[HN Gopher] TSMC eyes Germany as possible location for first Eur...
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TSMC eyes Germany as possible location for first Europe chip plant
Author : stereoradonc
Score : 598 points
Date : 2021-07-26 08:49 UTC (14 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (asia.nikkei.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (asia.nikkei.com)
| NicoJuicy wrote:
| This is a good move for TSMC. A lot of action happens through
| ASML ( Netherlands) and IMEC ( Belgium).
|
| Germany is relatively close to both.
| xadhominemx wrote:
| Why would the locations of those research organizations matter?
| NicoJuicy wrote:
| Because while TSMC is production, the innovation happens
| mostly with those companies.
| MangoCoffee wrote:
| TSMC's innovation on production is impressive as well like
| the on chip water cooling.
|
| https://www.extremetech.com/computing/324625-tsmc-mulls-
| on-c...
| NicoJuicy wrote:
| 3nm and the future 2nm and 1nm is all with research from
| Europe.
| xadhominemx wrote:
| Ya but why does it matter that those organizations are in
| Europe? The distance does not matter and in any event TSMC
| is not contemplating building a leading edge plant in
| Europe
| mqus wrote:
| Depending on how close the interactions are, having
| similar timezones can be pretty important
| poxwole wrote:
| I hope the German ans EU labour laws atleast make the working
| conditions bearable. Working at TSMC is hellish. I worked as a
| tool vendor. It was crazy.
| LatteLazy wrote:
| A lot of people seem to think (high, German) Labour costs matter
| in this desicion. I don't think they do. If TSCM hires someone 1%
| better than the other guy, he makes them millions more with a
| better design/brighter idea etc. So paying 50% more on his salary
| is very affordable. That's the difference between a high tech
| company and amazon, Walmart etc.
|
| Germany seems like exactly the place I'd look for a highly
| educated workforce and one with a strong engineering culture. AND
| a place where workers will stay for a lifetime not just jump ship
| every 24months or take a fat cheque from China to move there and
| build them a TSCM copy.
|
| I'd be more worried about German pollution, health and safety etc
| laws, as this is a dirty industry. And I'd be more worried about
| getting a big chunk of land and planning permission.
| nbevans wrote:
| I find it surprising that they are choosing Germany - after
| everybody is seeing what Germany is doing to Tesla's Gigafactory
| there (embroiling it in so much red tape that Elon wishes he
| could pull out if it weren't for sunk cost). It seems that
| Germany has a very good ability to convince and lobby these mega-
| manufacturers to base themselves there, but a very poor ability
| to actually let them succeed after making that decision.
|
| TSMC would be wiser to invest in the UK - where there is a strong
| political will to remove barriers to entry - and it is of course
| where ARM are already based and therefore has a very strong
| overlap of skills. There is also far less likelihood of exports
| being restricted during a possible future crisis by the political
| whims of failed politicians i.e. it is a politically more stable
| bet.
| fundatus wrote:
| Well, the UK just willingly put up giant trade barriers with
| their biggest trading partner. Doesn't really scream "free
| trade" to most people outside the UK. There is a reason why
| annual foreign direct investment into the UK almost halved (!)
| after the Brexit referendum. Probably one of the main reasons
| why TSMC doesn't consider the UK for this.
|
| Also skilled immmigration to Germany is MUCH easier compared to
| the UK, which also plays in huge role in these kind of
| projects.
| nbevans wrote:
| The UK isn't even manning its customs posts for imports from
| the EU at present. And there is no tariffs on the vast
| majority of exports to the EU - and certainly not on
| semiconductors.
|
| FDI in 2020 was almost identical to France (albeit yes 2nd to
| France in 1st place) for Europe:
| https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jun/07/uk-
| second-t... This is counter to your claims concerning FDI.
|
| I doubt it is "much easier" for skilled immigration - do you
| have anything to support that? How is it even measured?
| fundatus wrote:
| No one (apart from Brexiters) cares that much about
| tariffs. EU tariffs are some of the lowest in the world -
| the average applied tariff for imports into the EU in 2019
| was just 1.88%. Compare that to 6% for India or 13% for the
| US. What really matters are non-tariff-barriers - and this
| is where the EU really excels. After all, that is what it
| was build for.
|
| FDI into the UK fell from 101,241m to just 59,137m USD in
| 2019. Your article doesn't look at the value of the
| investments but just the number of projects.
| nbevans wrote:
| "No one (apart from Brexiters) cares that much about
| tariffs. EU tariffs are some of the lowest in the world -
| the average applied tariff for imports into the EU in 2019
| was just 1.88%. Compare that to 6% for India or 13% for the
| US."
|
| Bizarre comment. You initiated it by suggesting the UK has
| erected "giant trade barriers" but then reply saying nobody
| cares about trade tariffs? And then immediately in the
| second sentence go on to compare trade tariffs globally?
| What exactly is your point as it isn't really cutting
| across?
| fundatus wrote:
| My point is that UK politicians are obsessed with tariffs
| and free trade agreements, while in reality those play a
| minor role (as EU tariffs are generally very low).
|
| What really matters to companies though are non-tariff-
| barriers (regulations etc). By deciding to leave the
| single market, the UK has erected huge non-tariff trade
| barriers with their biggest trading partner (the EU).
| rsynnott wrote:
| As mentioned elsewhere, the tariff aren't the issue for
| most industries; non-tariff barriers are. I would think
| the UK's plan for a sort of parallel REACH regulation
| (REACH is the EU's chemical regulation) after the
| transition period ends would be particularly burdensome
| for the semiconductor industry.
| nbevans wrote:
| Two questions:
|
| Why would copy-pasted (from EU REACH) "UK REACH"
| regulations present more of a burden to the semiconductor
| industry than EU REACH?
|
| What NTBs exist that are known to affect the
| semiconductor industry?
| fundatus wrote:
| Because it's now two things to care of. Which will
| diverge eventually, even if only ever so slightly. If
| not, what's the point of the whole exercise?
|
| It just adds additional friction. Whereas when you set
| out your supply chains within the EU single market you
| don't have to deal with that.
| nbevans wrote:
| That's your take. Business' take is that they are more
| than willing to invest the time to find nuanced subtle
| differences between countries regulatory environments so
| that they can exploit them for monetary gain. The UK
| REACH and EU REACH regulations apply to production
| process - not to the finished exportable product. Hence
| TSMC in this case would only need to implement REACH
| within the country it has chosen as its production base.
| Between the choice of the UK or EU - this would mean it
| is still only "one thing" to take care of. Unless it ever
| intended to open production bases in both territories -
| in which case the territory with the "older" version of
| REACH would almost certainly win any "ease of doing
| business" test - so probably the UK at some future date
| once EU REACH Version 2 materialises (and assuming the UK
| doesn't blindly copy-paste it again).
| nbevans wrote:
| > "Given that the UK decided not to make itself subject
| to REACH, that presumably means it wants to diverge,
| which introduces uncertainty. Now, it's _possible_ that
| having its own copy of REACH was just political posturing
| (if you're taking the cynical approach, you might assume
| that this is even likely), but I can't imagine anyone
| would want to depend on that."
|
| There is no difference to TSMC. The UK "diverging" i.e.
| making changes to its UK REACH regulations, versus the EU
| making changes to its EU REACH regulations. To TSMC these
| events would be one and the same. Uncertainty exists at
| all times. Business recognises this and, like the
| Internet, routes around it when possible or otherwise
| just absorbs it and gets on with business.
|
| The UK copy-pasting EU REACH into UK REACH was
| /obviously/ done for business stability and environmental
| reasons and because generally it was just the right thing
| to do. Painting it as "political posturing" is certainly
| a highly cynical even hyperbolic interpretation.
