449
00:23:41,760 --> 00:23:44,679
Speaker 2: But in order to stay on the leading edge with

450
00:23:44,760 --> 00:23:48,640
Speaker 2: our technology, a lot of companies have invested more in

451
00:23:48,880 --> 00:23:49,680
Speaker 2: modern chips.

452
00:23:50,119 --> 00:23:55,119
Speaker 3: So how do you address these pitfalls? These are in

453
00:23:55,240 --> 00:23:59,760
Speaker 3: direct opposition? So how does the chip industry deal with this?

454
00:24:00,160 --> 00:24:02,399
Speaker 3: And then I'm curious, like, if all of this is

455
00:24:02,440 --> 00:24:04,680
Speaker 3: going on, and we see how it's working in other countries,

456
00:24:05,200 --> 00:24:07,040
Speaker 3: why didn't our government anticipate this?

457
00:24:07,160 --> 00:24:10,439
Speaker 2: TV you saw what other folks were doing. The government

458
00:24:10,480 --> 00:24:12,679
Speaker 2: knows what everybody else is doing. Everybody knows what everybody's doing.

459
00:24:12,680 --> 00:24:15,440
Speaker 2: Everybody's looking at everybody's paper. We should have been able

460
00:24:15,480 --> 00:24:18,440
Speaker 2: to anticipate this and put some stuff in place.

461
00:24:18,359 --> 00:24:21,240
Speaker 3: And because we didn't, now we're playing ketchup Al said

462
00:24:21,240 --> 00:24:24,360
Speaker 3: that COVID changed the way the United States now approaches

463
00:24:24,440 --> 00:24:27,520
Speaker 3: chips and manufacturing. He said, there has to be more

464
00:24:27,600 --> 00:24:31,359
Speaker 3: focused on research and development or R and D. Then

465
00:24:31,800 --> 00:24:35,240
Speaker 3: there is the investment in starting materials. Right. We touched

466
00:24:35,240 --> 00:24:37,760
Speaker 3: on that with doctor Kate Butner in our previous lab

467
00:24:37,800 --> 00:24:41,600
Speaker 3: about metals. There's a limited supply of various elements, metals

468
00:24:41,600 --> 00:24:45,040
Speaker 3: and fossil fuels, and so the upside of doing research

469
00:24:45,160 --> 00:24:48,000
Speaker 3: and development is that it can help us use things

470
00:24:48,000 --> 00:24:50,600
Speaker 3: that are available locally or at least on this side

471
00:24:50,600 --> 00:24:53,439
Speaker 3: of the hemisphere, and all of that feels really important

472
00:24:53,440 --> 00:24:56,320
Speaker 3: to focus on when we think about closing that chip

473
00:24:56,400 --> 00:24:57,359
Speaker 3: production gap.

474
00:24:57,760 --> 00:25:01,280
Speaker 2: All said, Intel spends about fifty team billion dollars a

475
00:25:01,400 --> 00:25:04,080
Speaker 2: year on research and development, and that's one of the

476
00:25:04,080 --> 00:25:06,800
Speaker 2: reasons why only a few companies can do that is

477
00:25:06,840 --> 00:25:09,760
Speaker 2: because you have to invest so many resources to conduct

478
00:25:09,840 --> 00:25:10,560
Speaker 2: that research.

479
00:25:10,960 --> 00:25:16,040
Speaker 5: There's no getting around that. Moore's Law is incredible. Moore's

480
00:25:16,119 --> 00:25:19,000
Speaker 5: Law is also expensive. One of the things that's been clear,

481
00:25:19,160 --> 00:25:21,480
Speaker 5: and this is why the Innovation Act is so important,

482
00:25:21,600 --> 00:25:25,520
Speaker 5: is federal pre competitive research has kind of stayed flat,

483
00:25:25,640 --> 00:25:29,600
Speaker 5: and we need to invest in these because the semiconductor shortage.

484
00:25:30,200 --> 00:25:32,159
Speaker 5: We talk a lot about it in the United States

485
00:25:32,240 --> 00:25:35,679
Speaker 5: given its impact, but it's a global shortage and the

486
00:25:35,680 --> 00:25:37,919
Speaker 5: rest of the world has woken up to the fact

487
00:25:38,240 --> 00:25:42,919
Speaker 5: that the companies that have semiconductor manufacturing and R and

488
00:25:43,000 --> 00:25:44,960
Speaker 5: D are going to be the ones that have a

489
00:25:45,080 --> 00:25:48,399
Speaker 5: large say in the direction of the global future, and

490
00:25:48,520 --> 00:25:53,800
Speaker 5: so our ability to properly invest is really really important.

