[HN Gopher] Samsung Foundry: New $17B Fab in the USA by Late 2023
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Samsung Foundry: New $17B Fab in the USA by Late 2023
Author : manojkr
Score : 612 points
Date : 2021-02-10 20:45 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.anandtech.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.anandtech.com)
| jdkee wrote:
| Reporting on Foxconn's Wisconsin "manufacturing plant" at the
| time.
|
| https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/07/foxconn...
| gautamcgoel wrote:
| Really happy to see this. It's really frightening how dependent
| we are on other countries to manufacture our chips. I hope that
| more American chip companies choose to build fabs here as well,
| though I recognize how expensive that would be...
|
| Also... is every single tech company investing heavily in Austin?
| It sure feels like it!
| jacquesm wrote:
| Who is we?
| sithadmin wrote:
| Frankly, I'm surprised that the Austin region's notable decline
| in quality of life hasn't already begun to act as a feedback
| mechanism limiting investment and population growth.
|
| Austin was plagued by decades of nimbyism and poor urban
| planning that prevented sufficient infrastructure development
| _before_ it was a tech hotspot. ~10 years ago, things like
| traffic and public transport had already become borderline
| unbearable relative to comparable cities. It has only become
| much, much worse in recent years. I imagine that it might still
| seem livable to tech folks arriving from west /east coast
| megacities, but to us locals...not so much.
|
| Nearby San Antonio has done a much, much better job in terms of
| infrastructure development, but of course nobody wants to set
| up shop there because it doesn't have the (fading, imo)
| cultural cachet that Austin has.
| jdhn wrote:
| As a Michigander, I find it funny to see people argue over
| growing cities and whether their cultural cachet is growing
| or fading. People here would kill to have the problems that
| Austin has.
| sithadmin wrote:
| Having just lived there for a couple years, I would argue
| that Ann Arbor has all the same issues as Austin: Strong
| nimbyism; general under-development of public
| infrastructure; a university that keeps the local
| government on a leash; absurd housing prices subsidized by
| student loans and tech workers; trademark
| 'hippie'/counterculture mentality that's increasingly
| marginalized; increasing presence of cookie-cutter chain
| establishments...
| whycombagator wrote:
| But does Ann Arbor have a massive influx of homeless?
| [deleted]
| cjtoth wrote:
| > nobody wants to set up shop there because it doesn't have
| the (fading, imo) cultural cachet that Austin has
|
| .. and has a public ivy college, the Texas legislature, and
| decades of semiconductors in the area. There's still NIMBY &
| traffic in the city, but to sum Austin up as simply a
| cultural hub feels dishonest
| mech422 wrote:
| I'd say Phoenix gives it a good run for its money :-)
| tick_tock_tick wrote:
| Austin is the "new" SF and it's happening on a shorter
| timescale which is probably going to create an even more
| dysfunctional local political system.
|
| I know so many friends and colleagues that have moved to
| Austin from SF over the years to escape the issues they have
| with SF (mostly around trying to raise a family, poor
| schools, high coast of homes with any real space, etc) but it
| seems like Austin might just slingshot past SF in terms of
| issues.
| DebtDeflation wrote:
| There's always Denver and RTP.
| breischl wrote:
| Shhhhh, no there's not. These are not the metro areas
| you're looking for. Nothing to see here. Move along.
| oblio wrote:
| RTP?
| pchristensen wrote:
| Research Triangle Park, NC
| MengerSponge wrote:
| I absolutely love the Triangle, but public transit there
| is a joke. My favorite tinfoil hat conspiracy theory is
| that Duke Parking killed the light rail system.
| gautamcgoel wrote:
| Can you comment a bit on why you love the triangle?
| MengerSponge wrote:
| It functions much like a very large university town,
| except it has a much more diverse economy.
|
| The sum of its parts make it a particularly nice part of
| the world to live in. Housing is reasonably affordable
| (although this is becoming a problem), there's an
| interesting and competitive restaurant scene, good public
| schools, some of the best coffee shops in the world,
| great art museums and functioning greenways. Lots of good
| places to support local agriculture and artists.
|
| The local parks are lovely, and the Appalachians are a
| day-trip away. Same with the Atlantic coast.
|
| A few local businesses that I deeply miss: Boulted Bread
| (bread), Jubala (coffee), Foundation (cocktails), Garland
| (food), Cocoa Cinnamon (coffee, churros, hot chocolate),
| Guasaca (arepas), Nuvo Taco (tacos), Wine Authorities
| (wine), Saltbox (seafood), Locals Seafood (seafood) ...
| gaspard234 wrote:
| >it seems like Austin might just slingshot past SF in terms
| of issues.
|
| As a former San Franciscan that has lived in Austin for 10
| years what do you think are these issues?
|
| Sure there is a lot of old school residents that don't want
| any change and fight every code change and infrastructure
| upgrade but the new residents are doing stuff like passing
| the new rail props. The city has built more housing in the
| last year than SF has in 5 years.
|
| Another thing is the exploding homeless population, the
| city is so angry that we got enough signatures to put the
| camping ban on the ballot. A certain district actually
| voted for a far right wing candidate whose major platform
| was to get rid of the homeless. That is not something that
| would ever happen in SF.
| tick_tock_tick wrote:
| > As a former San Franciscan that has lived in Austin for
| 10 years what do you think are these issues?
|
| The biggest as always is public transportation. SF is a
| "small" city geographically but it's a nightmare to get
| around and I see Austin going down the same route. You
| have busses and MetroRail but frankly both of them
| operate at street level and that will just not cut it.
| The subway plans are good and a step in the right
| direction but by the time they actually finish they won't
| be anywhere near enough which will be viewed as a failure
| and then the next subway expansion will be too small and
| so on an so forth.
|
| I just don't see the city getting out ahead of it's
| growth. Too little too late kind of thing. Obviously I
| don't live there so my knowledge is filtered though a set
| of peers with there own bias but that's my current view.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| Decline is relative. Despite being a crappy deal Austin is
| still a better deal than the options where a lot of the new
| people are coming from.
| medium_burrito wrote:
| Yeah, comparing with San Francisco/CA (massive income tax,
| possible wealth tax, absurd real estate, dysfunctional
| schools, etc) and Seattle (merely very expensive real
| estate, insane city council, famously unfriendly people,
| depressing weather, and possibly way more taxes and soon as
| our legislature can figure out how to get around them being
| unconstitutional)...
|
| Austin is definitely still a good deal. Sure, the weather
| isn't as good as California (but better than southern
| Nevada), and the scenery isn't as pretty or geographically
| interesting as the Pacific Northwest (but better than
| Oklahoma), but there are jobs, a good university and Texas
| doesn't appear to have lobotomy patients as local
| government.
| claytongulick wrote:
| > better than Oklahoma
|
| That's a broad brush.
|
| Currently sitting in a log cabin in an old growth forest
| on a stunning lake near Broken Bow, OK, with pretty hills
| / small mountains all around.
|
| Interestingly, one of the few (maybe only?) place in the
| world that has both black bears and alligators.
|
| Mountains, lakes, swamp, pasture... McCurtain County is a
| treat.
| gautamcgoel wrote:
| Seems to me plenty of places have both gators and black
| bears. GA and FL for starters...
| notional wrote:
| caveat to enjoying a wondrous life in OK of course is
| don't be a BIPOC
| chasd00 wrote:
| I'm closing on 20 acres near talahina in a couple weeks.
| SE Oklahoma is very underrated.
| claytongulick wrote:
| That's a great place to invest right now.
|
| I'm buying a cabin in Broken Bow, the owner is selling
| and reinvesting in some land very close to where you are
| buying.
| jedberg wrote:
| The main problem with Austin is that it's in Texas. Which
| means you're still subject to Texas laws and Texas
| schoolbooks. Some of those schoolbooks still teach that,
| "slaves were treated well because they were expensive
| property".
|
| Which makes me think, maybe there is a business
| opportunity to open a private school that uses California
| or Massachusetts/New York text books.
| whycombagator wrote:
| Is that particularly common/exist at all in good Austin
| area schools? Or are you just generalising based on some
| Texas schools (genuinely curious as I have no idea
| myself)
| borramakot wrote:
| My understanding is that the Texas state requirements
| used to be borderline insane, but that they have improved
| over time. Skimming http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/rules/t
| ac/chapter113/index.htm... , I actually found much less
| objectionable than I expected to.
| usefulcat wrote:
| In general I don't disagree about bass-ackwards public
| school curriculums in TX. However, for those who are
| willing and able to pay for private school, that's not
| really an issue in Austin, especially considering how
| liberal it is compared to literally any other city in
| Texas.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| This is a meme that may require updating
| jedberg wrote:
| Possibly, I haven't looked in a few years.
| dmix wrote:
| Of course it's in Texas, not in SV. And TSMC going to Arizona.
| alexfromapex wrote:
| This will be good for the US chip supply chain, hopefully more
| chip makers follow suit
| u678u wrote:
| Why Austin? I thought you needed a lot of water for fabs.
| drak0n1c wrote:
| Texas business-friendly laws with access to technical Austin
| workforce and university.
| cameldrv wrote:
| Austin has a long established semiconductor workforce, and
| there are already multiple fabs there, as well as a lot of
| semiconductor design. Right now, Freescale/NXP has two fabs,
| Spansion has a flash fab, and Samsung already has a fab in
| Austin.
| BostonEnginerd wrote:
| Spansion's fab was purchased by Cypress, who were acquired by
| Infineon recently.
| eutropia wrote:
| I'm no expert, but my understanding is that Fabs like stable
| weather patterns and climates so they can more easily regulate
| the cleanrooms.
|
| Knowing nothing about Austin's climate, of course, I'm assuming
| that it's reliably hot and dry?
| chiyc wrote:
| I think there's some consideration of how prone an area is to
| natural disaster, which makes Intel's picks of places like
| Arizona and New Mexico ideal. But I think other benefits like
| a strong labor market or a business friendly jurisdiction
| will probably have an overall bigger impact on where a
| business chooses to build.
| nwatson wrote:
| Arizona has a long tradition in and worker base for
| semiconductor manufacturing.
| Turing_Machine wrote:
| Texas is quite large... you're probably thinking of West
| Texas (as shown in innumerable western movies). That is
| indeed very dry.
|
| East Texas, particularly south-eastern Texas (near the Gulf)
| is very humid and can experience torrential rainfall. It's
| more like Louisiana than El Paso, climate-wise.
|
| Austin is sort of in the transitional zone between the two.
|
| By comparison with California, Austin gets an average of
| 34.32 inches (872 mm) of rain per year. San Jose gets 15.82
| inches (402 mm). San Francisco proper gets 23.65 inches (601
| mm).
|
| Austin is considerably more water-rich than the Bay Area.
| [deleted]
| pradn wrote:
| There's a joke about how quickly Austin's weather can change.
| It's not unheard of to see 30 degree swings over the course
| of a few hours. Austin has no protection from polar winds
| coming down from the north, nor is it near water, which has a
| moderating effect on climate. So it does have erratic
| weather. It's possible to see an inch of snow every other
| year, and yet, in the summers, it's likely to see 100+ degree
| (F) weather for two months straight.
|
| It's more likely how Austin is still attractive to high-tech
| personnel - a good public university nearby, a reputation for
| being a lively city, somewhat reasonable real estate prices
| (relative to the Bay, but still 2X what they were 10 years
| ago), and excellent schools if you're in the right area, a
| decent number of tech options to jump to if you want to
| switch, a spritely startup scene, enough outdoorsy things to
| do, etc etc.
| burlesona wrote:
| It is neither reliably hot nor reliably dry. The only think I
| think you can say about "consistency" regarding Austin's
| weather is that it is hot in the summer and doesn't snow very
| often.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _Knowing nothing about Austin 's climate, of course, I'm
| assuming that it's reliably hot and dry?_
|
| Austin isn't in the desert. It gets ice storms, tornados,
| hurricanes, and the epic Texas thunderstorms that have
| various names like Blue Norther, Possum Stomper, and Toad
| Strangler.
|
| I spent five years in Texas, near Austin, and my college
| meteorology classes came back to me.