| rsynnott wrote:
| Given that the UK decided not to make itself subject to
| REACH, that presumably means it wants to diverge, which
| introduces uncertainty. Now, it's _possible_ that having
| its own copy of REACH was just political posturing (if
| you're taking the cynical approach, you might assume that
| this is even likely), but I can't imagine anyone would
| want to depend on that.
| rsynnott wrote:
| > The UK isn't even manning its customs posts for imports
| from the EU at present.
|
| I mean, largely true, but entirely irrelevant to someone
| planning a factory. That's a temporary situation that
| cannot realistically continue.
| jonp888 wrote:
| > That's a temporary situation that cannot realistically
| continue.
|
| It might not be realistic, but it is UK government
| policy: https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/uk-asks-for-
| brexit-standst...
| rsynnott wrote:
| Plenty of things that aren't realistic are UK government
| policy, especially these days. It's not plausible that
| it'll stay as it is indefinitely.
|
| That's a separate though related issue, btw; that's the
| border between GB and NI, not the border between GB and
| Europe proper. The difference there is that the UK
| controls both sides of the border, so their failure to
| enforce is seen as more urgent.
| rsynnott wrote:
| > after everybody is seeing what Germany is doing to Tesla's
| Gigafactory there
|
| Requiring it to follow the rules? As a portion of GDP,
| manufacturing is a bigger part of Germany's economy than nearly
| any other developed country. It is even higher as a portion of
| GDP than _China_ (edit not China, see below). Pretty much
| everyone except Tesla seems to cope, so I'm inclined to assume
| that this is more a Tesla incompetence problem than a Germany
| problem.
|
| > There is also far less likelihood of exports being restricted
| during a possible future crisis by the political whims of
| failed politicians
|
| "What is Brexit?"
| nbevans wrote:
| Dial down your tone - it is unwarranted.
|
| Rules and red tape was exactly my point. Why would TSMC
| choose to run that gauntlet willingly and potentially fall
| foul of the same hurdles that Tesla has encountered? One of
| the big problems Tesla had was around water supply. Do you
| have any idea how much water a chip fab uses?
|
| My point around export restrictions was in reference to the
| EU blocking vaccine exports this year because it suited them.
| There would be heavy incentives for them to do the same for
| semiconductors in a future supply crisis like there is right
| now.
| fundatus wrote:
| > My point around export restrictions was in reference to
| the EU blocking vaccine exports this year because it suited
| them.
|
| LMAO
|
| The EU blocks ONE vaccine shipment - while the UK and the
| US had export bans in place for months and now the EU is
| the bad guy. smh
| detritus wrote:
| The UK did NOT have vaccine export bans in place. Why is
| this a recurring meme on HN?
|
| Or, more pointedly - why are some people so eager to
| gleefully regurgitate such misinformation?
| fundatus wrote:
| It's not misinformation at all.
|
| The UK was just clever enough to hide the export ban in
| their contracts with AZ (unlike the US which did it more
| bluntly). The first xx million doses of vaccines
| manufactured in Oxford/Keele had to be supplied to the
| UK. Which is an export ban in all but name. But it gave
| the UK government the opportunity to claim that there was
| no export ban in place (even though nothing was exported
| for months).
| detritus wrote:
| Please provide a source for this, then.
|
| ed- One thing is organising contracts in a certain way
| another thing entirely is setting in place an export ban
| - which, you may recall, is exactly what the EU DID
| threaten to do when the Dutch-run AZ plants failed to
| produce what they planned to do, despite the UK funding
| it to the tune of something like PS54M to get production
| going, which the Dutch government outright refused to do.
|
| Again, because this crops up a lot - I am in no way a
| flag-waving brexiteer - but i am thoroughly fed up with
| the shit-eating grinning from people with axes to grind.
| The UK has a lot to feel ashamed for over recent years,
| but this is not one of them.
| TMWNN wrote:
| >The UK was just clever enough to hide the export ban in
| their contracts with AZ (unlike the US which did it more
| bluntly). The first xx million doses of vaccines
| manufactured in Oxford/Keele had to be supplied to the
| UK. Which is an export ban in all but name.
|
| I don't disagree that to country B waiting on doses, the
| outcome is the same whether or not the cause is country A
| implementing an export ban or country A having bought up
| all the doses by having signed the contract first. But
| there is a difference.
|
| (The US never had an export ban, either. The US did the
| same thing as the UK; insist that they (which the US
| signed ahead of everyone else) would be fulfilled in the
| order they were signed.)
| fundatus wrote:
| @detritus To quote Matt Hancock directly:
|
| "I wasn't going to settle for a contract that allowed the
| Oxford vaccine to be delivered to others around the world
| before us. I was insisting we could keep all of the
| British public safe as my primary responsibility as the
| Health Secretary."
| detritus wrote:
| So, not an Export Ban. Gotcha. Thanks.
| rsynnott wrote:
| I mean, if you're being _very_ pedantic, it's not an
| export ban. It's just a non-export ban measure which has
| exactly the same effect as an export ban. If you think
| that's a useful distinction, well, okay, I suppose, but
| for practical purposes it was an export ban.
| fundatus wrote:
| lmao, how is that not an export ban in all but name. AZ
| literally wasn't allowed to export vaccines from
| Oxford/Keele until the quota set in the contracts was
| reached.
| rsynnott wrote:
| > One of the big problems Tesla had was around water
| supply.
|
| Sure, but this was a completely predictable problem, and
| one that should have been assessed before they decided on a
| site. I would assume that TSMC would do the research before
| deciding on a site. It feels like another manifestation of
| Tesla's reluctance to ask outside experts, tbh.
|
| Other chip manufacturers seem to manage in European
| countries which are fussy about water; notably,
| GlobalFoundries in Germany and Intel in Ireland both have
| large facilities.
|
| > My point around export restrictions was in reference to
| the EU blocking vaccine exports this year because it suited
| them.
|
| This should actually probably be viewed as a positive.
| There was a big fuss about the EU blocking, I believe, two
| or three shipments precisely because it had not previously
| blocked any; at the time this became an issue the EU and
| India were the only large producers with no controls on
| export of finished product (strictly speaking the UK didn't
| have controls in the conventional sense, but its contracts
| with its only manufacturer effectively didn't allow
| export). Both ultimately introduced controls, though in
| Europe's case they were very limited.
|
| If you've had a Pfizer/Biontec vaccine and you live outside
| the US, it was almost certainly made in the EU unless you
| had it in the last month or so (the US has started allowing
| exports).
|
| For all the fuss about that incident, Europe was _less_
| inclined to control export than the other large economies.
| tpush wrote:
| > As a portion of GDP, manufacturing is a bigger part of
| Germany's economy than nearly any other developed country. It
| is even higher as a portion of GDP than _China_.
|
| What are your sources? That doesn't seem to be true according
| to both [0] and [1]. Both put Germany at 18-19 and China at
| ~26.
|
| [0] https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/rankings/Share_of_manufa
| ctu...
|
| [1] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NV.IND.MANF.ZS?most_
| rec...
| rsynnott wrote:
| Oops, yep, you're correct. China is higher. I was thinking
| of broader industry figures, which also include
| construction and a few other bits and pieces.
| nixass wrote:
| > after everybody is seeing what Germany is doing to Tesla's
| Gigafactory there
|
| Yeah, the Walmart said the same in the 90s when they tried to
| concur Germany, only to miserably fail. The thing is that the
| Germany (and the EU as a whole) is no Wild West and there are
| actually rules, environmental responsibility and labor laws to
| follow.