491
00:25:54,080 --> 00:25:57,040
Speaker 3: Investing in the chip industry is critical for the United

492
00:25:57,040 --> 00:26:00,520
Speaker 3: States to remain competitive in technology, and because our lives

493
00:26:00,520 --> 00:26:04,320
Speaker 3: are increasingly depending on technology, that also means meeting the

494
00:26:04,400 --> 00:26:08,160
Speaker 3: higher need for chips through manufacturing them here. I think

495
00:26:08,240 --> 00:26:11,119
Speaker 3: all the points that Al brought up are so important.

496
00:26:11,200 --> 00:26:13,880
Speaker 3: I think one that I really want to highlight is jobs.

497
00:26:14,200 --> 00:26:18,080
Speaker 2: Having these semiconductor fabrication plants in the United States and

498
00:26:18,119 --> 00:26:21,040
Speaker 2: doing the production here rather than getting it from other

499
00:26:21,080 --> 00:26:26,040
Speaker 2: countries not only helps us economically from a standpoint of oh,

500
00:26:26,160 --> 00:26:29,000
Speaker 2: folks will need to purchase from us, but it also

501
00:26:29,040 --> 00:26:34,160
Speaker 2: creates jobs for lots of Americans and immigrant people who

502
00:26:34,440 --> 00:26:36,760
Speaker 2: need work. So not only will we be saying on

503
00:26:36,800 --> 00:26:42,040
Speaker 2: the leading edge of technology, but also invigorating our economy

504
00:26:42,359 --> 00:26:43,800
Speaker 2: from a workforce standpoint.

505
00:26:44,040 --> 00:26:48,040
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it feels like it's this intersection of all

506
00:26:48,040 --> 00:26:50,720
Speaker 3: these things we've talked about, you know, in a previous

507
00:26:50,760 --> 00:26:53,600
Speaker 3: episode where we talked about metals, one of the things

508
00:26:53,760 --> 00:26:57,400
Speaker 3: that we talked about is the geospatial distribution of different

509
00:26:57,560 --> 00:27:00,600
Speaker 3: source materials and different elements. And part of this chips

510
00:27:00,600 --> 00:27:04,520
Speaker 3: shortage what we're seeing is due to the reliance of

511
00:27:04,560 --> 00:27:11,040
Speaker 3: the semiconductor manufacturers on neon. Neon is primarily coming out

512
00:27:11,040 --> 00:27:14,720
Speaker 3: of Ukraine, you know, we have the war between Russia

513
00:27:14,720 --> 00:27:17,399
Speaker 3: and Ukraine. When that started earlier in the year, that

514
00:27:17,440 --> 00:27:21,920
Speaker 3: production stopped, and so you know, it's important to recognize

515
00:27:21,960 --> 00:27:25,080
Speaker 3: that the United States and many other places have been

516
00:27:25,119 --> 00:27:29,960
Speaker 3: outsourcing manufacturing for years. I just saw in a New

517
00:27:30,040 --> 00:27:34,159
Speaker 3: York Times newsletter, their Tech newsletter from Shira Oviday. She

518
00:27:34,280 --> 00:27:38,440
Speaker 3: talked about, you know, this jumble of the chip industry.

519
00:27:38,560 --> 00:27:41,080
Speaker 3: So yes, there's a shortage. In some cases, we're seeing

520
00:27:41,119 --> 00:27:44,520
Speaker 3: trucks and cars that can't be completed. They're manufacturing cannot

521
00:27:44,560 --> 00:27:46,480
Speaker 3: be completed because they don't have chips.

522
00:27:46,880 --> 00:27:48,240
Speaker 2: I feel like a lot of people have seen that

523
00:27:48,280 --> 00:27:50,720
Speaker 2: happen in their counties and their states, where they say, oh,

524
00:27:50,760 --> 00:27:53,840
Speaker 2: we're gonna build this bridge, or we're gonna build these facilities,

525
00:27:53,880 --> 00:27:56,240
Speaker 2: and you know, the money doesn't come through, and they say, oh,

526
00:27:56,560 --> 00:27:58,280
Speaker 2: in five more years and ten more years, and then

527
00:27:58,280 --> 00:28:00,400
Speaker 2: ten years turns into twenty years, turns into their years,

528
00:28:00,440 --> 00:28:02,639
Speaker 2: and it almost never gets done. And what that does

529
00:28:02,800 --> 00:28:05,560
Speaker 2: is not just oh it's just sitting there. It causes

530
00:28:05,600 --> 00:28:08,560
Speaker 2: a disruption, and people are counting on these things to

531
00:28:08,600 --> 00:28:11,240
Speaker 2: be built because they're counting on the jobs to be available.

532
00:28:11,640 --> 00:28:14,240
Speaker 2: So somebody may be holding out hope that when it

533
00:28:14,280 --> 00:28:16,480
Speaker 2: opens that they will have an opportunity to get work.