| banana_giraffe wrote:
| One of the moments I'll always remember growing up in Texas
| was seeing the newscaster ask the very well dressed and
| always presentable local weatherman "what's the weather
| look like tomorrow?" and when the camera turned to him we
| saw a disheveled weatherman, tie not done, hair messed up
| turn to the camera and deadpan "I have no idea"
|
| Many areas have the joke "if you don't like the weather,
| wait 5 minutes". That was less a joke and more a warning in
| large areas of Texas.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| As a lifelong TX resident, to say Austin gets those three
| phenomenons in any regular, meaningful sense is inaccurate.
| They _can_ upon occasion get any of those, but not like
| Oklahoma gets tornadoes, Houston gets hurricanes, or Denver
| gets ice storms.
|
| Thunderstorms and wild swings in weather during non-Summer
| months are definitely mainstream, though.
| [deleted]
| jaywalk wrote:
| They already have a fab in Austin.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| And I believe they already own the land where they'd put it
| as they'd been planning expansion. I don't see the
| city/county council going for their plans on 100% tax free
| infrastructure and property taxes though as Texas pretty much
| substitutes property tax for income tax. I think it will
| actually end up being built in Arizona as Austin is doing
| fine without Samsung trying to bully it in to ridiculous tax
| incentives.
| bob1029 wrote:
| The reason is that Samsung already has a huge logistical
| presence in the city supporting the A2/S2 lines. Adding
| deliveries & pickups for across the street is much easier than
| building out a new facility in Arizona and replicating all of
| that over there.
|
| Additionally, if there is some technical fire in the new PSS
| fab, it would be expected that employees from the existing fabs
| could walk across the way and assist. They would probably do
| something where the existing engineering & manufacturing teams
| are divided up and shared across the facilities to get
| everything bootstrapped. Their systems are very strictly
| standardized, so staff from one factory can very easily support
| any other in the fleet.
| baybal2 wrote:
| > New $17B Fab in the USA by Late 2023
|
| Impossible.
|
| Leads times on fab hardware are on all time high.
|
| Not to say that construction, and setup itself would be extremely
| challenging in such timeframe.
|
| And not saying that US has no supply chain locally for modern
| fabs. Intel famously flies a lot of its consumables from abroad.
|
| Samsung will have similarly to transport its consumables by air
| if they go with this plan.
| cgb223 wrote:
| Sounds like a market opportunity to produce more of those
| consumables locally
| TrainedMonkey wrote:
| > There is an intrigue about the new fab though: Samsung hasn't
| stated which process node it will be designed for.
|
| Let's restate the question. Which node can they get up by 2023
| and how much of security critical U.S. consumption can that
| cover?
| baybal2 wrote:
| > how much of security critical U.S. consumption can that
| cover?
|
| What US can't source for F-35 locally are Xilinx FPGAs at
| either 65nm, or 40nm nodes.
|
| The question is not in node size as such as having an FPGA
| process capability.
|
| FPGAs on generic CMOS don't work great. The ability to tweak,
| and optimize the process specifically for individual design
| is huge for FPGAs.
|
| Intel with their CPUs are very much in the same situation,
| but in reverse. They cannot move from "hand polished"
| proprietary processes they've been developing for decades to
| anything else.
| madengr wrote:
| What process is Xilinx using; not CMOS?
| baybal2 wrote:
| CMOS, but likelly with much more differences from CMOS
| for mainstream logic.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| I doubt that. FPGA's are just digital circuits. They
| don't use any onboard "ROM" the vast majority load their
| programming from an external chip. Where are you getting
| they don't use standard CMOS tech?
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| Typical SRAM FPGAs use a conventional process but there
| are architectures that use floating gates and OTP
| antifuses that need specialized processing.
| robocat wrote:
| > [Intel] cannot move from "hand polished" proprietary
| processes they've been developing for decades to anything
| else.
|
| Later this year TSMC will be producing Intel CPUs on 5nm.
| Clearly contradicts your assertion.
| monocasa wrote:
| That's the rumor, but it's still unsubstantiated.
| Beached wrote:
| doesn't samsung have the capability to create its own fab
| hardware? if they are the supplier to themselves, wouldn't it
| be reasonable that they can prioritize delivering to themsleves
| kuschku wrote:
| ASML is the only supplier for EUV machines. Samsung can't
| just create those easily themselves (or they would).
| Robotbeat wrote:
| Is there any reason they couldn't just start with
| multipatterning 193nm immersion? Maybe even ship that
| equipment out from a facility being upgraded.
|
| Also, ASML's EUV light source division was fairly recently
| (2013) acquired from... California. Cymer, LLC.
| baybal2 wrote:
| > Is there any reason they couldn't just start with
| multipatterning 193nm immersion?
|
| Time, yields, line size.
|
| Quadruple patterning quadrupples the lithography steps
| counts. And quadrupples thermal cycles. Which adds _more
| than 4x_ impact on the number of bad wafers.
|
| 100% - 2% * 4 != 100% * 0.984
|
| You need 4x the equipment to complete the same volume of
| wafers in the same time, which means 4x the line length.
| kokx wrote:
| The type of equipment ASML produces generally gets
| brought in at a specific time during the construction.
| They kinda build the cleanrooms around ASML's machines
| instead of bringing them in afterwards.
|
| Retooling for EUV (or any new generation of such
| equipment) is very hard. Most (if not all) foundries
| build new factories rather than retooling old ones.
| totalZero wrote:
| > They kinda build the cleanrooms around ASML's machines
| instead of bringing them in afterwards.
|
| I know they're massive, but do you have a source for
| this? I was under the impression that construction and
| tool installation are two distinctly separate phases of
| construction due to the requirements for an immaculate
| environment. Also, my understanding is that companies
| like to bring the tools in as late as possible to shorten
| the delay between capex outlay (tools are expensive) and
| first production.
| kokx wrote:
| My source for this is my professors at the TU/e in
| Eindhoven and guest lecturers from ASML (TU/e is the
| closest university to the ASML campus in Veldhoven).
|
| Unfortunately I don't have a more reliable source on that
| though.
| baybal2 wrote:
| Retooling of anymuch modern fabs is not economical.
|
| I don't see much retooling for anything below 45nm, if
| not 65nm.
| adriancr wrote:
| multipatterning DUV will get you up to a point if thats
| what you were asking. You cant reach 5nm with that. (if
| that were possible you wouldnt see everyone jumping on
| ASMLs euv bandwagon)
|
| As for lightsource, sure, that was/is a US company, but
| there's a lot more to a machine then just the light
| source.
| avs733 wrote:
| not that I am aware of (read: no unless someone proves me
| dumb)
|
| Major supppliers include:
|
| Nikon
|
| ASML
|
| KLA-Tencor
|
| Applied Materials (AMAT)
|
| Lam Research
|
| the timeline they are suggesting isn't literally impossible
| as a matter of phyics but is, to me, laughably unrealistic
| and likely done to try and extract tax incentives.
|
| Unless they have already broken ground in Texas...and are
| just shopping for a better deal
| baybal2 wrote:
| > Major supppliers include:
|
| Add like 100 more companies to the list.
|
| A fab is not only a lithographic line, but a ton of other
| very unique, industry specific equipment.
|
| Air handling for fabs stuff is up to 24 months lead time,
| and has no use in any other industry.
|
| Ultra clean water plants -- 9 to 18 months. Just two
| vendors on the planet.
|
| Gas plants -- take few years to construct by themselves
|
| Chem plants -- again years long lead time equipment from
| only one vendor in the world
|
| On site mask shops -- equipment, and processes not much
| cheaper, or less scarce than the last gen chip making gear
| itself.
|
| Cleaning stations, degassing stations, industry specific
| SCADA hardware, AMHS... (https://youtu.be/XKXZT-BBUEE)
|
| Post-backend stuff...
|
| The list will go on for a few screens.
| avs733 wrote:
| I'm honestly surprised we have not seen a blank wafer
| shortage. I remember the craziness post 2011
| earthquake..."well how many wafers do we have"
| nl wrote:
| There is a blank wafer shortage, but - strangely - for
| 200mm wafers (not the state-of-the-art 300mm ones)
|
| https://www.extremetech.com/computing/318554-a-massive-
| chip-...
| totalZero wrote:
| Interesting. Tells us something about the maturity of the
| products seeing unanticipated demand.
| avs733 wrote:
| I wouldn't even have thought to look at 200mm for a
| shortage. That is an (in hindsight) obvious corner of
| death for these processes/products I wouldn't even have
| thought of.
| mhh__ wrote:
| Even a Pencil (I, Pencil) takes thousands and thousands
| of people, I'm guessing it's on the order of millions for
| a big fab.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Pretty sure that the Global Foundries fab in New York didn't
| take much longer once funded.
| f430 wrote:
| baybal2's comment is incorrect. this is merely an expansion on
| top of their existing capacity in Texas.
| baybal2 wrote:
| If it is, than it makes more sense.
|
| But still, if it was a greenfield project, than it would've
| been nonsense.
| [deleted]
| sdenton4 wrote:
| Prior art: https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/us-
| news/202...
|
| Foxconn promised a giant fab in exchange for massive tax
| breaks, and then just took the tax breaks and did nothing. Any
| reason to expect this is different?
| [deleted]
| boardwaalk wrote:
| Samsung already has a fab in the U.S. That's reason to expect
| different.
|
| I'm not going to say Foxconn was doing business the way
| Chinese do business, but maybe there's a culture thing there.
| baja_blast wrote:
| Another thing is the type of manufacturing Foxconn does is
| extremely labor intensive, it's essentially assembly shops.
| No way paying US wages would be competitive for them. But
| things like semiconductor manufacturing requires way less
| people so salary differences are negligible.
| blackrock wrote:
| Foxconn is a Taiwanese company.
|
| Every HN'er here promotes for the freedom and democracy
| loving people of Taiwan. They even claim it's a country.
|
| So get your "country" correct.
| rossdavidh wrote:
| Well Samsung has already built a fab in Austin, Texas, and it
| has run for many years, so that's one reason.
| WillPostForFood wrote:
| >then just took the tax breaks
|
| They didn't get the tax breaks because they didn't meet the
| targets.
|
| From your article:
|
| _After Foxconn failed to meet its job creation targets,
| Wisconsin's governor, Tony Evers, last month pulled a deal
| that would have handed the company nearly $4.5bn in
| incentives for completing its plans._
| tootie wrote:
| I absolutely don't understand Foxconn's game there. Was
| this just a scam from the start? What was the upside for
| them? Or did they actually intend to follow through and
| just failed?
| aeturnum wrote:
| My read on the situation is they saw the opportunity to
| get subsidies and so negotiated to maximize what they
| were given. I imagine it comes from some maximalist
| position that says that if you plan to do X, you need to
| say you'll do 10X so you never 'lose out' on subsidies
| you might have been able to take advantage of in the good
| years.
|
| A lot of the reporting at the time emphasized that
| Foxconn had a history of doing this in other countries.
| It seems like a negotiating tactic that evolved in an age
| of cynical political environments where everyone's
| proximate goal is to announce a 'deal' with the full
| expectation that they won't be in a position to take
| credit (or blame) for the quality of that deal.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| I don't think Foxconn saw this as screwing anyone. I
| think they saw it as doing business the way they
| typically do in China.
|
| What would have happened if this deal had been done in
| China?
|
| No one would have reported on the failure. The local jobs
| numbers would have "jumped." Infrastructure would have
| been "built." Everyone would have gotten a pat on the
| back and/or promotion for hitting their economic targets.
|
| The weakness of command-style political systems have
| always been that they incentize systemic lying.
| aeturnum wrote:
| Foxconn is an international company that operates in many
| countries outside of China. Suggesting they are too
| simple to realize the business climate is different
| outside of China seems insulting and infantilizing. Their
| operating income is ~$180 billion USD a year. They are
| aware that business conditions are different in different
| countries.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| The Foxconn deal had $3-4.8B worth of subsidies attached,
| and investigative reporting says the branch of the
| company executing on the opportunity couldn't even
| accomplish basic tasks like "Decide what to build" or
| "Decide what skills were needed in hired staff."
|
| The takeaway is that either (a) everyone who touched the
| Wisconsin project is an idiot, but an outlier in the
| company, or (b) the failure to execute in Wisconsin is
| indicative of the general state of the company.
|
| (a) seems like a stretch, given the project's size and
| visibility. Ergo, (b).