| jansan wrote:
| I am pretty sure the other reailers in Germany like Aldi and
| Lidl teamed up to prevent Walmart from getting a foothold.
| They are extremely strong and this for a reason. I went to
| Walmart in Jena when they opened their shop there and was
| really underwhelmed by what they had to offer.
| LeanderK wrote:
| Aldi and Lidl are even expanding their foothold in the US I
| think, so they are probably quite competitive
| LatteLazy wrote:
| The uk is horrible political mess at the moment. God knows if
| we'll be able to import or export anything or keep the lights
| on next week. Not a great place to put a billion dollar global
| supply investment.
| blibble wrote:
| do you even live in the UK?
|
| the political deadlock was completely resolved after the 2019
| election... now the government has a huge majority and is
| rock solid politically (as is normally the case)
|
| other than some toilet roll shortages in March last year,
| there have been no visible issues whatsoever
| LatteLazy wrote:
| https://www.thenational.scot/news/19450687.brexit-
| scottish-c...
|
| Plus lorry drivers. And hospitality jobs. And god knows
| what else.
|
| And we're in the middle of pulling out of the deal we
| signed, because no one read the Northern Ireland section.
| Or they did and lied and now they're pretending otherwise.
|
| We can have all the elections we want, and you're right
| that Bojo has a solid majority. But that majority does
| nothing for our relationship with the EU. And it falls
| apart when the "have your cake" part notices the "eat your
| cake" part are eating all the cake. And that's without
| getting into the reliability of anyone in the current
| government (except maybe Sunak, he's doing rather well...).
| randyb27 wrote:
| Chicken licken?
| MarcusE1W wrote:
| By strong political will to remove barriers you mean that
| certain politicians with the right motives (whatever that might
| be) are willing to wave any legal barriers ? Not sure I see
| this as a good thing.
|
| And with regards to political whims, From the outside it seems
| that is the specialty of the UK right now. Right now, in my
| view the UK does not look like a stable international partner,
| it could go in any direction, who knows ?
| nbevans wrote:
| Remove barriers - as in, get the planning permits issued,
| provide necessary tax or subsidy incentives etc, all the
| standard stuff that goes on when attracting a mega-
| manufacturer such as TSMC.
|
| You are based in London so your view of the UK's
| international perception is probably about as useless as mine
| (also based in London). Taiwan and the UK have good relations
| - arguably better than Taiwan / EU - there is a longer term
| geopolitical instability with the EU more recently tilting
| towards Russia (Nordstream) and China (controversial
| investment deal signed in January) - whilst the UK is shying
| away from both. Political whims, indeed.
| flohofwoe wrote:
| There's a bit of a "silicon cluster" around Dresden in Germany
| going all the way back to the late 60s and 70s (the GDR had
| pretty impressive chip manufacturing capabilities for such a
| small country on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain). Also
| regarding the "red tape", this depends a lot on the state
| you're in. Brandenburg/Berlin vs Saxony/Thuringia/Bavaria can
| be very different in that regard (of course it depends a lot on
| the local government that's currently in place).
| kall wrote:
| I think the government considers semiconductors a key industry
| to compete with china and I believe that matters. American
| electric car manufacturers on the other hand are a threat to
| germany's combustion obsessed car industry. I also think that
| Elon runs his companies in an unconventional way that maybe
| doesn't fly with german bureaucrats. TSMC will do things by the
| book and the saxonian government will welcome them with open
| arms. They won't see any of the local government trouble that
| Tesla had in Dresden.
| estaseuropano wrote:
| Germany has dozens of chip manufacturers and great engineering
| workforce. Certainly much better than UK. Have not seen any
| wupte about Tesla wanting to pull out, but the factory is
| already half operational so seems most issues are resolved.
| Once located it should also be easier to do this kind of
| projects, but planting a new huge factory is always a
| challenge.
| bogomipz wrote:
| I was curious about this statement:
|
| >"TSMC supplies chips to almost all the key global chip
| developers, from Apple, Qualcomm and Advanced Microelectronics
| Devices to Intel, Infineon and Sony."
|
| When exactly did Intel become a customer of TSMC? Is this for a
| recent process technology or is this only for specific types of
| chips? I under the impression Intel chips always came from their
| own fabs.
| jhickok wrote:
| https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Tech/Semiconductors/Apple-a...
| totalZero wrote:
| Intel has been a customer of TSMC on the small-time stuff for a
| while now, if you consider the fact that they acquire companies
| that do business with TSMC (including Altera). However, the
| leading-edge customer relationship is very new[0]. I read it as
| a form of defense against AMD in the short term (pricing power
| and availability) and against Apple in the long term (x86 vs
| Apple Silicon).
|
| [0] https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-to-outsource-some-
| ke...
| aryonoco wrote:
| Intel has been a TSMC client for many years. Not for their CPUs
| but for many of the multitude of other chips that Intel
| produces, from NICs to Wifi chips. Current estimates is that
| 7.2% of TSMC's revenue comes from Intel, which makes Intel
| TSMC'S 6th biggest client, only marginally behind AMD (9.2%)
|
| https://seekingalpha.com/article/4414346-samsung-won-t-soon-...
| polskibus wrote:
| Just recently we've discussed "faltering" talks in Europe
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27161217 and "eyeing" Japan
| https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Tech/Semiconductors/TSMC-ey...
|
| I wonder if this media noise is more to do with negotiation
| tactics than with real intentions.
| shoto_io wrote:
| They gotta talk about something...
|
| and for that they need to amplify the smallest signal into a
| trend! I mean noise...
| rossdavidh wrote:
| I think that they are, in fact, intending to open new fabs in
| both Japan and Europe. Given the presence of GlobalFoundries
| and others in Germany, that would make sense for a European
| base.
|
| This doesn't mean that it's not _also_ intended to help with
| negotiations, of course. It can be both true, and stated out
| loud for the purpose of seeing what other offers come up.
| sativallday wrote:
| This feel like corporate geopolitical diplomacy.
| eruleman wrote:
| Yup! My favorite Stratechery post is on this very topic, Chips
| and Geopolitics: https://stratechery.com/2020/chips-and-
| geopolitics/
| flavius29663 wrote:
| It sure does, the EU announces they're going to invest X tens
| of billions in chips, and the next thing you know, the largest
| backer and beneficiary of EU gets this new factory.
| jansan wrote:
| Also, according to article linked below (in German), Intel is
| considering building a semiconductor factory in Germany. The had
| plans in 2003, but the project failed and cost the German
| taxpayer a small fortune.
|
| I am very sceptical regarding the plans of Intel, but the TSMC
| plan sounds promising. If I were to decide, I would build a
| factory in Saxonia near Dresden. People there are traditionally
| inventive, labor costs are far lower than in the Munich region,
| and there is a lot of skill available due to the previous AMD
| investments.
|
| Link to article: https://www.berliner-zeitung.de/mensch-
| metropole/chipfabrik-...
| pomian wrote:
| I'm wondering about Italy. They have an established industrial
| base. They manufacture a surprising amount of high tech, but
| don't brag about it like Germany. Many good European neighbours
| to provide a broad range of skilled workers and researchers.
| username90 wrote:
| Italy is tech hostile like most of southern Europe, engineers
| are paid horribly compared to other professions so they usually
| leave north.
| cbmuser wrote:
| Germany has the highest electricity prices worldwide. I wouldn't
| build any larger factory there these days:
|
| > https://www.statista.com/statistics/263492/electricity-price...
| geff82 wrote:
| Energy hungry industries don't have to pay all the energy
| taxes+fees. For them, Germany is a rather cheap place to be.
