I have an itch and I’m not in a position to scratch it, just yet.
I like ARM engineering, I’m infatuated with Cortex based products, and my favorite Semiconductor company is currently NXP.
With the weaponization of political and international supply chains, I am concerned how to bring new products to market without dependence on China for boards, semiconductors, assembly, and batteries. (https://www.newsweek.com/china-rare-earth-metals-export-control-restrictions-1842152).
I like Wyoming because their Legislature has a lot of good legal support and policy for privacy, crypto tech, and banking. The state is blessed with energy and minerals, and most importantly with a project in Upton, WY, examining new methods to extract rare-earth minerals that are so critical to semiconductors. On top of that, a recent $2Mil coal mine recently purchased may hold more than fuel in what is projected to be worth $37Bil in rare-earth minerals. This sounds like a perfect storm brewing.
Personally, I am suspicious of China’s tech.
We shouldn’t forget that Amazon and Apple were forced by their CIA client to replace thousands of Chinese motherboards due to embedded chips that would “phone home” with data. The current market tech is to take small chips and combine them on a piece of substrate which is called “System on Chip” (SOC). My honest concern is that new products are mostly SOCs and we have no idea what else has been buried in the plastic covered chip.
It makes huge sense that individual components like my favorite Arm Cortex or Micron Flash, can be tested to determine what else is in the chip. My thought is to purchase silicon components and build our own (USA assembled) SOCs that meet my tech product needs.
I’m sure that vulture capitalists are salivating to fund a US SOC semi-fabricator which they can sell out to foreign interests. Buy into the Chinese chip makers, force the US SOC maker to use their chips, and then sell back to China management.
As Advanced Intelligent Networks’ DAVID operating system nears completion, the products based on it (which run fantastically on Arm Cortex processors) need a US supplier. I recognize I need to resolve “board” manufacturing, automated assembly, and some other details, but considering lead time, I’m salivating over setting up a US SOC fab in my favorite state.
That is my itch. I smell profit, like blood in the water to sharks. I can see US led tech that will make America a force to be reckoned with. I intend to scratch this itch.