| aeturnum wrote:
| Leaving a subsidy on the table is not exactly like
| leaving money on the table for either party. They lower
| costs and lower the tax revenue from a business, but they
| don't represent a cost (outside of the cost to negotiate
| and write the deal). It seems like calling the people
| involved idiots (or suggesting the entire company
| is...setting itself up to fail to execute?) requires
| knowing internal details of Foxconn's financials.
|
| Like, a $1bn increase in revenue would be less than a 1%
| increase for Foxconn. That suggests they're probably
| willing to bear extremely high costs to establish new
| sites, as long as those sites will eventually yield
| significant revenue. Their negotiating tactics here seem
| short sighted from my point of view, but when you're as
| large as they are you create your own conditions.
|
| Edit: Like...this deal seems to allow them to operate any
| of their businesses in Wisconsin. If they decide not to,
| they burn bridges in Wisconsin, but they wouldn't care
| about burning those bridges because burning them means
| they don't want to do business in the state. It seems
| like all they lose is their negotiators' salaries, small
| (for them) facilities costs, and whatever general
| goodwill they lose.
| AaronFriel wrote:
| This may be too political for Hacker News, but...
|
| Hope that the Governor of Wisconsin stayed a Republican?
| Now, that's not to say Democrats can't engage in grift,
| but, the deal was started under a Republican Governor in
| a notoriously corrupt state where the promise of Foxconn
| jobs was lauded by legislators, the governor, and the
| former President as a win for the people of the state,
| for our country, and a blow to China (that we were taking
| jobs back).
|
| Foxconn's incentives seemed aligned with promising the
| moon and if those people were reelected, well, wouldn't
| compensating Foxconn for those promises and their outcome
| (the election outcome, not the factories) be fair?
| NotSammyHagar wrote:
| Foxconn leaders seemed to be trying to create a big
| project that appeared to create lots of jobs to appeal to
| Trump (perhaps so the prez could point to it as jobs
| created, and then maybe Foxconn would get something out
| of it?) and less caused by the gov of Wisconsin. I agree
| it looked obviously like a silly deal that made no sense.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| Why would Foxconn care who governs Wisconsin?
| AaronFriel wrote:
| Foxconn negotiated a deal with members of a political
| party that was in power, that deal was an empty promise,
| and those power brokers used that promise from Foxconn as
| part of their political messaging with the hope of being
| reelected.
|
| Had those politicians stayed in office, it's possible
| they would reward Foxconn for participating in the
| charade that helped them obtain reelection. Is it
| certain? No, I won't say it is.
|
| But, what else was Foxconn's goal if not to actually
| realize those incentives without having to make the
| investment to justify them? They knew they were promised
| an enormous incentive by the state, and they knew that
| they would not fulfill their end of the bargain. If they
| also knew that they wouldn't realize those incentives,
| why did they pursue them? The simplest answer is that
| they fully intended to realize them.
|
| Surely at least some of the negotiators of that deal
| legitimately believed that the other party - the
| Republican Governor and majority legislature in the state
| - would play ball?
| dodobirdlord wrote:
| If the deal never really made sense and was just a ploy
| by the Governor to drum up support, then a change in
| administration would mean that the new administration has
| no interest in paying off Foxconn for their part in the
| charade.
| aj7 wrote:
| Exactly.
| tootie wrote:
| But what the hell does Foxconn get out of it? The deal
| was for tax breaks which only pays off if you have taxes
| to pay on profits or real estate and they don't have
| either. They didn't come close to meeting the employment
| goals for the deal to kick in either. So, they puff up
| some local Republicans which reflects a bit on the
| president. Then they embarrass themselves and everyone
| who promoted the deal and end up in the exact same
| financial position as before. This just feels like a big
| screw up more than a conspiracy.
| AaronFriel wrote:
| Perhaps you should ask Foxconn why they are so
| strenuously objecting to the new leadership not holding
| up their end of the deal?
|
| Many people's gut reaction to a whiff of partisanship
| here or suggestion of corruption or conspiracy is to push
| back hard. Well, dammit, what did Foxconn want to get out
| of it except for billions of dollars in ill-gotten tax
| incentives?
|
| I'm responding so incredulously to you because everyone's
| motivations here was advertised loudly. It's not a
| conspiracy if it happens in broad daylight.
|
| It seems clear to me that they wanted to not have to pay
| taxes in Wisconsin for many, many years to come.
|
| https://apnews.com/article/technology-
| wisconsin-d3f025e43ab0...
| helloworld653 wrote:
| Pretend, delay, outlast.
| _jal wrote:
| The tax breaks to Foxconn were just one aspect of the deal,
| and unless you're specifically interested in Foxconn, it
| makes sense to look at everything that happened.
|
| Hundreds of millions were spent on variously infra
| improvements, eminent-domaining people out of the way,
| lawyers, etc.
|
| https://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/lake-county-news-
| sun/...
|
| I actually don't know how much Foxconn did get out of it.
| They've apparently run similar scams elsewhere, it appears
| to be a Foxconn side gig.
|
| There's a fun book in here for a scrappy investigative
| journalist.
| WillPostForFood wrote:
| _Hundreds of millions were spent on variously infra
| improvements, eminent-domaining people out of the way,
| lawyers, etc._
|
| This is potentially wasted money, but it did not go to
| Foxconn, and presumably created infrastructure jobs. Not
| defending the deal, but it is often mischaracterized. The
| benefits to the companies usually are tax rebates that
| are only valuable if the company makes real investments
| that are taxable. They are not direct payments.
| imtringued wrote:
| >This is potentially wasted money, but it did not go to
| Foxconn, and presumably created infrastructure jobs.
|
| If Foxconn tricked a local government into providing free
| "useful" infrastructure it could just rent that "useful"
| infrastructure out to a different company and thus
| capture the entire tax benefit. However, they didn't even
| do that... The money was fully wasted.
| _jal wrote:
| Purpose-built infra is almost always wasted if the
| purpose is unfulfilled; sure, maybe someone else can find
| a way to use it, but it was built to do things nobody
| needed.
|
| > and presumably created infrastructure jobs
|
| Usually you hear people complain about dig-a-hole-then-
| fill-it-up jobs. But if we're going to start supporting
| those, it would be best not to tie them to scams, I
| think.
| bohadi wrote:
| > and presumably created infrastructure jobs
|
| Yeah. Sounds a lot like the dig-up-all-the-carbon-burn-
| then-bury-it-again civilizational project going on the
| past 100, and next 100 years.
|
| What exactly was the purpose to "re-arranging small bits
| of matter near the surface of the earth" again? [1]
|
| Basically I wanted to make a comment about greedy
| exploitation-exploration trade-off strategies here but
| will stop short at this kind of eliptical passing remark.
|
| [1] paraphrasing Russell in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki
| /In_Praise_of_Idleness_and_Othe... it is appropriate
| given current moment
| imtringued wrote:
| >What exactly was the purpose to "re-arranging small bits
| of matter near the surface of the earth" again?
|
| From the same man that proposed the idea of "re-arranging
| small bits of matter near the surface of the earth".
|
| >It would, indeed, be more sensible to build houses and
| the like; but if there are political and practical
| difficulties in the way of this, the above would be
| better than nothing.
|
| It's a social hack to get around idiotic situations. It's
| like moving to mars because you are worried about a
| nuclear war or climate change. Dumb games require dumb
| players.
| csmiller wrote:
| There was an interesting episode of Reply All on this
| https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/2ohgza
| specialist wrote:
| > _eminent-domaining people out of the way_
|
| On top of everything else, abuses of eminent-domain,
| civil forfeiture, and so forth really, really bother me.
|
| In principle, I unconditionally support the right of the
| polis (the government) to do what needs to be done. My
| own city basically used extralegal means to wrestle
| numerous blighted, condemned properties away from a
| trust. The creators of the trust were dead and no one was
| left to negotiate.
|
| But hot damn these levers of power get abused.
|
| Please recommend any books, articles, etc advocating
| reforms.
| [deleted]
| bilbo0s wrote:
| Well, as a Wisconsinite I'd be remiss in not pointing out
| that this is the Chicago Tribune. Chicago and Illinois
| are always gleeful about the various piles of excrement
| we land ourselves in here in Wisconsin.
|
| That said, yeah, I also have to be honest. We're down
| about 1 billion dollars on that Foxconn thing. That's
| what we're out of pocket. The new governor, wisely, took
| what remained of our chips and left that table. You get
| mad, but you just have to chalk it up to a learning
| experience.
|
| The Illinois people are right on this one by the way. Not
| even in Illinois would their leaders get away with a 5.5
| billion dollar con. The people in Illinois are so used to
| dealing with corruption that they would have started
| asking questions and raising a fuss long before it got to
| that point. Our problem is that we're so accustomed to
| our corruption that we never raised a fuss until it was
| way too late.
|
| All that said, in Wisconsin our leaders didn't get away
| with 5.5 billion dollar con either technically speaking.
| Scott Walker and his boys got us for about a billion, but
| they didn't get as much as they wanted. So fibs shouldn't
| gloat too much, because while I can't see anyone in
| Illinois getting away with a 5.5 billion dollar pure con,
| I could see someone getting away with maybe a billion.
| (It's just that they're far more wealthy than we are, so
| that billion doesn't hurt as much.)
| ProAm wrote:
| > you just have to chalk it up to a learning experience
|
| Everyone knew from the start this was a BS deal and never
| going to happen or make ANY sense. This was pure
| incompetence at a political level that was paid for by
| tax payers.
| didibus wrote:
| I'm definitely taken aback with how you speak of this
| like its two sports team.
| bgorman wrote:
| Nit: factories are not fabs, "fabs" refers to semiconductor
| manufacturing factories.
| _jal wrote:
| Foxconn was an obvious con from the start. If you go back and
| look at contemporaneous reporting, even the "MSM" reporting
| was a bit incredulous - it just was really obvious, with only
| certain politicians claiming otherwise.
|
| Which is not to say this won't become a cesspool, too. But at
| the very least, I don't see scummy pols waving wads of cash
| at Samsung right now.
| dmeeker wrote:
| Samsung has a long-term capital and capacity planning process.
| Isn't it possible (if not likely) that they would pre-order
| equipment as part of capacity planning without having already
| decided where it's going to be deployed?
| ksec wrote:
| >Samsung has a long-term capital and capacity planning
| process.
|
| This. Samsung is another company like Amazon that takes long
| view and flywheel to another level. And to answer question to
| comment below. Yes at one point Samsung was trying to make
| their own EUV Scanner, if you consider their NAND and DRAM
| scale it should comes as no surprise. And Samsung has their
| own Chemical Subsidiary along with dozen of others for their
| Foundry. They are taking vertical integration to an extreme.
|
| And that is speaking as someone who dont particularly like
| Samsung. But Credit where Credit's due.
| to11mtm wrote:
| Let's also not forget their digital imaging line,
| specifically their foray into Mirrorless cameras
|
| Sure, they shelved it (Hard to compete with established
| players who can spread R&D over volume), but people were
| pretty amazed at how well Samsung did entering that market
| from a quality standpoint.
|
| Why does that matter? Because that indicates they have
| plenty of skill in lens manufacture, which is another
| critical component to a good fab.
| totalZero wrote:
| Makes you wonder why one of the major semiconductor
| equipment companies doesn't team up with Canon or Nikon
| and compete with ASML/Zeiss.
| MarkSweep wrote:
| Canon and Nikon already makes their own lithography
| machines:
|
| https://global.canon/en/product/indtech/semicon/
|
| https://www.nikon.com/products/semi/
| totalZero wrote:
| That's right. Deep UV. They all but threw in the towel on
| EUV.
|
| But the difference is that ASML + Carl Zeiss absolutely
| run the market.
|
| Nikon has about 10% market share, and Canon 5%. The rest
| is basically ASML.
|
| The thought on my mind is that any one of the major
| American semiconductor equipment manufacturers could
| partner with either of the two Japanese optics houses.
| Canon is worth about US $25B, and its semiconductor
| business generates about a fifth of its revenue. It's big
| enough to be useful, but small enough to be acquirable.
| avs733 wrote:
| it's possible but it's going to take at least a year to build
| the building, another year or so to install, and another year
| to qual (these are ballparks).
|
| Not to mention they have to staff the thing, train the staff,
| etc.
| babelfish wrote:
| All of those things can be parallelized. It's one thing to
| say "opening by the end of 2023 is unlikely", but to say
| it's impossible is unnecessarily dismissive.