| pomian wrote:
| Europe has so many great countries. Street reading the comments
| about Germany and it's internal policies, why not choose
| elsewhere? Finland, Sweden, Poland, etc etc etc
| paxys wrote:
| What policies? Germany is many notches above the rest of the EU
| when it comes to manufacturing infrastructure and labor force.
| It's the obvious choice for such a large scale and expensive
| setup.
| mrlonglong wrote:
| I'm not sure why they didn't consider the UK, plenty of high tech
| here and the Russians won't find us a walk over if they ever do
| come.
| totalZero wrote:
| I think there are some obvious trade barriers that the British
| imposed upon themselves.
| mrlonglong wrote:
| That's true that 51% voted didn't give a crap about how this
| will affect business and trade. Serves them right for cutting
| their nose to spite others. And I'm half British !
| alexanderklein wrote:
| If i were TCMS, i would not invest in Germany. But as a german,
| living in Germany, i am happy that they consider an investment in
| Germany.
| hans1729 wrote:
| Germany is positioned excellently for chip production, why
| would you consider that a bad investment?
| artemonster wrote:
| its not. you have to have _TEST HOUSES_ nearby. and this
| would mean, like for most of germany semiconductor output,
| that these wafers are flown to china for testing & assembly.
| [deleted]
| Panoramix wrote:
| How about Fraunhofer, IMEC, Amkor, AEMtec, ICsense,
| Infineon...?
| sdiepend wrote:
| Seems strange they have to do that when there is:
| https://www.imec-int.com/en/applications/advanced-
| semiconduc...
| sichtlinkair wrote:
| Genuinely curious why Germany's position is excellent for
| chip production?
| bildung wrote:
| There are already quite a few plants (Globalfoundries,
| Bosch, Infineon, TI, Osram, ...) so the qualified work
| force is there.
|
| Germany is also pretty heavy on high tech production, so
| there's a big existing supplier network.
|
| Key suppliers like ASML are nearby (Both the Netherlands
| and Germany are part of the Schengen Agreement, so
| logistics-wise almost as open as cross-state transports
| within the US).
| samus wrote:
| Minor nitpick: Schengen does not matter, membership in
| the customs union does. For shipping, availability and
| quality of infrastructure is more important.
| rsynnott wrote:
| Schengen and in the customs union is still a little
| better than non-Schengen and in the customs union (eg
| Ireland), but yeah, the customs union is the main thing.
| [deleted]
| lispm wrote:
| Because it has one of the two largest clusters for that
| industry in Europe: Dresden/Saxony. The other one is
| Grenoble, France.
|
| https://www.dw.com/en/bosch-is-the-new-star-in-silicon-
| saxon...
| [deleted]
| emsy wrote:
| Another German here, I agree. The regulatory hurdles are
| insane, the sentiment among the population is anti-business and
| I see the chance that the Green Party will be in the Next
| government as another negative point for businesses.
| DaedPsyker wrote:
| While I get the sentiment, regulatory issues would be only
| one factor to decide and in some cases not that big (medical
| for example is heavily regulated the world over).
|
| The fact that you guys have a large pool of talent for
| advanced manufacturing (for this kind of thing probably the
| biggest consideration), and central location with easy access
| to all other parts of Europe were the likely elements to win
| out.
|
| Don't sell yourself short.
| Leherenn wrote:
| It's not like it's very different in the rest of western
| Europe, and eastern Europe probably doesn't have the know-how
| to do it. If you want to be in the EU, Germany is far from
| the worst place.
| raverbashing wrote:
| Countries that have semi factories in Europe: Germany, Italy,
| France, Ireland, Netherlands, UK, Austria, Belgium, and Hungary
| (with different capabilities and sizes)
|
| So it would be natural that it ends on the countries with
| existing factories and expertise.
|
| The German (or even we might say, "north-european") self-
| deprecation gets old sometimes...
| mejutoco wrote:
| I have never heard of german self-deprecation. Do you have
| any examples of it?
| kome wrote:
| German self-deprecation? I wish! My impression is that
| Germans feel to be top notch no matter what. I rarely heard
| self-deprecation from them, humble brag is what come
| closer.
| raverbashing wrote:
| Yeah it's not so obvious or evident.
|
| What you're mentioning do happen. But there's a bit of a
| cultural theme to "play it low" and "be humble"
| odiroot wrote:
| I wouldn't be as harsh, but indeed that decision is a bit
| weird. They cannot really count on cheap labour, or "friendly"
| economic incentives. And seeing the case of Tesla factory, it's
| not so easy and fast.
|
| One great thing about Germany is the central location within EU
| with good logistics overall. Not sure it matters for
| semiconductor manufacturing.
| nickik wrote:
| > And seeing the case of Tesla factory, it's not so easy and
| fast.
|
| Its not actually delayed much. The incredibly optimistic plan
| was to be ready in September, but that was Elon Time.
|
| So far the bureaucracy has not really held them back that
| much.
|
| If you compare progress in China, Texas and Berlin so far its
| not clear that Berlin is meaningfully slower.
| estaseuropano wrote:
| Germany just committed to put billions into a chip IPCEI, so
| lots of funding incoming.
| bildung wrote:
| I wouldn't say Teslas Brandenburg factory shows a problem
| with red tape per se, but it _does_ show that ignoring it won
| 't save you time in Germany.
|
| Also, salaries usually only account for low single digit
| percentages of opex in high tech production, so ready
| availabilty of the needed specialists is probably more
| important.
| Heliosmaster wrote:
| For those companies involved in semiconductor industry,
| where machines cost 100M usd EACH... People are just a
| rounding error. Should we hire 100 more? 1000 more?
| Whatever
| suction wrote:
| Keep in mind that for a high-profile engineer or lead who
| expects to make 400k at least per year, the company would
| actually have to pay him 800k to make that much net.
| Labor cost in Germany is sky high. That times a thousand
| is not insignificant.
| arrrg wrote:
| That's different from the US how exactly?
|
| $800k/year in San Francisco as a single is $436k/year
| net. In Germany that's $431k/year net.
|
| You should argue with lower (more realistic) salaries.
| Social insurance (including health insurance, pension) is
| capped, meaning if you earn above a certain level you
| won't have to pay any more. This means that those aspects
| play a diminutive role (about $15k) at your named salary
| level.
| _ph_ wrote:
| I don't know where you get the 400k number for an
| engineer, typical salaries are rather about 100k,
| somewhat more, a lot less.
| iSnow wrote:
| 400K in Germany is upper management level, not C-suites,
| but most certainly not engineering either.
| lentil_soup wrote:
| According to [1] if you make 400k a year your employer
| has to pay 413k in total
|
| [1] https://www.brutto-netto-
| rechner.info/gehalt/gehaltsrechner-...
| suction wrote:
| "net" is the keyword here.
| datenarsch wrote:
| no engineer makes 400k a year in Germany. This is not the
| US, sadly.
| FabHK wrote:
| Yes, if you get 400k gross, your employer has to pay
| 413k, but you only get 221k net after deduction of taxes
| and obligatory insurances (according to that very same
| calculator).
| [deleted]
| qwytw wrote:
| I assume they mean 400k net, if the employer pays 413k
| you only get 206k after tax. While the tax burden seems
| huge in this case, it's not that different in the US,
| though. For example you'd get around 225k in California
| (with no deductions).
| Akronymus wrote:
| And that 800 is what you see on your paycheck. The
| company pays around double that in total.
| _ph_ wrote:
| No, there are only very little payments beyond the pay
| check. The employee does of course only get payed out a
| large part of the pay check, the rest goes to taxes and
| social insurances.