534
00:28:16,720 --> 00:28:18,880
Speaker 2: And if the money doesn't come through because of some

535
00:28:19,200 --> 00:28:23,600
Speaker 2: government stuff that we have no control over because our

536
00:28:23,680 --> 00:28:28,240
Speaker 2: congress people are over there, Jipper Jabberin, I mean, we

537
00:28:28,320 --> 00:28:31,280
Speaker 2: end up suffering. But just as we're seeing a shortage

538
00:28:31,320 --> 00:28:34,520
Speaker 2: in the United States, in other places like South Korea,

539
00:28:34,760 --> 00:28:38,200
Speaker 2: chips are piling up. You know, they're starting to see

540
00:28:38,240 --> 00:28:41,440
Speaker 2: people reducing their orders and so they have more chips

541
00:28:41,440 --> 00:28:44,480
Speaker 2: than they can sell. And so it's hard to understand,

542
00:28:44,560 --> 00:28:47,280
Speaker 2: like how we have both a shortage and a surplus

543
00:28:47,760 --> 00:28:48,680
Speaker 2: at the same time.

544
00:28:49,120 --> 00:28:50,600
Speaker 3: But a lot of this also has to do with

545
00:28:50,640 --> 00:28:53,240
Speaker 3: the trajectory of the economy. There feels like there's a

546
00:28:53,280 --> 00:28:56,360
Speaker 3: looming recession, so maybe people aren't buying as much, which

547
00:28:56,680 --> 00:29:00,000
Speaker 3: decreases demand. But also note that I said the surface

548
00:29:00,040 --> 00:29:02,080
Speaker 3: plus was in South Korea. That gets back to what

549
00:29:02,120 --> 00:29:05,520
Speaker 3: we were saying earlier in this episode about incentivizing production

550
00:29:05,600 --> 00:29:07,400
Speaker 3: here in the United States.

551
00:29:07,160 --> 00:29:11,560
Speaker 2: Right and when we think about the production and manufacturing,

552
00:29:11,880 --> 00:29:13,720
Speaker 2: the US is playing catchup right now.

553
00:29:13,760 --> 00:29:14,680
Speaker 1: That's basically what.

554
00:29:14,640 --> 00:29:17,480
Speaker 2: Al told us, And it's going to take a long

555
00:29:17,640 --> 00:29:20,040
Speaker 2: time for the US to catch up to some of

556
00:29:20,080 --> 00:29:24,320
Speaker 2: these other Asia based companies, so they'll likely dominate manufacturing

557
00:29:24,560 --> 00:29:29,640
Speaker 2: for the foreseeable future. And even if US manufacturing increases,

558
00:29:30,640 --> 00:29:34,880
Speaker 2: one natural disaster global pandemic can, as we've seen, can

559
00:29:35,040 --> 00:29:42,720
Speaker 2: disrupt the whole thing.

560
00:29:43,400 --> 00:29:45,600
Speaker 1: All right, it's time for one thing. What's your one

561
00:29:45,640 --> 00:29:46,240
Speaker 1: thing this week's?

562
00:29:46,240 --> 00:29:46,320
Speaker 2: Ee?

563
00:29:46,560 --> 00:29:49,880
Speaker 3: My one thing I already mentioned very briefly in the conclusion,

564
00:29:49,920 --> 00:29:53,200
Speaker 3: but it is the on Tech newsletter from the New

565
00:29:53,280 --> 00:29:57,440
Speaker 3: York Times with Shira Oviday. I like getting this newsletter

566
00:29:57,480 --> 00:30:00,800
Speaker 3: and just getting an overview of what's going on. So

567
00:30:01,040 --> 00:30:04,239
Speaker 3: the latest issue told me about the chip shortage and

568
00:30:04,280 --> 00:30:06,560
Speaker 3: the chip surplus. It helped me get a better understanding

569
00:30:06,600 --> 00:30:09,080
Speaker 3: of what was going on in addition to our interview

570
00:30:09,360 --> 00:30:13,400
Speaker 3: with al. But also it told me about some folks

571
00:30:13,400 --> 00:30:17,240
Speaker 3: selling personal data in China Twitter, seeing the Indian government,

572
00:30:17,840 --> 00:30:21,600
Speaker 3: how Apple's been pretty tight lipped on chips, especially with

573
00:30:21,640 --> 00:30:24,840
Speaker 3: their M one processor or M two processor that they

574
00:30:24,880 --> 00:30:27,160
Speaker 3: have out with their anology. It just gives me everything

575
00:30:27,160 --> 00:30:27,840
Speaker 3: and I like it.

576
00:30:28,920 --> 00:30:31,240
Speaker 1: How that sounds perfect for my friend?

577
00:30:32,360 --> 00:30:35,160
Speaker 3: I want to know it all. What's your one thing? Tt?