| singhrac wrote:
| While I'm also optimistic on Samsung's ability to execute
| some version of this plan, those things can't be
| parallelized. You can't set up a complex water delivery
| mechanism until after the building is completed and the
| cleanroom has been built to spec and tested, and you
| can't calibrate the gigantic ASML machines until after
| that.
| jedberg wrote:
| But you can train the staff in Korea (or at any other
| running fab) and have them ready to go the day it's
| qualified.
| avs733 wrote:
| You can't parallelism those... you need a building to
| install tools in it. You need the tools installed to qual
| them. You need the tools quaked to qual a process...
|
| From personal experience I would posit scaling
| semiconductor manufacturing as 10x to 50x harder than
| getting a process flow to work in a development fab.
| Ramps are absolutely killer.
| shard wrote:
| That seems like a reasonable timeline, which means the fab
| will be online by 2023, just like the article says. Mass
| production won't start until 2024, though.
| m3kw9 wrote:
| Probably not at 100% capacity.
| avs733 wrote:
| comparative data point:
|
| Intel's last fab build took 9 years to go from green field to
| producing wafers (note...faster is possible)
|
| https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intels-long-awaited-fab-42...
|
| Some more realistic notes because I sound a little hyperbolic:
|
| 2011 - break ground
|
| 2013 - finish basic construction
|
| 2014 - stop progress
|
| 2017 - start install of tooling
|
| 2020 - production
| shard wrote:
| Intel does not run at Korean speed.
|
| Samsung's Pyeongtaek Line 3 fab broke ground in 09/2020,
| construction expected to be complete by 2H/2021, mass
| production by 2023. This is not an unreasonable speed for
| Samsung.
|
| Of course, the slower rate of work by American construction
| companies could slow this down.
| avs733 wrote:
| I would bet money on this one. No first complete wafers in
| 2023.
| gok wrote:
| It's an expansion of an existing fab
| Nokinside wrote:
| New fab in 4 years is manageable. It may have been in plans for
| some time, they just chose a new location now.
|
| They build it in Arizona where Intel has several fabs and where
| TSMC is building their medium-sized 25K/month 5nm Megafab.
| baybal2 wrote:
| 25k starts a month is not a megafab
| Nokinside wrote:
| It's a megafab. It's not a gigafab.
|
| megafab means medium capacity in TSMC's terminology.
| nine_k wrote:
| Since they are expanding an existing facility, many complex
| things might be already available on the site, and building the
| rest in 3 years may be realistic.
| DC1350 wrote:
| If you're wondering like me why they would bother building in an
| expensive country with fewer qualified workers:
|
| "To build a leading-edge manufacturing facility, Samsung needs
| rather huge incentives from authorities. In particular, Samsung
| is requesting combined tax abatements of $805.5 million over 20
| years"
| adriancr wrote:
| 17B investment for 805M tax rebates... over 20 years... 5% of
| invested ammount... seems just like a way to get government
| involved and avoid them blocking investment.
| reddog wrote:
| Only a small fraction of that $17B would be spent on building
| the plant and hiring workers (1800 jobs is what I've read).
| Most is for the extremely expensive equipment used to produce
| the chips and that will be bought and shipped in from
| elsewhere.
| adriancr wrote:
| First, those 805M are tax rebates, they need to generate
| taxable profits to get anything back.
|
| Second, even the 1800 jobs, say 100k avg - 180M a year vs
| 42M reduced taxable profits?
|
| Apart from that, sure, you have huge equipment costs, where
| they come from now means its an opportunity for local
| companies to get in the supply chain.
|
| I'm not sure what you are implying but this seems like a
| win anyway.
|
| It's also interesting to see companies investing in the US,
| it means there are opportunities long term and US hasnt
| lost the chip sector.
| tinalumfoil wrote:
| Presumably the government values US-based factories for
| reasons beyond just domestic employment (even if that's the
| biggest factor). Being able to produce chips in the US is
| good for national security.
| reddog wrote:
| Yes is is good for the US, but not so much for the Manor
| Independent School District that is being ask to not
| collect property (school) taxes on the plant despite the
| massive increase in attendance that it will generate.
| adriancr wrote:
| wouldn't income tax on employees or sales tax fix that?
| bluedino wrote:
| School districts get some federal funding, but it's
| mostly from property taxes.
| pelliphant wrote:
| I have no idea how american school funding works, but
| property taxes? Is that really true?
|
| That would mean that schools in richer areas with higher
| property values got more funding?
| totalZero wrote:
| I think you're right. Semiconductor manufacturing is not
| a particularly employee-dense business, and the US must
| sustain power projection in the South China Sea and on
| the Korean Peninsula in the status quo, all the time,
| rain or shine. Even if you don't think about the product
| and supply chain, but only look at externalities, the US
| is less trapped in a battle of brinkmanship over Taiwan
| and South Korea if it has an alternative source of
| semiconductors in case of emergency. Keeping critical
| tech manufacturing in the Americas actually makes it
| easier for us to protect our allies in the Asia-Pacific
| region, by giving us less reason to make aggressive-
| looking moves that can be misinterpreted as offensive by
| China.
|
| Still, there is a clear economic benefit from such a move
| closer to home, even in times of peace and
| predictability. The US economy is all about outsourcing
| the basement and keeping the penthouse. But the hosts of
| our outsourced industry can "tech up," so to speak. If we
| let Asia-Pacific totally dominate the semiconductor
| fabrication industry, it's only a matter of time before
| they dominate the semiconductor design industry as well.
| httpz wrote:
| While true that's more of a federal government interest
| while the tax breaks are coming from the local
| government. Maybe the local government will ask for some
| funding from the federal government.
| eqetnjxad wrote:
| It is strategically important for the US govt to have fabs in
| the US rather than next door to China.
| Flockster wrote:
| So 40 million per year? That does not sound like much..
| tyingq wrote:
| _" which essentially means that Samsung demands a 100% tax
| abatement from the county and 50% from the city."_
|
| So the figure couldn't really be much larger.
| WillPostForFood wrote:
| 50% tax abatement for 5 years from the City (which has a
| ~50% higher tax rate than the county). I can think of a lot
| of ways it could be much larger. How about 100% abatement
| for 5 years? 50% abatement for 20 years? 100% abatement for
| 100 years?
| tyingq wrote:
| _" 50% abatement for 20 years?"_
|
| The article reads like that's what they are asking for
| from the City.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| It's called Automation. Samsung can move senior people around
| to teach new people. It's not rocket science. Also they will
| never get that tax abatement from the current Austin city
| council. There's no way. They might get 20-25%
| rmac wrote:
| Can someone smarter than me explain why larger companies (e.g.,
| samsung, amazon) can get 50-100% tax breaks from various
| governments, and we are all seemingly ok with that? What about
| mid-size businesses? Should they band together to come up with
| the same "we'll create X jobs in your town claim"?
|
| Whatever happened to taxing the rich?
| eqetnjxad wrote:
| 50% of a big number can be bigger than 100% of a smaller
| number.
| Traster wrote:
| I'm not sure many people are particularly happy with it, but
| it's a fundamental problem. If you give different levels of
| government the ability to tax people, then private corporations
| are going to have the ability to shop around tax jurisdictions
| to get the best deal, and atleast some of those jurisdictions
| are going to include places that are deeply republican and
| believe it's good to have low tax revenue, and even better to
| attract businesses.
|
| So what do you do? Create federal laws to control state aid and
| watch as libertarians/states rights people spontaneously
| combust.
| rmac wrote:
| Yeah I'm not sure what a policy-solution would be here. I'm
| definitely for allowing states to do whatever they want. It's
| the great A/B test.
|
| Just seems like the smallest businesses and the largest
| businesses get the most deals and those in the middle get
| hosed. Maybe that's working as intended.
| minikites wrote:
| The reasoning, as I understand it: if we taxed rich people too
| much, it would discourage other people from wanting to be rich,
| which is bad for the economy.
| pelliphant wrote:
| No, that is not it. =)
|
| If you are rich enough you can pick what country gets to tax
| you, if one country raises the tax too much, rich people will
| just move their taxable assets to another country.
| JohnJamesRambo wrote:
| Wow it would stun me if people were this stupid but I guess
| it is possible.
|
| "Socialism never took root in America because the poor see
| themselves not as an exploited proletariat, but as
| temporarily embarrassed millionaires." -disputed John
| Steinbeck quote
| imtringued wrote:
| Economics is never about absolutes.
|
| It's always about the right response to the right situation.
| Taxes should be raised in an inflationary environment and
| lowered in a deflationary environment. The reasoning is quite
| intuitive. Inflation is a boom, deflation is a bust. It's
| easier to make money in a boom so the economy can support a
| greater tax burden. In a bust it's difficult to make money
| which means the economy can only support a lesser tax burden.
|
| So the questions are "What is currently booming?" "What is
| currently undergoing a bust?". Well, obviously housing and
| stocks are booming. Wages are stagnating and thus are
| undergoing a (relative) bust. Just blindly reducing taxes on
| one side can be just as harmful as it can be good.
| specialist wrote:
| Economy is literally the measurement of the movement of
| money. aka Velocity of money.
|
| People hoard money. Rich people manage to hoard a lot. All
| the hoarding is slowing the money down. Depressing the
| economy.
|
| > _Taxes should be raised in an inflationary
| environment..._
|
| Did you mean spending? Because then you'd be touching on
| the philosophical difference between Keynesians and Modern
| Monetary Theorists (MMT). Whereas as most classical Liberal
| economists emphasized deficits, MMT emphasizes inflation.
| (Or maybe you're nodding towards the Laffer Curve.)
|
| Regardless. Taxes are how governments pull money thru the
| economy. If we want to keep the money moving, thereby grow
| the economy, we need to tax the hoards.
|
| --
|
| In the case of more tax breaks, abatements for Samsung,
| things are a little different.
|
| Samsung's just exfiltrating money. From Austin, from Texas,
| from the USA.
|
| Since our polis can no longer have a rationale discussion
| about taxes, "omgherd taxes are theft", I propose a novel
| solution:
|
| Austin should become a Samsung shareholder. Holdings equal
| to the value of the tax breaks. Like for like. Mutual cross
| holding investments, just like a true keiretsu.
| minikites wrote:
| >Just blindly reducing taxes on one side can be just as
| harmful as it can be good.
|
| Name any right-wing politician who has ever said something
| like this. Your explanation is nice in theory, but it's
| never been part of the national discussion about taxation.
| jonplackett wrote:
| Because people/companies with bargaining power can get things
| more easily.
|
| USA wants chips manufactured in the USA for jobs and probably
| more importantly for national security. Too many chips made
| in/near China + Intel going down the toilet.
| rmac wrote:
| When US universities sold out to china $ the national
| security argument went out the window as labs were willingly
| giving the r&d away.
|
| I don't know much about semi plants but what sort of jobs are
| these? Why aren't these plants all automated?
| pelliphant wrote:
| It is super difficult to actually do that when tax laws are
| national but corporations are global.
|
| When a corporation is large enough to be able to move around in
| the world they can start shopping around for the most
| advantageous place to set up shop.
| kansface wrote:
| I know SV wasn't in the running, but I can't imagine the Bay Area
| or California even addressing the permits by 2023... On another
| note, does anyone know if the supply
| chain/parts/materials/machinery can be sourced from outside of
| Chinese suppliers?
| adrianmonk wrote:
| Probably one advantage of the proposed Austin site is that it's
| only a 10-minute drive from the Austin location of Applied
| Materials (https://www.appliedmaterials.com/), a really large
| manufacturer of equipment for fabs.
| DavidPeiffer wrote:
| I wonder if a large fab is a "if you build it, they will
| come" type situation? When I worked at Micron in Boise, the
| surrounding area had many fab suppliers.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Hmm. And that makes me wonder if the city might be right to
| give all those tax breaks to the foundry. They get to
| charge full tax on all the businesses that come there as
| suppliers to the foundry.
| cma wrote:
| Maybe earthquake risk (though they are still in earthquake
| prone areas elsewhere)? https://semiengineering.com/recent-
| earthquakes-highlight-ris...
| totalZero wrote:
| > does anyone know if the supply
| chain/parts/materials/machinery can be sourced from outside of
| Chinese suppliers?