| Akronymus wrote:
| Huh, I may have (wrongly) assumed it'd be the same in
| Germany as in Austria.
| paulmd wrote:
| Taiwan as a country was not allowed to buy vaccines (since
| China views them as an administrative sub-unit, Taiwan should
| not be engaging in international relationships from their
| perspective) and are still getting hit hard by COVID. At one
| point recently TSMC itself was negotiating with an EU pharma
| company for vaccines (to be purchased through a Chinese
| intermediary) as a proxy for the national government (due to
| the aforementioned "china says we're not a country" politics)
| and I wonder if these two things aren't linked. Give us a fab
| so we aren't wholly dependent on Taiwan for supply
| flunctuations in our automotive industry, and we'll grease
| the skids with China and make sure you get your vaccines.
|
| https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3140662/tsmc.
| ..
|
| I guess arguing against that idea is the fact that Japan also
| got a 28nm fab recently and I dunno if they've done anything
| particularly special for Taiwan lately in return.
|
| But up until recently TSMC was very much "negotiating via the
| press", protesting that Germany was not a good location due
| to lack of supply chain, etc (despite GloFo having the
| Dresden fabs nearby and all - certainly not cutting-edge
| anymore but they are 14nm/12nm fabs, they aren't chopped
| liver either).
|
| There clearly has been a sea change lately though with TSMC
| and their policy regarding fabs outside of taiwan. The US got
| a 20k wafer/month fab (later upgraded to a 100k wf/mo
| "gigafab") based on the cutting-edge 5nm node, which would
| have been unthinkable even a year ago. Japan got a 28nm fab
| for their automotive industry as well. Clearly the chips
| shortage has been a factor in all this but particularly the
| change in position on the 5nm fab is pretty stunning - the
| exclusivity of TSMC's cutting-edge nodes in China is
| effectively part of their national-defense strategy and there
| must have been some pretty good trades made in order to get
| that fab in the US. That is not an automotive fab and it's
| completely contrary to the well-established policy of TSMC
| never to let their cutting-edge nodes outside Taiwan to use
| the potential damage to the world economy as a suicide bomb
| should china try to invade.
| dirtyid wrote:
| > done anything particularly special for Taiwan lately in
| return
|
| Hinted they might come to TW aid in event of invasion.
|
| > some pretty good trades
|
| Or coercion. Subsidies and vaccine diplomacy are good
| carrots, but TSMC is wholey dependant on US/EU tech and JP
| supply chains. Push comes to shove, US/EU and even JP will
| get their fabs. Only US has enough leverage to get the
| crown jewels. Even US weapons sales aren't scheduled to be
| delivered after fab completion. Though one has to wonder if
| these expansions are serious, whether TSMC/TW will try to
| delay/undermine for national security.
| ChemSpider wrote:
| Germany is a great place to invest. So is most of Western
| Europe. The #1 thing you are looking for is _stability_ and a
| good engineering job market. Both is available.
|
| For this kind of automated high-tech manufacturing, nobody
| cares about salaries. They are <<1% of the cost.
| reader_mode wrote:
| Is Germany really stable considering Tesla story ?
|
| Chip making isn't clean by any standard.
| rsynnott wrote:
| Tesla's problem, from the outside, looks like they didn't
| ask for expert advice, or ignored it if they got it. Which
| seems to be a recurring problem with Telsa in technical
| fields, but it's interesting that it comes up in business
| and regulatory fields.
| nickik wrote:
| What problem? What could they have avoid if they had
| asked experts? I have been following the process in a lot
| of detail, as I speak German. I have no idea what you are
| referring to.
| yorwba wrote:
| One issue is that the factory is located within the
| boundaries of the Wasserschutzgebiet Erkner/Neu Zittau,
| which means they have extra strict environmental safety
| requirements to avoid contaminating the water.
|
| That seems like it could've been avoided, since
| Brandenburg doesn't have _that_ many Wasserschutzgebiete:
| https://maps.brandenburg.de/apps/Wasserschutzgebiete/
| (The WSG Erkner/Neu Zittau is the big blob south of
| Erkner, southeast of Berlin. If you zoom in far enough,
| you can see Tesla's factory at the blob's eastern
| border.)
| _ph_ wrote:
| The Tesla story is widely exaggerated. So far they have
| gotten basically every approval they asked for quite
| quickly. Local politics is quite supportive of the project,
| because it brings a lot of jobs in an industrial-weak
| region. It is also not clear that the project has actually
| suffered any significant delays beyond some of the time
| plans being overly optimistic. There has been some attempts
| to block this project from some environmental groups and
| some groups posing as environmental, but their their
| injunctions have been quickly cast away by the courts. It
| is also not clear to which extend Tesla changing their
| plans in flight have created some delays. As the system
| works, some of the plan changes do reset the approval
| process to some extend.
|
| While the original plan seemed to aim for starting
| production without a local battery plant this summer, there
| is no sign of starting production yet. On the other side,
| they already started to build a giant concrete foundation
| for what looks like a battery plant, this might come much
| earlier as initially planned. And this proceeds, like most
| other parts of the factory, at a very quick speed.
|
| Germany has strict environmental regulations, but most
| places in the world have those by now. As long as you plan
| to fulfill the regulations, there should be no reason not
| to build in Germany.
| stingraycharles wrote:
| > There has been some attempts to block this project from
| some environmental groups and some groups posing as
| environmental, but their their injunctions have been
| quickly cast away by the courts.
|
| Tangent: how can environmental groups be against an
| electric car manufacturer? You would think they're
| somewhat fighting the same fight?
| Y-bar wrote:
| A couple of general examples why environmental groups may
| have concerns, none specific to the Tesla story in
| particular, but I know have happened elsewhere:
|
| - The location has a unique/endangered flora or fauna and
| building in the specific location would be a significant
| blow to those species.
|
| - Ground water issues when a large area is paved, roofed
| or otherwise covered.
|
| - Noise/light pollution affecting nearby residential
| and/or environmental areas.
|
| - Increased traffic though connecting roads causing
| related issues.
|
| It's as far as I see never about the specific industry
| building in the place, but rather the local effects of
| building in the area that need to be addressed.
| _ph_ wrote:
| Quite a few environmental groups have explicitly
| expressed support for the Tesla plant, as they see it as
| a net win for the environment. Those groups which are
| protesting seem to have very one sided view. They oppose
| any change of state, even if the trees that Tesla did cut
| down for the buildings were scheduled to be cut down for
| wood in a few years anyway. And Tesla financed planting
| of new, more varied trees in other areas. And some groups
| definitely are just pretending to be environmental while
| driving a political agenda.
| RivieraKid wrote:
| But Tesla is the problem here, not Germany. Tesla is
| notorious for breaking government rules.
| suction wrote:
| The Tesla story had two sides - Tesla was aware about the
| high standards that would be applied to their factory, but
| somehow thought "we're Tesla so they'll create all kinds of
| exceptions for us if we pay the right politicians". Turns
| out not every country is as corrupt as Tesla's home
| country.
| nickik wrote:
| > we're Tesla so they'll create all kinds of exceptions
| for us if we pay the right politicians
|
| Based on what? Tesla makes extensive use of an existing
| capability to move on development with per-approval.
|
| They have not received any kind of politicians helping
| them to avoid bureaucracy that I know of. Some local
| politicians have talked in support but the bureaucracy is
| just moving at its normal pace.
|
| I guess they paid a fine for installing a few tanks to
| early but that seems like a planning issue, not some kind
| of 'we gone install the 2 tanks because we have political
| backing'.
|
| Its not like the plant is majorly behind.
|
| > Turns out not every country is as corrupt as Tesla's
| home country.