578
00:30:35,400 --> 00:30:37,520
Speaker 2: My one thing this week is something that came across

579
00:30:37,560 --> 00:30:40,680
Speaker 2: my Instagram feed and it was research out of Northwestern

580
00:30:40,960 --> 00:30:43,080
Speaker 2: So they said May twenty fifth, they were able to

581
00:30:43,320 --> 00:30:47,280
Speaker 2: develop the smallest ever remote controlled robot.

582
00:30:47,520 --> 00:30:49,880
Speaker 1: And it looks like a little tiny crab.

583
00:30:49,920 --> 00:30:53,720
Speaker 2: It's about a half a millimeter wide, which half a

584
00:30:53,720 --> 00:30:56,760
Speaker 2: millimeter is about the size of the tip of a pen.

585
00:30:57,200 --> 00:30:59,880
Speaker 2: And so it's really really cool to see that they

586
00:31:00,080 --> 00:31:02,800
Speaker 2: were able to make something so tiny. And so when

587
00:31:02,840 --> 00:31:05,920
Speaker 2: you think of applications for something like this, because you know,

588
00:31:05,920 --> 00:31:08,000
Speaker 2: the first thing is what do we need with that

589
00:31:08,040 --> 00:31:12,320
Speaker 2: small robot? But think about some tasks that may need

590
00:31:12,360 --> 00:31:14,760
Speaker 2: to be done in very very tight spaces. If you

591
00:31:14,800 --> 00:31:16,520
Speaker 2: can get this robot to do some of the things

592
00:31:16,520 --> 00:31:19,240
Speaker 2: you wanted to do, it's the perfect size. And so

593
00:31:19,480 --> 00:31:22,520
Speaker 2: this is a really brilliant first step in the right

594
00:31:22,560 --> 00:31:25,480
Speaker 2: direction to the miniaturization like we talked about in this

595
00:31:25,600 --> 00:31:28,120
Speaker 2: episode with chips of all this technology.

596
00:31:28,400 --> 00:31:37,400
Speaker 3: Wow, that's it for LAP seventy one. What did you think?

597
00:31:37,600 --> 00:31:39,840
Speaker 3: Did you learn something new about the chip shortage? Do

598
00:31:39,920 --> 00:31:44,000
Speaker 3: you think we're gonna get the funding for that for

599
00:31:44,120 --> 00:31:46,800
Speaker 3: those factories to be built? I have questions. Call us

600
00:31:46,800 --> 00:31:49,320
Speaker 3: at two zero two five six seven seven zero two

601
00:31:49,320 --> 00:31:51,200
Speaker 3: eight and tell us what you thought. Also, you can

602
00:31:51,240 --> 00:31:53,240
Speaker 3: call us and give us an idea for a lab

603
00:31:53,280 --> 00:31:56,280
Speaker 3: you think we should do this semester. Remember call or

604
00:31:56,400 --> 00:31:59,800
Speaker 3: text two zero two five six seven seven zero two eight,

605
00:32:00,080 --> 00:32:02,400
Speaker 3: and don't forget that there is so much more to

606
00:32:02,440 --> 00:32:05,040
Speaker 3: dig into on our website. There'll be a cheap key

607
00:32:05,120 --> 00:32:08,560
Speaker 3: for today's lab, additional links and resources in the show notes.

608
00:32:08,840 --> 00:32:11,040
Speaker 2: Plus you can sign up for our newsletter check it

609
00:32:11,080 --> 00:32:14,640
Speaker 2: out at Dope Labs podcast dot com. Special thanks to

610
00:32:14,640 --> 00:32:18,360
Speaker 2: today's guest expert Al Thompson. You can find him on

611
00:32:18,400 --> 00:32:22,120
Speaker 2: Twitter at at nine eight three, and you can find

612
00:32:22,200 --> 00:32:24,720
Speaker 2: us on Twitter and Instagram at Dope Labs Podcast.

613
00:32:24,960 --> 00:32:28,200
Speaker 3: TT's on Twitter and Instagram at dr Underscore t.

614
00:32:28,240 --> 00:32:31,640
Speaker 2: Sho, and you can find Zakiya at z said So.

615
00:32:32,280 --> 00:32:35,440
Speaker 2: Dope Labs is a Spotify original production from Mega Own

616
00:32:35,480 --> 00:32:36,040
Speaker 2: Media Group.

617
00:32:36,160 --> 00:32:39,040
Speaker 3: Our producers are Jenny Radley, Mask and Lydia Smith of

618
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619
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Speaker 2: Editing and scoring by Rob Smerciak and Griffin Jennings, Mixing

620
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621
00:32:46,600 --> 00:32:48,960
Speaker 1: Original music composed and produced.

622
00:32:48,520 --> 00:32:53,640
Speaker 2: By Taka Yasuzawa and Alex Suduer from Spotify Creative producer

623
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Speaker 2: Miguel Contreras. Special thanks to Shirley Ramos jess Bison, yasmin

624
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625
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626
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