|
| I don't believe there's a single part of the semiconductor
| supply chain that is exclusively available from China.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _I don 't believe there's a single part of the semiconductor
| supply chain that is exclusively available from China._
|
| I agree with you. But the parent comment reminds me of when
| Apple started making computers in Austin and HN was full of
| people saying, "No, you can't build computers in America
| because America doesn't have any screws, and can't possibly
| figure out how to make its own!"
|
| Time and money solve all problems. Even supply chains.
| adventured wrote:
| The nice thing about China at its present stage of
| development is that everything made in China will
| perpetually get more expensive to make there and that will
| provide an ongoing advantage gain to every other location
| around the world that has until recently been at a steep
| cost disadvantage to China. Five to seven years ago it was
| already nearing cost-even to begin making things in the US
| again vs keeping that manufacturing in China, that will
| continue to tilt in the favor of the US by the year.
| baybal2 wrote:
| I doubt
|
| If it was only cost... Cost of manufacturing labour is
| already lower in _most_ of US territorially than in
| China, and is dramatically lower in other poorer
| countries.
|
| The saying is that only $2 of iPhone is manual labour.
| Qwertious wrote:
| >The saying is that only $2 of iPhone is manual labour.
|
| $2 under which wage? Like, is it $2 at $1/hr or $2 at
| $20/hr?
|
| If the latter, it's negligible. If the former, it's an
| extra $39 which is apparently huge in the context of
| manufacturing.
| someperson wrote:
| Samsung smartphones shows that assembly in China is no
| longer required: no Samsung smartphone is made in China
| anymore. They're mostly made in Vietnam and now India
| (with some small scale manufacturing in a bunch of
| protectionist countries like Brazil for domestic demand
| but not for export)
|
| The age of China being the factory of the world is
| ending. And that was _before_ Trump 's trade war.
| totalZero wrote:
| Samsung still has some ODM devices assembled in China.
|
| https://www.reuters.com/article/us-samsung-elec-china-
| focus/...
| someperson wrote:
| Thanks for the correction. A few years ago I did read
| that they had low-volume ODM devices made in China for
| the Chinese domestic market. 80% of Samsung's smartphones
| being made outside China is still great though.
| baybal2 wrote:
| You need to know difference in between assembly, and
| manufacturing.
|
| Just screwing parts, and subassemblies coming from China
| is assembly.
|
| Manufacturing implies integration not on just parts, and
| subassemblies level, and having much bigger part of the
| supply chain under one roof.
| tobylane wrote:
| I heard recently that that Apple factory's output was
| limited by the number of screws their local supplier could
| make per week. Can this be called a solved problem? They
| just stopped depending on the US supplier.
| https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/28/technology/iphones-
| apple-...
| quasirandom wrote:
| I've been meaning to do a deep dive on semiconductor supply
| chains for a while now. I'd start by aggregating annual reports
| for the companies named in [1], identify their major categories
| of capex, gather information about their suppliers, and
| recurse.
|
| [1]
| https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/cn/Documents/...
| mdocherty wrote:
| I am doing the same. I started at the SMH etf and have been
| working downwards. It's interesting stuff!
| AareyBaba wrote:
| Don't miss Ajinomoto - the company that makes msg (monosodium
| glutamate). They also make ABF (Ajinomoto Build-up Film) that
| is used in circuit fabrication and is currently in short
| supply.
| https://www.ajinomoto.com/innovation/action/buildupfilm
| 11thEarlOfMar wrote:
| China cannot fabricate semiconductors exclusively on Chinese
| machinery. In fact, there is very little viable Chinese-made
| equipment at state of the art technology. They must source
| machinery primarily from the US [AMAT, LRCX, KLAC], Japan [TEL,
| Screen] and Europe [ASML].
| [deleted]
| nexthash wrote:
| This is awesome! The US needs domestic chip manufacturing, in
| order to be able to effectively compete, take business from, and
| vanquish China on all fronts. This includes AI, automobiles, the
| cloud, etc. The coming technology arms race is looking to be like
| a second Cold War, so we need to remember the lessons of the
| first (like containment) and apply them again.
| free_rms wrote:
| I'm all for securing domestic chip manufacturing but can we
| stop with the vanquishing? It sounds like you're talking about
| an army of orcs.
| gruez wrote:
| >This is awesome! The US needs domestic chip manufacturing, in
| order to be able to effectively compete, take business from,
| and vanquish China on all fronts.
|
| Have you forgotten all the intel/GF fabs?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_manufacturing_si...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GlobalFoundries#Fabrication_fa...
| nexthash wrote:
| Yep, and it's wonderful that we have important fabs that
| haven't moved production out of the US. However, other parts
| of the chip supply chain _have_ been moved out of the US,
| such as iPhone chip manufacturing and stuff related to data
| centers & servers. While this can help lower prices, it also
| increases the risk of the US losing control of IP and having
| its technology compromised.
|
| Remember when in 2018 SuperMicro servers sold to Apple were
| compromised by a small chip inserted by a Chinese sub-
| manufacturer? [1] Or how iPhone designs sometimes get leaked
| by employees of Foxconn in Taiwan? [2] We've got fabs in the
| US, but I believe domestic chip manufacture should become
| central policy to prevent incidents like this.
|
| [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-10-04/the-
| big-h...
|
| [2] https://bgr.com/2019/08/14/iphone-11-release-date-soon-
| foxco...
| skazazes wrote:
| Did anything ever come of that bloomberg article?
| Supermicro denied all allegations, but also began moving
| production out of China from what I can find online.
| Outside of a tech blog or two I haven't heard anything of
| it again
| [deleted]
| dchest wrote:
| [1] is generally considered an incorrect story. It was
| denied by every party involved, presented no evidence, and
| not confirmed by anybody else.
|
| It is possible in theory, but this particular story is
| considered a BS.
| realmod wrote:
| And two years later there has been zero development on
| this bombshell story which makes the story look even
| worse.
| the-dude wrote:
| The Bloomberg article was a dud.
| jlaporte wrote:
| They exist, but Intel doesn't do contract manufacturing and
| GlobalFoundries is behind the other major contract
| manufacturers (TSMC and Samsung) by many process node
| generations.
| voxadam wrote:
| > Intel doesn't do contract manufacturing
|
| What about Intel Custom Foundry?
| natch wrote:
| from TFA:
|
| >... "leading edge" ...
|
| Does Intel have some leading edge fabs? I read they have some
| coming in the future, but I think the point is it's good to
| have more!
| totalZero wrote:
| Yes, of course. Intel has been shipping 10nm devices for a
| while now.
|
| If the question is about the definition of the term, this
| document from a faceless consultancy in Aug 2020 describes
| leading-edge nodes as 14nm and newer.
|
| https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/advanced-
| electronics/our...
| LatteLazy wrote:
| Devil's advocste: why can't the US do that via Taiwan as it
| does currently?
|
| They're an ally, they're totally reliant on the US and afraid
| of the PRC.
|
| Won't we also need "rare" earth metal supplies to of it is a
| vital industry we can't cope with being overseas? And then
| there is the fact the fab machines all come from Belgium.
| pkaye wrote:
| > Devil's advocste: why can't the US do that via Taiwan as it
| does currently?
|
| I think TSMC was working on a similar deal.
|
| > Won't we also need "rare" earth metal supplies to of it is
| a vital industry we can't cope with being overseas?
|
| Rare earth materials are available in the US but due to cost
| competitiveness, all the mining happens overseas. Also the
| mining process has environmental impacts some countries
| choose to ignore.
|
| > And then there is the fact the fab machines all come from
| Belgium.
|
| Which company in Belgium make the fab machines. The biggest
| manufacturer of semiconductor fabrication equipment are
| Applied Materials and Lam Research, both in the bay area.
| ASML from Netherlands make the critical Photolithography
| equipment however. Beyond this, there are hundred of mid and
| smaller companies involved all over the world.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiconductor_equipment_sales_.
| ..
| wcarss wrote:
| No horse in the race on either side here but just to answer
| the devil's advocate: it's pretty easy to imagine a future
| where China could establish a trade blockade of Taiwan,
| putting the US in the position of "potentially start a war,
| or go without Taiwanese goods" -- that's like the diplomatic
| equivalent of a Fork[1]. If you depend on it, and you can do
| it at home, you should.
|
| And "but what about ______, then?" (e.g. rare earths, fab
| machines) does not mean that all other "______" (e.g. chips)
| should follow suit. You control what you can.
|
| 1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fork_(chess)
| dragontamer wrote:
| Taiwan is a great ally. But if a war breaks out between US
| and China, Taiwan will likely be the first casualty.
|
| Nothing against Taiwan or anything. Its just the bloody
| obvious "first strike" move. China will almost certainly
| attack Taiwan as part of an offensive-strategy vs the USA.
|
| Having fabs on this side of the Pacific Ocean is important
| for strategic defense reasons. Of course, the US should move
| to defend Taiwan in that situation, but if worst-comes-to-
| worst, we'll need a way to produce chips under such a
| scenario.
|
| -------
|
| This story is about Samsung however, which is South Korean.
| North Korea now has nuclear weapons, as well as tons of
| artillery pointing at South Korea.
|
| For the Samsung-side of things: same thing. South Korea are
| great allies, but if the North Korean war ever gets started
| again, Samsung's production inside the US-proper would be a
| strategic advantage.
| baybal2 wrote:
| > Taiwan is a great ally.
|
| Should I remind of the fact that Taiwan was very glad to
| sell any amount of semiconductors to mainland China.
|
| If anybody had an option to strangle them economically, it
| would've been Taiwanese themselves.
|
| China is world's biggest semiconductor market. If the tap
| will close on their semiconductor imports, so would've
| their economy at large.
|
| Now, it's them, and not US who has to regret their prior
| indecisiveness the most.
|
| Now of course attitudes have changed in Taipei, but only
| now.
|
| I bet, in the next 5-10 years, Japan, and Korea will have
| their own time regretting being soft with Beijing just like
| that.
| dragontamer wrote:
| > Should I remind of the fact that Taiwan was very glad
| to sell any amount of semiconductors to mainland China.
|
| And US companies moved production to China. Apple, TSLA,
| etc. etc. Yeah, we're in peacetime. These things happen.
| We're not planning to go to war with China, but we need
| to be realistic about potential threats in the future.
|
| There's something to be said about the ability for trade
| to reduce tensions. I don't think trade with China is
| necessarily bad.
| nl wrote:
| > Should I remind of the fact that Taiwan was very glad
| to sell any amount of semiconductors to mainland China.
|
| > If anybody had an option to strangle them economically,
| it would've been Taiwanese themselves
|
| > China is world's biggest semiconductor market. If the
| tap will close on their semiconductor imports, so
| would've their economy at large.
|
| Why would anyone (least of all Taiwan) want this? Trade
| isn't a zero-sum game, and both parties benefit from it.
| Trade wars are very unpredictable, as the way the US lost
| the Trump-era trade war with China shows.
|
| It's true that some in the US see China as a rival that
| must be "strangled". Views outside the US are much more
| nuanced - China isn't going to disappear and is way too
| big to just strangle. There are major issues dealing with
| China, though.
| free_rms wrote:
| US politics have had a "big bad" for 80 straight years
| now, it's basically a reflex.
| MangoCoffee wrote:
| >Should I remind of the fact that Taiwan was very glad to
| sell any amount of semiconductors to mainland China.
|
| US sell chip to China as well until the Huawei ban. TSMC
| stop making chip for Huawei when the US hammer came down.
|
| how can you tell Taiwan to stop selling when your own
| companies is selling to China? how's that fair?
| hanklazard wrote:
| True. It's also important to remember that Taiwan is
| located in a seismically active region ...
| philipkglass wrote:
| There are also rare earth separation plants being built in
| Texas.
|
| "DOD Awards $30.4 Million for Rare Earth Minerals Facility in
| Texas"
|
| _The Department of Defense and Lynas Rare Earths Ltd. will
| each contribute $30 million to establish a rare earths
| processing facility in Texas._
|
| https://thetexan.news/dod-awards-30-4-million-for-rare-
| earth...
|
| But that doesn't actually have much to do with advanced
| microprocessor fabs. The "tech" uses for rare earth elements
| are primarily in making magnets, lasers, and phosphors.
| genericone wrote:
| Which fab machines are you referencing? Atmospheric modules?
| Vacuum modules? Or maybe not talking about the process tools
| at all, and more along the lines of inter-fab equipment?