|
| Again, based on what? What corrupt thing did Tesla do in
| Texas that is so different? Texas doesn't require a
| public meeting for input but the overall process is not
| actually that different.
|
| Maybe the standards are different, but it doesn't have
| anything to do with corruption.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| Lofty talk from the home of VW AG.
| _Microft wrote:
| Tesla's plant is in the federate state of Brandenburg, VW
| is based in Lower Saxony.
| suction wrote:
| VW AG isn't based in Brandenburg.
| corty wrote:
| Maybe. But I think all the politicians Tesla could have
| bought are already owned by their German competitors.
| suction wrote:
| They don't have to buy politicians, because every
| politician knows that Germany's economic fate is directly
| tied to them. Which isn't the case for Tesla and never
| will be. German auto manufacturers long know that the
| real competition for E-mobility isn't Tesla.
| suction wrote:
| You could be right. It's Tesla, so the thinking was
| probably more along the lines of "Germany will do
| whatever we want because we're Tesla."
| detaro wrote:
| There aren't any competitors in the state, and there has
| been basically no politically influential pushback, so
| that line of argument doesn't really make sense.
| corty wrote:
| There is no overt pushback. That doesn't mean that there
| is none. And the presence and activity of the usual
| environmental NIMBY organisations like Deutsche
| Umwelthilfe, NABU, BUND, etc. point to at least some
| covert opposition, since those organisations happily
| serve as fronts for non-environmental interests.
|
| And state politics, especially in the east, is rife with
| people using it as a stepping stone to the federal level.
| Famously there once were more prime ministers from the
| west governing the east than eastern-born ones.
| detaro wrote:
| Anything that's not just wild speculation of what people
| could be doing, although to no apparent effect?
| corty wrote:
| Since it is about corruption, of course there is only
| wild speculation. Maybe in 20 years someone will confess
| in their posthumous memoirs or something. Until then,
| there is only speculation, inference and the recognition
| of parallels to cases in the past.
| rsynnott wrote:
| I mean, if the options are (a) a grand corrupt conspiracy
| or (b) Tesla turns out to be bad at doing a thing, I
| think Occam's razor would suggest (b), especially given
| that it's _Tesla_. This would not be their first rodeo
| with screwing things up.
| iSnow wrote:
| Wait, got any source to back up the claim that those
| environmental organizations are corrupt fronts for
| business interests?
| carlos22 wrote:
| Oh thats so not true. The Brandenburg (the state)
| Ministerprasident (like Gouverneur) and his team really
| like to be a big car producing Bundesland. We have Baden-
| Wurttemberg (Mercedes, Porsche), Bayern (BMW, Audi) and
| Niedersachen (VW HQ) and to some extend also NRW (biggest
| EU plant of Ford) and Sachsen (VW plant). But there is
| not a single plant Brandenburg. So to be in the game is
| something they really wanna happen. Especially with
| something that hyped like tesla. But still there are
| rules, and you have to follow them.
| nicbou wrote:
| Yes, and I remember that the people watched the project
| with a skeptic eye. It was neither pessimistic nor
| optimistic, just cautious. It's just an impression
| though.
| wasmitnetzen wrote:
| I don't think there is any other car factory in
| Brandenburg. So there would only be interference from the
| federal level down. Which wouldn't matter that much in my
| opinion.
| detaro wrote:
| Chip making is relatively clean: sure, it uses nasty stuff,
| but it's nicely contained and cleanup/recycling is part of
| a fab. Fabs also aren't exactly a new thing in Germany
| (XFab, Globalfoundries (formerly AMD), ...)
|
| And the Tesla story of ... Tesla getting quite generous
| permissions to rush-build a factory, Tesla rush-building
| the factory, sometimes going over what#s permitted and thus
| having some minor squabbles with the local authorities?
| That "story"?
| turbinerneiter wrote:
| What's the Tesla story?
|
| They are building a factory as fast as possible, pushing
| the authorities to work as fast as possible and until now
| they only had minor difficulties which each other,
| considering how hard Tesla is pushing and how "slow" German
| bureaucracy is.
| [deleted]
| suction wrote:
| Might be true, but in Germany, the salary you pay to your
| employee is also about 1% of all the labor cost for him or
| her. Which is hyperbole, of course, but Germany is one of
| those countries where the actual net payout is usually
| significantly less than 50% of the salary the company
| provides. I'm not criticising it as I think Germany is a good
| example of a well-working system but net salaries are low for
| most.
| stingraycharles wrote:
| Which other European country would you suggest? I mean, if
| ASML can thrive in The Netherlands, surely Germany must be
| fine for TSMC?
| totalZero wrote:
| (Ignoring the comparative suitability of European
| countries) It bears mentioning that TSMC and ASML are
| fundamentally different businesses in terms of their
| clientele, costs, inputs, institutional knowledge, sales
| volume, and other key characteristics. They operate at
| very different stages of the semiconductor supply chain.
| nicbou wrote:
| Eh the salaries are alright. It seems to me like the
| salaries are higher in America, while in Germany they're
| lower but include things American end up paying for:
| pensions, insurance, and education.
|
| If I were American, a part of my net income would still end
| up going to health insurance, student loans and other
| things. My employer might pay less benefits, but pay a
| higher salary to compensate for those costs.
|
| I think that a direct comparison is very difficult in that
| regard. That doesn't even include different expectations
| regarding work life balance, and legal requirements
| regarding parental leave and sick leave.
| steffen84 wrote:
| You are right except the german pensions they are a ponzi
| scheme and will fail in the future.
| ishjoh wrote:
| I hear this a lot about social security in the US as
| well, that it will fail. I would characterize it as
| degrading instead of failing. If the workforce declines
| there will be fewer payers into social security or
| pensions, then folks paying into social security will
| have to pay more, recipients will get fewer benefits, or
| the government will print money
| suction wrote:
| This applies to all public pension systems, not only the
| German one.
| vkou wrote:
| This also applies to private retirement investments. My
| comfort in retirement is contingent on the economy, and
| hence, the stock market, growing. If the 'ponzi scheme'
| of limitless growth collapses, I'm not going to be any
| better off than the pensioner.
| jhgb wrote:
| I'm not sure that _any_ public pension systems in any way
| satisfy the definition of a Ponzi scheme. While public
| pension systems may be flawed, in no way are they
| fraudulent or otherwise non-transparent at the very least
| in democratic regimes.
| nosianu wrote:
| It is not a "Ponzi scheme" at all, rubbish. The pension
| system is _not_ an investment theme. Currently working
| people provide for current pensioners. No "investing"
| involved. That, in the light of a shift in age
| distribution, this works better when the economy and
| productivity grow is orthogonal, the pension system
| payments are not for economic growth but directly for
| current pensioners.
|
| Unless you find aliens or a time machine to shift goods
| and also services through time, always and everywhere the
| currently working take care of the current pensioners.
| There is nothing "Ponzi" about it, that is the universe.
|
| People who pay now do _not_ pay for their future pension,
| they pay for the current pensioners. What is transmitted
| to the future - when they become pensioners - is not what
| they pay now, it is merely _information_. That
| information is then taken into account when the then
| living and working working people pay the pensions of the
| then pensioners. The information about how much somebody
| contributed in the past is taken into consideration to
| see how much a share of the overall pie everyone gets,
| but the pie itself _always_ is created in the present by
| whoever works now.
|
| Which also makes the headlines a little silly that claim
| that because in the future there will be more of an
| imbalance between nr. of people working and those getting
| a pension something needs to be changed now. It makes no
| sense: The current payments into the system immediately
| go to the current pensioners. If there are less paying
| and/or more receiving the funds that can and is always
| balanced at whatever the current time is. There is no
| need to do anything now when the current payments are
| enough to pay the current pensioners. If next year there
| is an imbalance they adjust what the payments (in and
| out) are _at that time_. It makes no sense to change
| payments now when the problem is not right now.
|
| Any finance-based scheme cannot undo the universe
| (except, aliens helping out or time machine). "Private"
| funds change nothing of the underlaying truth that
| current pensioners live from what current workers produce
| in both goods an services. It only changes who is
| responsible: More winners and losers (and then "it's your
| own fault, why did you not buy stocks - the _right_
| stocks too of course ") with the finance based system,
| with one huge winner the financial industry.
| suction wrote:
| Yet how many people, even well-educated ones, have this
| balanced view on salaries? Most people see the bottom
| line on their pay statements. They "conveniently" forget
| that they still have to pay for health insurance, pension
| funds, etc.
|
| A big figure on the pay slip is a status symbol. If
| Germany wants to attract foreign high-profile human
| capital like the US does, they should create a similar
| system: Pay them their full salary without deductions,
| and then charge them the mandatory cost instead of their
| employers. It could work wonders.
| I_AM_A_SMURF wrote:
| > Eh the salaries are alright. It seems to me like the
| salaries are higher in America, while in Germany they're
| lower but include things American end up paying for:
| pensions, insurance, and education.
|
| While that's true, above-average earners like
| engineers/doctors/laywers definitely come on top in the
| US. Also for most of these people health insurance is
| paid for by the company.
|
| The trade-off is for everyone else basically, who get a
| much shittier deal in the US compared to what they would
| get in any EU country.
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| Americans have a government-provided pension (Social
| Security) that pays about the same as the German one,
| paid for by employment taxes.
| adventured wrote:
| US employees also commonly have health insurance,
| typically covered by the employer in the tech field (or
| any median+ full-time job). Somehow foreign posters on HN
| constantly fail to recognize this fact. One would think
| after more than a decade of it commonly popping up here,
| the false narrative would stop (and it's corrected in
| every thread where it comes up).
|
| It usually goes like this:
|
| US tech salaries are great, but you have no health
| insurance. Or: yeah but you have to pay $12,000 per year
| for your own health insurance, so you have to deduct that
| to get a fair accounting on salaries.
|
| When the reality is: if you work in tech you're likely
| receiving good health insurance coverage from your
| employer, and you're simultaneously paying lower taxes
| than in Germany.
|
| Which is another way of saying that US salaries would be
| even further beyond peers if one takes an accurate
| accounting of the health insurance benefit + taxes.
|
| Once you go through the effort of pointing all of this
| out, then they'll revert to: yeah but the quality of life
| is still superior so there. Having watched that forever
| process here across more than a decade, I've learned that
| people - even intelligent, seemingly knowledgeable people
| - often just shoehorn whatever lies or false narratives
| they need to feel good about their context when they lay
| their head on the pillow at night. And that's why no
| matter how many times it's corrected, the false narrative
| in question will never end.
| bialpio wrote:
| > When the reality is: if you work in tech you're likely
| receiving good health insurance coverage from your
| employer, and you're simultaneously paying lower taxes
| than in Germany.
|
| Just the fact that you need to add the "in tech" to me
| suggests that US system isn't that great. It's pretty
| good, assuming you're in tech. The other problem is that
| when you look at your W-2, you can see how much your
| employer pays for your health insurance - this is the
| amount that you should also treat like a tax, even if you
| do want to add it to the total comp (it's money your
| employer spends on you that you don't get to see). The
| fair way to compare wages & tax rates would be to look at
| the total cost of employing a person vs how much of that
| money this person actually gets. And even then there's
| VAT & sales tax that needs to be taken into account...
|
| Are there any sites that attempt to do those kinds of
| analyses / comparisons?
| sgift wrote:
| > When the reality is: if you work in tech you're likely
| receiving good health insurance coverage from your
| employer, and you're simultaneously paying lower taxes
| than in Germany.
|
| As long as you don't get fired and as long as you don't
| get sick. But yeah. If you are young, healthy and in tech
| you have good health insurance in the US.
| Congratulations.
|
| So, maybe, when we foreigners talk about this aspect of
| the US healthcare system we understand completely how it
| works and just don't see it as equivalent.
| ok2938 wrote:
| Germany has free schools, universities, low cost good child
| care, a relatively good health infrastructure, and more.
| Some regions do not even need debt any more to finance all
| this. The high taxes do not just evaporate, but sure could
| be used more efficiently.
|
| If I'd have the choice between US and Germany, I'd probably
| prefer the old Europe model.
| MarcusE1W wrote:
| It's probably true that the net salary is lower than some
| other comparable countries, although Denmark for example
| has also a quite low net salary.
|
| I feel the important bit is what you get for the net salary
| deduction. In Germany you have: - Free Education including
| University - A decent mostly free health system, health
| care insurance - unemployment insurance so your life does
| not completely unravel if you are made redundant and others
| are dependent on your salary - elderly care insurance -
| child care (could be better) - police that is not
| completely reduced to the absolute minimum - infrastructure
| that mostly works
|
| All of this is not perfect by any means, but you do have
| the feeling to get something back for your deductions. YMMV
| In some other even well developed countries it often feels
| like public services run on a shoestring and are just
| enough not to collapse.
|
| And some public services are in my opinion easier achieved
| if the state runs them, like infrastructure, transport,
| health and welfare services or police/security. You can go
| with private services and the lowest bidder but my feeling
| is that's a downward spiral of what you get out of it in
| the end.
|
| So if you feel you get adequate services or services that
| otherwise are difficult to achieve I think it's ok to have
| a higher salary deduction. Obviously this is a quite
| subjective subject, not one sock fits all.
| ulfw wrote:
| "A decent mostly free health system"
|
| Where in Germany is that?
|
| You either pay a lot for private insurance (especially
| when you get old) or you pay a lot for state-backed
| insurance (which is a lot if you earn above average as
| most techies do).
| oezi wrote:
| Since insurance is capped at around 5k salary you will at
| most pay 15% of that (750 EUR) for health insurance per
| month in the universal insurance system. If you make
| higher salaries then you won't be affected.
| rattray wrote:
| Is that 750 EUR for an individual or a family? Sounds
| like a lot.
|
| For comparison in California, a 35-year-old SF resident
| earning $250k/yr living alone purchasing insurance
| through the public marketplace can get a Platinum-level
| Kaiser Permanente HMO plan for around $650/mo (but over
| $2000/mo for a family of four).
|
| YMMV but I've found KP's service quality to be extremely
| high, and that plan comes with $0 annual deductible and
| very low copays.
| TMWNN wrote:
| >YMMV but I've found KP's service quality to be extremely
| high
|
| Multiple studies have shown that Kaiser is more efficient
| and effective than the UK NHS for about the same cost.
|
| Examples:
|
| * https://www.bmj.com/content/324/7330/135
|
| * https://www.bmj.com/content/327/7426/1257
| rattray wrote:
| Fascinating! Thank you for sharing those 2002/2003
| articles. For completeness, it looks like a 2004 rebuttal
| claims that this is due to a healthier population:
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1266198/ but
| frankly that does confirm that relatively healthy,
| employed populations would prefer Kaiser to the NHS.
| domsom wrote:
| It's 14.6 % of the gross income, capped around 58k income
| / year. Half of that (7.3 %) is paid by the employer, the
| other half by the employee (deducted from monthly wage
| payments).
|
| For that, kids (no matter how many) are covered unless
| the other parent has a private insurance. Spouses are
| covered if they don't have their own insurance.