| LatteLazy wrote:
| I won't pretend I know, fabrication seems very technical
| and I get the vague idea but I'm also an idiot.
|
| I was referring to ASML Holdings.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASML_Holding
| BostonEnginerd wrote:
| The equipment industry is global. US, European and Japanese
| companies make up most of the largest equipment suppliers.
| Regardless of where they're headquartered, most of those
| companies also have global R&D footprints.
| nexthash wrote:
| A couple of strategic reasons: Taiwan's proximity to the PRC
| would knock out fab production should a war occur between the
| two. Also, the same proximity could lead to unwanted IP
| transfer, which could compromise US national security if
| China gets its hands on any new chip tech the US develops.
|
| Taiwan is a great ally to the US and having it manufacture
| chips is good for both economies, but if the US wants to
| lower risk and keep control of its technological edge it is
| in its interests to keep manufacturing domestic.
| totalZero wrote:
| Geography puts us into a perpetual contortionist act. Taiwan
| is very close to China so our looming presence is perpetually
| necessary to ward off the dragon, so to speak.
|
| For example, what happens if China decides to take one of the
| Matsu Islands?
|
| The US is obligated to respond with aggression, and Europe
| too. Not out of alliance, but out of strategic and economic
| necessity to keep the second domino from falling.
|
| It's foolish to leave that kind of pressure point exposed to
| an adversary. Sooner or later, each side will feel it is
| defending itself against an aggressor and both will engage in
| what they see as a righteous war.
|
| We can make Taiwan more secure by making it less of a
| pressure point and freeing our hands strategically. If we are
| going to react to Chinese aggression with American aggression
| to protect an ally, it should be decisive not reflexive.
| malux85 wrote:
| Yes! Agree! I was happy to read this, too much reliance on TSMC
| TACIXAT wrote:
| TSMC is also building a fab in the US. [1]
|
| 1. https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/15/tech/tsmc-arizona-chip-
| factor...
| waynecochran wrote:
| They already have fabs in the US. e.g.
| https://www.wafertech.com
| somethoughts wrote:
| Interesting if it is related to the possibility of manufacturing
| smart phones in Mexico [1].
|
| In that sense if you were to take the output of an Austin based
| fab to supply a smart phone manufacturing supply chain in Mexico
| versus China, that would be a significant reduction in the length
| of a smart phone supply chain.
|
| [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mexico-china-factories-
| ex...
| Robotbeat wrote:
| Chips are super value dense so the cost to fly them to the
| other side of the world is teeny tiny. Heck, the weight is so
| low you could just about afford to put the fab on the Moon (for
| chip logistics costs), if there was any real advantage to it.
| Qwertious wrote:
| Shipping costs from the moon to anywhere on earth is probably
| pretty minimal, since you could do it with a catapult and a
| shell+parachute so the goods survive re-entry. I doubt mass
| would make a big difference there so much as volume.
|
| Shipping costs from earth to the moon is $10 000/KG IIRC
| though, which, if we assume that a processor weighs 10 grams
| and costs $100 means the value of the stuff you're selling is
| $10 000/KG, i.e. you can't make a profit on them.
|
| But, suppose you ship 50% of the processor's materials up
| (with a convenient 100% efficiency of raw materials usage),
| and you mine the other 50% locally. Which, does the moon have
| silicon? Yes, it has plenty.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_resources#Resources
|
| I suspect lunar silicon would be more expensive to process
| than terran silicon, primarily due to the lacking skilled
| labour market in the area. It would likely need to be
| extensively automated, and likely re-invented from the ground
| up around the different atmosphere (which while not
| breathable, is possibly still not clean enough for a
| cleanroom), gravity, potential power sources (metallurgical
| coal is a no-go, mainly because there's no easy oxygen but
| also because coal is quite expensive there).
|
| While it's possible that some raw materials are cheaper on
| the moon than elsewhere (e.g. platinum from asteroids), I
| doubt this is the case due to the previously mentioned
| potential for cheap moon-to-earth shipping.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| From what I can tell, a high end chip goes for almost
| $1/mm^2, which given typical wafer thicknesses and density,
| is about $1/mg, or $1,000,000/kg.
| mrDmrTmrJ wrote:
| Great post. Though current stated costs to the moon are
| like $1.2M/kg via Astrobotic and that's a bit speculative
| as they haven't landed. Fingers crossed SpaceX gets
| Starship online and pulls that number down!
|
| If you're interested in reading about proposals to use the
| Moon for manufacturing, here's a fun blog post on potential
| use of lunar resources for manufacturing:
|
| https://denniswingo.wordpress.com/2018/08/20/lunar-metals-
| an...
|
| Lots of interesting proposals and people to follow on
| Twitter too for both lunar and astroid ISRU (in situ
| resource utilization): https://twitter.com/drphiltill
| https://twitter.com/george_sowers
| https://twitter.com/joelsercel https://twitter.com/wingod
| somethoughts wrote:
| I'm not a supply chain expert, but just envisioning that
| export controls have been and will be getting a lot more
| challenging going forward. Not to mention higher risk at
| stuff getting held up due to other logistical challenges
| (i.e. bad weather, etc.) while doing the full roundtrip to
| Asia and back.
|
| If there was chip production (CPU, memory, etc.) out of an
| Austin fab and LCD screen, battery and other material
| production in a special economic region in Mexico, seems like
| there could be a full 3-5 day reduction in the production.
|
| Apple sells about 43 million iPhones in the US per year.
| Shipping 43 million of anything (i.e chips) to Asia only for
| it to be shipped back (as a finished product) to the US seems
| counter-productive?
| reportingsjr wrote:
| Almost all ICs are packaged in Asia at this time anyhow.
| Main countries are phillipines, malaysia, and taiwan.
|
| In the scheme of things shipping around the world doesnt
| take all that much time. (Lead times for ICs are 20 weeks
| at the bare minimum)
| Robotbeat wrote:
| We really need to package ICs in America. It's all
| automated now, anyway, so the low labor costs (the
| original reason for sending packaging to Asia) is MUCH
| less important.
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| Don't forget about the Intel assembly & packaging plant
| in Costa Rica! Ref:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Costa_Rica#Economy
|
| To quote Wiki: "An Intel microprocessor facility in Costa
| Rica that was, at one time, responsible for 20% of Costa
| Rican exports and 5% of the country's GDP."
|
| As I understand, for a long time, assembly and packaging
| was labour-intensive, so ICs were packaged in places with
| low labour costs. However, with the advances made in
| automation, I wonder if this still holds true. Maybe
| assembly and packaging will move back to high income
| countries in the next generation.
| thedudeabides5 wrote:
| Woo, go team!
|
| Love that the US is bringing critical technology supply chains
| back onshore.
| m3kw9 wrote:
| When fab hardware depends on chips made by fabs.
| tgtweak wrote:
| Finally - this is great news - I hope they put a lot of design
| staff here too, not just fab workers.
| throwaway120575 wrote:
| They layed off a lot of their Austin-based Exynos CPU design
| staff two years ago, save for those working on the AMD/Samsung
| GPU partnership work - still, will be interesting to see how/if
| Exynos comes back, know they are aggressively hiring for GPU
| work.
| williesleg wrote:
| Thank you Biden!
| MangoCoffee wrote:
| regarding job: modern fab is pretty much automated.
|
| however, people who run the fab are mostly engineers. TSMC
| recruit from Taiwan's top University like National Taiwan
| University. you've to pay these professionals a high salary
| regardless where the fab is. (each new gen fab is more automated
| than pervious.) just check out the salary + bonus for TSMC
| engineers in Taiwan.
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| Hi. I checked salary and bonus for TSMC engineers in Taiwan.
| Here is what I found:
|
| Engineer (1.3M NTD -> 46.5K USD):
| https://www.glassdoor.com.hk/Salary/TSMC-Engineer-Taiwan-Sal...
|
| Senior Engineer (2.0M NTD -> 71.5K USD):
| https://www.glassdoor.com.hk/Salary/TSMC-Senior-Engineer-Tai...
|
| Unless I misunderstood your comment, you seem to be hinting
| that these pay packages are very high. They don't look very
| competitive when compared to other high income countries.
|
| I cannot prove it, but my sense about TSMC is that their most
| senior researchers, sales people, and operations people are
| paid silly money. The remaining (below them) are paid good, but
| not insane, wages. That said, most of the TSMC R&D labs and
| fabs are in cheap locations, like Hsinchu and Tainan, so these
| pay packages are still quite good.
| [deleted]
| dirtyid wrote:
| Assuming proposed US semi fund will be chipping in for Samsung
| asking 1B in tax subsidies like TSMC.
| PhantomGremlin wrote:
| Sheesh. I can't believe all the comments here that say, more or
| less "It's an expansion of an existing fab".
|
| It's most emphatically NOT that!
|
| Directly from the article:
|
| _The plans for the new fab are called Project Silicon Silver
| (PSS), and it will be located adjacent to S2. It will not use any
| of the existing buildings of S2, but will be a completely new fab
| constructed from the ground up. It will have its own operations
| support, central utility building, industrial waste treatment,
| air separation plans, storage for inert gases, and other
| constructions._
|
| _The only currently-contemplated interconnections between the
| new facility and the surrounding existing property may be a
| pedestrian and /or material bridge or walkway constructed between
| the existing improvements on the site and the new construction_
|
| That couldn't be more clear as far as I'm concerned!!!
| mchusma wrote:
| Its very important for the US strategically to build out its
| foundry capabilities, so this plus the TSMC plant are big steps
| forward there.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| did the TSMC project get mothballed as a boondoggle for
| Wisconsin?
| dodobirdlord wrote:
| You're thinking of a Foxconn project.
| barbacoa wrote:
| I see a lot of people in this thread who don't really know much
| about Samsung's semiconductor presence in the USA. This expansion
| has been in the works for years. Samsung has a 100k wafer per
| month fab in austin texas. They are negotiating for tax
| abatements for expansion and using alternative sites as leverage.
|
| They are not building a new fab they are expanding their S2 fab
| in austin texas. There was a permit application that was released
| a few years back that shows the true scale of their expansion
| plans.
|
| https://www.swf.usace.army.mil/Portals/47/docs/regulatory/pu...
|
| If this goes through it could made Samsung's S2 fab larger than
| even TSMC's monster gigafabs.
| pwdisswordfish0 wrote:
| If anyone has seen the Austin S2 campus before, you'd know that
| it has a massive blacktop to provide parking for its thousands
| of personnel.
|
| It would be nice if as part of the conditions for application
| approval, Samsung were asked to commit to erect awnings for
| solar collectors integrated into covered parking and strongly
| encouraged to invest in making solar more cost effective.
| barbacoa wrote:
| As a side note. SAS recently bought 100s of acres around
| their property probably to expand parking.
| renerthr wrote:
| Sorry for the ignorance, but what's SAS? DDGing that word
| might not get the appropriate result.
| fnord77 wrote:
| assuming SAS software, an analytics software company
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAS_Institute
| renerthr wrote:
| Thank you! It says it's the largest privately held
| software business. Why is it that it doesn't go public?
| hulahoof wrote:
| Why go public if you already have money?
| Spare_account wrote:
| Why _should_ they go public?
| Reason077 wrote:
| I once visited the SAS campus in North Carolina, when I
| was working for another well-known North Carolina
| headquartered software company. Very nice place. Made me
| quite jealous.
| barbacoa wrote:
| Samsung austin semiconductor (the name of the fab)
| KirillPanov wrote:
| and a pony too.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| Free range chicken farm, dammit!
| ericmay wrote:
| Idk why I see downvotes here for a legit comment and concern.
| Parking lots are absolutely awful.
|
| First, cars. Enough said.
|
| Second, they take up a lot of space with low utilization.
|
| Third, heat.
| exabrial wrote:
| If you choose to live in an over crowded area like a
| Coastal City, this is true. Texas is huge with a lot of
| space; so while yes, gas powered vehicles might not great,
| consider for a second there a much larger world than the
| small bubble you live in.
| mandis wrote:
| >First, cars. Enough said.
|
| No not really. Cars are wonderful, not everyone who lives
| on this planet wants to share space with strangers.
| nine_k wrote:
| Cars are wonderful and useful when moving, less so, when
| stationary. Allowing a second way to use the area taken
| by the cars is reasonable -- a car parking does not need
| access to the sky, until we have the fabled flying cars.
| kbenson wrote:
| Nobody said cars have no benefits. But they do have very
| real drawbacks that are obvious at this point, they just
| aren't borne by the owner exclusively.
|
| Cars as the exist today for the most part are the best
| method we have for increasing mobility and economic
| independence for those that don't live near or can't
| leverage public transportation (and sometimes in those
| cases too). They are still objectively awful in many
| other aspects though.
| km3r wrote:
| Not everyone wants to pay taxes either, but sometimes
| sacrifices will need to be made so that we don't ruin
| this planet. Sure having personal space and full autonomy
| in movement is nice, but it may have to be realized in
| different ways as we start to see the damage we are doing
| to this planet.
| zionic wrote:
| A planet with only mass transit is not a planet I want to
| live on. Many will fight you to the bitter end on this.
| tehjoker wrote:
| Most people lived and died within 20 miles of where they
| were born until extremely recently. In that context, this
| sort of idea is kind of amusing given we have many
| different parameters (such as the viability of life on
| earth) to consider in solving social problems.
| gzer0 wrote:
| I think the crux of the argument here is that we will not
| have a planet to live on anymore.
| monsieurbanana wrote:
| > A planet with only mass transit is not a planet I want
| to live on
|
| Pitiful strawman. I've never heard someone argue to have
| "only mass transit". More focus on common transports,
| cycling cities? Yes, please.
|
| Of course, many like you will still fight it "to the
| bitter end", whatever that means.
| cscurmudgeon wrote:
| Let's follow the science.
|
| Cruise ships pollute more than cars. But you won't see
| any green politician discuss that. Why?
|
| https://www.thedrive.com/news/28469/carnival-cruise-ship-
| fle...
| petersellers wrote:
| That article says nothing about CO2, which is by far the
| biggest man-made contributor to global warming (and
| probably what the person above you was referring to)
| sampo wrote:
| > Cruise ships pollute more than cars
|
| Sulfur oxides (SOx), yes. Carbon dioxide (CO2), no.
| monocasa wrote:
| Because cruise ships do their polluting primarily in
| international waters and are registered under flags of
| convenience. They have separate fuel tanks for in western
| countries' jurisdictions to fulfill the regulations that
| these green politicians have already passed.
| Swenrekcah wrote:
| This sort of non-compliance compliance infuriates me. Any
| ships with dual tanks should be banned from western
| waters.
| cjrp wrote:
| Then they'll invent one with triple tanks ;)
| dagw wrote:
| _But you won't see any green politician discuss that_
|
| Do you live in a city that gets a lot of cruise ship
| traffic? Because in my experience a lot of green
| politicians are very keen on banning cruise ships.
| cscurmudgeon wrote:
| Source?
| KirillPanov wrote:
| > Idk why I see downvotes here
|
| discussion derailment
|
| turning every thread into a debate about your pet
| sociopolitical issue is unhelpful.
| [deleted]
| tehjoker wrote:
| I recall during hurricane Harvey in 2017, the news reported
| that part of the reason for the innundation was due to so
| much green space and dirt being covered up by impermeable
| artificial surfaces, which caused the water to have no
| where to go except to accumulate and flow into the city.
| Reason077 wrote:
| Such vast, paved, surface-level parking lots are a
| distinctively American thing.
|
| In Europe, for example, you're much more likely to find
| covered, multi-level parking structures once a parking lot
| exceeds a given size.
| the8472 wrote:
| Some parking places in Europe are also covered in gravel or
| permeable pavement and have trees between rows rather than
| being made of tarmac.
| ant6n wrote:
| In Europe, people are more likely to engage in active
| transportation. You'll find more public transit, cycling
| and even walking. Public transit is just a normal way for
| anybody to get around, not a mobility fallback for poor
| people.
| SanderNL wrote:
| That is changing though. I've not seen the inside of a
| train for years and I'm happy with that TBH.
| chrisrogers wrote:
| If Europe had the space that exists in and around Austin,
| they would do the same thing. It's simply far less
| expensive to build surface lots.
| ovi256 wrote:
| Yes, this is commonly done in areas where land is cheap,
| I'm thinking of rural train station parking lots,
| regional and small airport parking lots.
| namdnay wrote:
| Exactly. It's not like you see massive flat lots in
| Manhattan
| sampo wrote:
| There is this fairly efficient 10-level parking garage in
| Philadelphia, Arch Street. It is essentially two 10-floor
| towers connected at the top. They saved room by making
| driveways one-way. So you enter, you have to drive 10
| floors up, drive across the roof, and then drive 10
| floors down to the exit. You can park wherever along the
| way, but you always end up driving all the way up and
| down.
| elipsey wrote:
| the urban heat island is real, and austin is hot enough
| already, so thanks for the very humane suggestion! the screen
| on my phone used to turn black if i forgot it in my car at
| work. sometimes i left frozen tamales on my dashboard and
| came back for them at lunchtime.
|
| in my student coop, i once looked up from my studies to see
| that my clock/thermometer said it was 110F _on my desk_. so
| yeah, if you 're going to cut down all the shade, can a bro
| at least get some awnings?
| samstave wrote:
| I have only been to Austin once to consult on an OpenStack
| install - Cray was in the same building as my client...
|
| But when I was packing for the trip - I was like "I am
| going to texas - so I don't need a jacket and only packed
| short sleeve shirts and brought a pair of shorts!
|
| When I arrived in Austin, IT WAS FUCKING SNOWING
|
| I was so damn cold.
| throwawaygimp wrote:
| Me too! I got stuck there because taxis weren't running
| to the airport due to snow. Had a rad time... everything
| was covered in snow, not a car on the road. Apparently
| the locals hadn't seen anything like it, so maybe a freak
| one. This was late 2000's, can't remember exactly when
| [deleted]
| SOLAR_FIELDS wrote:
| We had a good snow last month - about 6 inches. But yes
| that kind of thing is so exceedingly rare (about once
| every 10 years) that the entire city economy basically
| grinds to a halt so everyone can go outside and play in
| the snow. The last time that happened was probably the
| incident you are describing.
| perryizgr8 wrote:
| If the long-term return from solar cells were higher than the
| cost involved, Samsung would do it themselves. Since they
| don't do it, that means it is not efficient enough. So why
| force them?
| ghouse wrote:
| There are plenty of requirements in Conditional Use Permits
| that force entities to do things they wouldn't otherwise do
| themselves. These are generally to mitigate the negative
| impacts on others. For example, onsite stormwater retention
| and traffic mitigation.
|
| > Since they don't do it, that means it is not efficient
| enough.
|
| This assumes perfect market efficiency -- that everyone has
| perfect information and is perfectly rational. In my
| experience, that isn't the case.
|
| Additionally, Samsung is asking for a 25 year property tax
| waiver. It's a negotiation.
| perryizgr8 wrote:
| > There are plenty of requirements in Conditional Use
| Permits that force entities to do things they wouldn't
| otherwise do themselves.
|
| Ah, let's remove those requirements.
|
| > For example, onsite stormwater retention and traffic
| mitigation.
|
| Why do you think "entities" would not do these things
| without being forced? Do these "entities" not benefit
| from better traffic and managed stormwater?
|
| > This assumes perfect market efficiency -- that everyone
| has perfect information and is perfectly rational. In my
| experience, that isn't the case.
|
| OK, then let's fix that.
|
| > Additionally, Samsung is asking for a 25 year property
| tax waiver. It's a negotiation.
|
| No, it's not a negotiation. Negotiation can occur between
| similarly empowered entities. There is no negotiation
| when one side has the power to lock the other up at
| gunpoint.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| "Why do you think "entities" would not do these things
| without being forced? Do these "entities" not benefit
| from better traffic and managed stormwater?"
|
| Before you advocate muh free market, read about history
| of urban panning - we tried it, most houses didn't even
| have sewers. I don't want poop on the streets.
|
| More recently in UK over 100 people burned to death
| because a massive skyscraper was built with violations of
| fire safety, and then plasteres with more flamable
| material.
|
| Do these entities not benefit from not having the
| building they manage burn to the ground?
| cscurmudgeon wrote:
| One of my favorite things to do when I am depressed due to
| negativity is to read Hacker News comments when Dropbox
| launched and the NYTimes story on space flight being
| impossible.
|
| I am going to add this submission to that list.
| [deleted]
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| They are trying to strong arm the locals into basically saying
| they (Samsung) pays zero property taxes to the next 25 years.
| https://www.statesman.com/story/business/2021/02/04/samsung-...
| . I hope Austin passes on it if Samsung can't do any better
| than that.
| dimitrios1 wrote:
| I hope then you can face the desperate residents who don't
| have the luxury of having a cushy data collection yuppie job
| like most of us here do then for missing out on a decent wage
| like and tell them "no it was for your own good, trust me!"
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| Its not just residents, its a complete violation of free
| market.
|
| How are startups and family businesses meant to compete
| when the megacorps get special deals, pay no taxes and get
| bailouts? This is how you get monopolies and oligopolies.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| No it sets a terrible precedent. Businesses need to support
| their community. I would willing to bet that the city
| council will not let it happen. They may cut a deal but it
| ain't gonna be 100%. More like on the order of 10-25% like
| other companies get. Corporations are too greedy. I
| contract for a living and through local contacts never go
| more than a month between contracts. The job market here is
| still pretty great for people who have solid
| backend/embedded skills, in general it's solid for most
| people. Those other people can go work for the other big
| guys or the new Tesla plant who actually cut a reasonable
| tax deal.
| syshum wrote:
| The precedent was set long ago, and if Austin does not
| take it I can assure you some other city will..
|
| Why, it is easy... a new factory (or a factory expansion)
| means more jobs, more jobs means more people, more people
| means more Home and more secondary businesses all of
| which the local government will get taxes from.
|
| In principle I agree, but in reality Austin will make
| more tax revenue from these other properties and business
| than the amount of the abatement
| tooltalk wrote:
| Samsung has been around Austin, TX since the late 1990's
| and invested well over $15B. I think the state and county
| officials have enough dataset to evaluate whether
| Samsung's new expansion would benefit their community or
| not.
| chkaloon wrote:
| Source? Just like this comment in the story - "
| Nonetheless, the deal still makes a lot of sense for the
| state". Numbers, please?
| f430 wrote:
| doesnt samsung create thousands of jobs in the community
| with this? not sure I share your outrage. this isnt about
| some one trick pony YC startup hiring a dozen backend
| devs
| numbsafari wrote:
| Why should labor pay for all the externalities created by
| capital?
| f430 wrote:
| Did you not read the title? It's $17 billion dollar
| investment creating thousands of high paying jobs which
| in turn will create more jobs and create more capital in
| community. Why are you so against this?
|
| This isn't some VC backed zombie healthcare software
| company hiring a couple of developers per year and not
| getting to pay taxes. This is a major corporation
| investing billions with profound impact on the community.
| bildung wrote:
| _> Why are you so against this?_
|
| Why should the people of Austin, Texas gift millions of
| dollars to a company that made a _profit_ of over $8
| billions in the last quarter alone?
| adriancr wrote:
| I've seen places refuse to budge and lose out the
| investments
|
| I've also seen Intel refuse to negotiate price for chips
| with Apple for the original iPhone and look how great
| that turned out for them and TSMC
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| Sometimes youve gotta show backbone.
|
| "I'be seen people refuse to give their boss a blowjob and
| lose out on promotions"
| imtringued wrote:
| The number of cities losing out does not change. If there
| are X competing cities X-1 cities will always lose out.
| numbsafari wrote:
| Who said I'm against it? I merely raised the question.
|
| > This is a major corporation investing billions with
| profound impact on the community.
|
| Sure. Is that impact the same for everyone in the
| community, though? Or is it ultimately better for some,
| and not others? Could it also be that it may be a net
| negative for some members of the community?
|
| Also, as noted by others, Samsung already has strong
| incentives to build this facility in Texas, and has
| wanted/needed to build it for a while. This latest gambit
| is an effort to force local government to sweeten the
| deal.
| imtringued wrote:
| The investment is creating the jobs. The tax discount
| isn't creating jobs. It's just moving them around. Do you
| really think Samsung will give up if no city gives them a
| tax break?
| f430 wrote:
| without investment there would be no jobs or taxes to
| collect in the first place. With this single move, texas
| gov will be able to collect more taxes from thousands of
| people making 100k+ and downstream suppliers also hiring
| and making more money.
|
| Samsung can easily find other cities to produce in at
| lower cost outside America. Why is being competitive for
| once such a big issue here? Without the tax benefit
| Texans won't have thousands of high paying high skill
| jobs.
|
| The tax break adds up to about $40 million a year which
| pales in comparison to the benefits Texans will receive.
| mywittyname wrote:
| > Samsung can easily find other cities to produce in at
| lower cost outside America.
|
| No they can't. Austin and the surrounding area are key
| silicon fabrication regions. There are very few places in
| the world that can compete, and it is possible that they
| are forced to produce within the USA due to import/export
| restrictions on what they are manufacturing.
|
| This is a situation where the decision is already made,
| but it can't hurt to ask for tax break. Because hey, free
| money.
|
| Kind of like how Amazon "passed" on building out an NYC
| headquarters because the city wouldn't give them tax
| breaks (after locals protested), only to come back six
| months later and begin construction of their NYC HQ.
| [deleted]
| tooltalk wrote:
| Sure, the tax thing is probably one of the maor component
| here. In addition to local taxes, my understanding that
| SAS's current plant is in free trade zone where they also
| receive exemption for import/sales taxes, etc.
|
| The whole US semi industry is worried that the lion share
| of semi production is stlil occuring in Asia, not in the
| US -- which is probably why Trump admin started twisting
| TSMC and Samsung's arms few years ago:
|
| https://www.semiconductors.org/wp-
| content/uploads/2020/06/20...
| kristianp wrote:
| It's an interesting question: incentives. Samsung can't
| negotiate away wages like they can land taxes.
| barbacoa wrote:
| Look at it from the local government prospective, they
| could get 0 in tax income or they can settle from the tax
| income of thousands of new high income jobs.
| didibus wrote:
| Do gigafab manufactures like that really create high
| income jobs? I assumed it was mostly low income close to
| minimum wage kind of thing.
|
| On a similar tangeant, how are these able to compete with
| similar manufacturing done in Asia or Africa?
| barbacoa wrote:
| Average salary is probably around $100k. Even the techs
| with high school educations can make in the range of
| $40-60 an hour and generous overtime.
|
| >On a similar tangeant, how are these able to compete
| with similar manufacturing done in Asia or Africa?
|
| Because it is all high skill labor. Techs that are able
| to strip down a 10 MM machine and identify the source of
| sub micron particule contamination are worth their weight
| in gold.
| pwdisswordfish0 wrote:
| They may be costing the company the equivalent of
| $40-60/hr, but more realistically, techs are starting at
| < $20/hr and have to spend years on the payroll of a
| third-party staffing company.
| barbacoa wrote:
| That's a good point, $40-60/hr is the pay for seniors
| level techs. Entry level techs are making much less and
| are employed through staffing companies.
| mech422 wrote:
| >>Average salary is probably around $100k. Even the techs
| with high school educations can make in the range of
| $40-60 an hour and generous overtime.
|
| Do you have a source for that? I'm surprised as when I
| contracted at the Intel fab in PHX, the workers in the
| actual fab were not making anything close to that.
| Management maybe, but not actual line workers. The
| standing joke was "they were working for the stock"...
| JohnJamesRambo wrote:
| Were they working for the stock?
| didibus wrote:
| I found this which has a manufacturing plant section. No
| idea how accurate: https://www.zippia.com/intel-
| careers-6055/salary/#by-job-tit...
| mech422 wrote:
| Hmm - that's interesting. If the "Intel
| Plant/Manufacturing Salaries" section is true, process
| technician and production operator (which I guess are the
| people that run the line?) make quite a bit below $100K.
| Oddly enough, it seems like the software jobs are better
| paid then the hardware ones?
|
| Thanks for the link!
| sgerenser wrote:
| How is that odd? Software salaries have been outpacing
| hardware ones for at least the past 1-2 decades. When the
| big tech companies are paying over $100k for software
| developers fresh out of college, supply and demand is
| probably forcing this state of affairs.
| mech422 wrote:
| I just would have figured a hardware company would be
| focusing on the hardware personnel.
|
| After all, there are plenty of places that don't pay
| FAANG level salaries for software developers. I still
| regularly see < $60K software jobs advertised from
| smaller companies.
| baybal2 wrote:
| In Taiwan, an average semi technician salary is $38-$40k
| a year
| valvar wrote:
| I don't know anything about how they are run, but I would
| assume you need a large number of on-site engineers and
| process overseers. What are the low-income jobs?
| Security?
| didibus wrote:
| I thought it was mostly assembly line workers putting
| parts together, with machines doing the rest. Kinda like
| what this photo shows: https://bit.ly/3a8uRFM
| sgerenser wrote:
| That's board assembly, not chip fabrication.
| f430 wrote:
| So you admit you were ignorant. That's a rarity on here.
| People will defend their wrong views here because they
| don't want to hear they aren't a polymath.
| adriancr wrote:
| This is how it looks like now:
| https://www.extremetech.com/wp-
| content/uploads/2018/12/TSMC-...
|
| Machines feed each other via conveyor belts, everything
| automated, tight control loops check/move things around.
|
| Notice the difference in human presence.
| specialist wrote:
| Someone has to build the roads, run the schools, pump the
| water, etc.
|
| A tax cut for Samsung is effectively a tax hike for
| everyone else.
| tooltalk wrote:
| Companies can and do build their own roads -- we aren't
| exactly talking about building interstate highways.
| Schools would be paid for by SAS employees and
| contractors' paycheck and additional local property taxes
| (for those who have to relocate from another place). I
| highly doubt that SAS is going to get free water.
| arcanus wrote:
| > A tax cut for Samsung is effectively a tax hike for
| everyone else.
|
| That is a remarkably zero sum way to think about it.
| f430 wrote:
| zero sum implies everyone loses in the long run.
|
| Samsung benefits. Texas state benefits. Workers benefit.
| Community benefits.
| specialist wrote:
| Please enumerate all the ways the community benefits. Be
| mindful to include externalities in your ledger.
| mywittyname wrote:
| These business _can_ act as anchors to attract skilled
| talent to the region. If that happens, then a small no-
| name town can really prosper.
|
| But the reality is that companies don't really want to be
| the ones anchoring a small town. The sacrifice is too
| great in terms of limited talent pool, and lack of
| amenities necessary to attract talented people. Maybe
| after 20 years, the town grows into something
| significant, but at that point, the market has shifted so
| much that it probably doesn't matter.
|
| In this situation, the decision is made, regardless of
| tax incentives. Samsung can't just plop one of these
| plants anywhere. The plant needs to be in a place that
| has a large enough pool of talent, the amenities
| (schools, restaurants, housing, etc) that attract new
| talent (ideally without Samsung having to pay for
| relocation), and have the logistics infrastructure to
| support business.
|
| I've seen plenty of large companies negotiate for
| aggressive tax breaks locally, only to up and move to
| places like NYC, LA, or another high-tax locale a few
| years later because they either can't attract talent, or
| senior executives don't like living in cheap midwestern
| cities.
| specialist wrote:
| Negative sum. Corruption destroys wealth. The vast
| majority loses a lot so that a few can benefit a little.
|
| The difference between creating wealth and merely
| transferring wealth (aka theft, grift).
| imtringued wrote:
| The local government can lose money on this deal even if
| it leads to more jobs.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| > or they can settle from the tax income of thousands of
| new high income jobs.
|
| There is no income tax in Texas. Even if there was, it
| would go to the state, not the county or city.
| chrisrogers wrote:
| Property and sales taxes, then.
| zymhan wrote:
| Dude, the whole thread started with a comment about
| Samsung trying to pay no property taxes.
| sida wrote:
| OP means Property tax from employees. Because it creates
| a ton of jobs
| mywittyname wrote:
| There are plenty of businesses that create tons of jobs
| and pay their taxes.
|
| Tax deductions aren't meaningful for most companies.
| Samsung is pretty limited on where they can actually
| build this plant. It's not like Hattiesburg, Mississippi
| is awash with people experienced in silicon fabrication.
| So the company would have to pay a lot of money to import
| people from other regions. But Hattiesburg isn't exactly
| top on the list of places where experienced technical
| professionals wish to live.
|
| The city counsel should play hardball with Samsung, since
| they will cave. This is one of those situations where it
| doesn't hurt to ask, but the decision is already made.
| zymhan wrote:
| But what says those people will live within Austin city
| limits (ba dum tiss) and pay property taxes to the
| government that gave out the tax break?
|
| Surely a sizeable number would commute?
|
| Also, collecting new property taxes from a corporation
| would allow the city to keep rates lower for residents.
| rizpanjwani wrote:
| texas doesn't have income tax.
| presentation wrote:
| It's a prisoners dilemma situation - cities would be better
| off if across the board they just applied the rules evenly,
| but there's always a place that's willing to sacrifice that
| for its own benefit.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| In this case, it seems like a viable investment by the
| state. We're talking about a leading node fab, not a
| nebulous "LCD manufacturing center."
|
| That's a bit harder to vaporware, and more importantly, why
| would you?
| [deleted]
| notional wrote:
| That worked out great for Wisconsin residents recently
| dimitrios1 wrote:
| For every one deal that went sour, there are hundreds of
| successes.
|
| Additionally, comparing a rushed Foxconn plant to a
| Samsung fab facility, in an area where Samsung already
| has roots, is dishonest to say the least.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Source? How does one even begin to measure the
| opportunity costs of pitting politicians with short term
| incentives against each other? Many of the supposed
| benefits aren't even able to be calculated.
| dimitrios1 wrote:
| The source is the hundreds of large corporations that
| have came to a remote location away the already larger
| and established metro areas with international airports
| nearby, so your usual suspects of LA, SF, NYC and ATL.
|
| There almost always is some incentive package to attract
| the businesses. My city, Charlotte, has 10 examples
| alone. Neighboring Charleston and Columbia in SC have
| quite a few examples of theirs, namely in Aerospace and
| Auto Manufacturing.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| How can one figure out if they would not have come anyway
| due to lower wages/land prices?
| tooltalk wrote:
| Wisconsin's tax break was conditional on Foxconn meeting
| key hiring/production metrics. Foxconn had a long trail
| of failures building viable manufacturing business
| outside China where the CCP provided everything from free
| land, to free buildings, to unlimited supply of young,
| obedient, unskilled labor pool for rural China.
|
| Samsung on the other hand has been in Austin, Texas for
| almost two decades, investing well over $15+B so far.
| greesil wrote:
| I'd like to sell you a car, since you're not the
| negotiating type.
| AngryData wrote:
| Isn't that like exactly the sort of thing the interstate
| commerce clause was originally meant to stop? There shouldn't
| be such competition between states or local governments,
| whether real or just negotiation bluff.
| unishark wrote:
| Then just have places like San Diego always win because
| they have nature on their side?
|
| But really I think the taxes here would technically count
| as within-state commerce, as they would be taxing a
| resident business if it is built.
| pas wrote:
| Eventually San Diego fills up. Why not let efficiency
| dictate these things?
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| No, states compete on tax structures all the time. Look at
| the Amazon headquarters boondoggle a while back, states
| were falling all over themselves to offer the best
| tax/infrastructure packages.
| [deleted]
| blihp wrote:
| How is that different from the deals that pretty much every
| other large company looks for when locating a new facility?
| Amazon pretty much had local governments humiliating
| themselves in their HQ 2 'contest' not too long ago.
| pas wrote:
| It's not. And while there's opportunity to make a big
| construction more efficient by handling permitting/approval
| in a bundle (combined with some of the necessary
| developments in traffic/transportation, housing), that
| doesn't mean cutting corners and just crippling the
| state/city budget.
| tooltalk wrote:
| It's kind of odd that Anandtech seems to make a lot of fuss
| about Samsung's tax break whereas Anandtech's recent article on
| TSMC's Arizon plant mentions virtually none of the same tax
| break highlighted for Samsung there. Is Apple still hiring away
| Anandtech's key editors?
|
| https://www.anandtech.com/show/15803/tsmc-build-5nm-fab-in-a...
| simonh wrote:
| That fab in Texas was the one used to manufacture the early
| Apple A-series processors. The media and most pundits generally
| assumed they were made in South Korea, because Samsung.
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