|
| Based in Germany, I'd say the best part of it is that
| it's truly social: The healthy ones pay for the sick
| ones, all with the same tariff, no questions asked.
| That's especially true for people who become sick, old,
| or both: For them, private insurances tend to raise their
| tariffs exponentially, and there's no way to get an
| affordable insurance any longer.
| rattray wrote:
| Ah, so more like 350EUR/yr, including all dependents, for
| an employed person. That is a much better deal than
| (self-employed) KP, assuming the quality is good!
| wheels wrote:
| No, nowhere closed to that. There seems to be some
| confusion because Americans tend to quote things in
| yearly rates, while Germans tend to quote things in
| monthly rates. I pay just over EUR10k/year for my public
| health insurance in Germany, which is the maximum rate.
| (I'm self-employed, so I pay the full rate.) But that
| covered my whole family (wife and two kids) when my wife
| wasn't working. Now that she's a full-time employee, she
| pays around half of that (because her employer pays the
| other half).
| pkaye wrote:
| > Since insurance is capped at around 5k salary you will
| at most pay 15% of that (750 EUR) for health insurance
| per month in the universal insurance system.
|
| Does the employer pay any of that? Is that the total for
| the entire family?
| suction wrote:
| Yes, it includes your spouse and any number of children
| up to the age of 26 I think. So the classical family
| model with a stay-home spouse and children will be
| covered by the breadwinner's health insurance.
|
| If any family member works full-time, then they have to
| cover their own health insurance. Exceptions apply.
|
| If you make more than 40.000 EUR / year you have the
| option to get a private insurance policy with more
| "benefits". Then, the employer will pay out the amount
| that went to the public health system and you will use it
| (and whatever you can afford on top) to your private
| health insurance.
|
| When you go private, you're in the wild west, meaning
| you'll need to be extremely cautious of what contracts
| you sign. Or you'll end up with a 3000 EUR per month plan
| at old age, with no way back into the public system.
|
| Many people end up poor after retirement because their
| whole 401k and savings go towards the health insurance
| which is way to luxurious for their needs and isn't
| capped.
| Akronymus wrote:
| Even if you take the gross salaray it is MUCH lower than
| what the company actually pays. Last time I looked it up,
| the company pays about as much in insurance, taxes and
| such as your gross is.
| realityking wrote:
| That's still an exaggeration. Non-wage labour costs are
| about 21% of the gross salary with most of them capped
| around 80k EUR of gross salary (meaning the employer pays
| 21% of 80k even if you make 200k). FWIW this includes
| health insurance.
|
| Now you do you have to count with some other potential
| expenses, like covering up to 6 weeks paid sick leave.
| I'm spire there's some rule of thumb how to average that
| over a workforce but I'm not aware of it.
| noisy_boy wrote:
| I would be _ecstatic_ to give up half of my salary for
| such a system which assures that irrespective of my
| employment/financial status, age or health, I'll get the
| care I need, until I die.
| a254613e wrote:
| Sounds great doesn't it? Too bad in reality with public
| insurance you get the basic care, while with private
| insurace (more equivalent to the US system) you get much
| more.
|
| For example you can find German news articles about how
| public insurance doesn't cover some tests that
| confirm/deny if you have some life threatning condition
| or not, even if you have all the symptoms and the doctors
| says that's the next step - while private insurance does
| cover additional tests.
|
| And private health insurance is only available to
| individuals earning well above the average German salary.
| shakezula wrote:
| Same. For me in the states, the argument is an easy one,
| because the plan in the states is pretty much "sell your
| house to afford your medical bills even after insurance
| and hope you don't run out of cash before you die". Our
| cultural attitudes towards elder care are most glaringly
| obvious in our healthcare system.
| jcfrei wrote:
| A well-working system? Germany only has an income tax but
| no wealth tax, unsurprisingly there's a huge inequality in
| wealth. If you earn your living in Germany through work you
| are basically a sucker: You have to hand on average 38.9%
| to the state. Taxation on capital gains, interest and
| dividends is 25%. This difference is compounding every year
| so the net effect over a lifetime is huge.
| suction wrote:
| By well-working system I mean there are still enough
| checks and balances in place to make the rise of a figure
| like Trump or Putin very unlikely. And this of course is
| tied to economic well-being.
| samus wrote:
| Well, they could use a term limit for chancellors. The
| position is not as powerful as the US president (the term
| limit is really the most important check to the
| president's power), and most people will agree that
| Merkel did at least a decent job during her tenure, but
| long office terms tend to fossilize the political system.
| kaba0 wrote:
| Is the wealth inequality larger in Germany than in the
| US?
|
| Also, you still end up paying for all those things. And
| private health insurance will simply always be more
| expensive
| adventured wrote:
| It's comparable to the US. If you look at the roster of
| billionaires in Germany, and then look at their national
| median wealth figures, it's stark.
|
| Klause-Michel Kuehne scaled from Germany's economic size
| to the US economic size would go from $37b in wealth to
| $195b. That's Jeff Bezos.
|
| Dieter Schwarz scaled similarly would go from $26b to
| $135b. That's Bill Gates.
|
| Susanne Klatten scaled similarly would go from $24.6b to
| $128b. That's Zuckerberg.
|
| Thomas and Andreas Struengmann scaled similarly would
| each go from $21b to $109b. That's Warren Buffett.
|
| Stefan Quandt scaled similarly would go from $21b to
| $109b. That's Steve Ballmer.
|
| And so on. Germany has 30 of the top 500 largest
| individual fortunes globally; the US has 159.
| Interestingly that's the approximately correct scaling if
| you account for the difference in economic size (although
| one would expect it to increase even further with scale,
| and given the US also has other things in its favor (eg
| global reserve currency, military superpower); so Germany
| is more than pulling its weight in relation to the number
| of US billionaires at the top). Overall Germany had 153
| billionaires as recently as 2019, while the US had 788
| that year; once again that scales roughly correctly for
| the difference in economy size.
|
| So yes, the incredible wealth at the top in Germany is
| every bit as lopsided considering the size of the German
| economy.
|
| Germany's median wealth figure is below the US. That's
| despite the US massively debasing its median with tens of
| millions of poor immigrants from Latin America over the
| past 40 years (meaning those people are starting from
| scratch, typically with no valuable labor skills or
| education background, and often without even knowing
| English). Comparing apples to apples, US demographics to
| Germany demographics, US white people are drastically
| richer than German white people at the median. And it's
| also despite the US not having the much vaunted labor
| protection that the Germans enjoy.
|
| Germany, given its immense economic output, relatively
| stable culture and politics, high productivity, and
| strong labor protection, should have extraordinary wealth
| at the median. It doesn't (France and Britain both far
| exceed Germany in that regard; Germany is only slightly
| ahead of Portugal by comparison).
| bialpio wrote:
| According to World Bank, wealth inequality is lower in
| Germany compared to the US. See Gini coefficient column:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_inco
| me_...
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| I think the reason why some Germans think it's a bad place
| for companies is the bureaucracy. Any time you want to build
| something, the NIMBYs come out, find some sort of protected
| frog, and your project is on hold for an extra 5 years of
| paperwork on top of the basic 3 years.
|
| Now, this may be a complete misconception, but that's what my
| perception of doing business in Germany is.
| bluGill wrote:
| Even if you care about salaries, German engineers are cheap.
| If you are looking for the best engineers they are as cheap
| as India (India has a lot more bad engineers for cheap, but
| they have plenty of good ones that demand and get a good
| salary).
|
| The real downside of Germany is lead Engineer is a non-union
| position so you end up with the majority of your engineers
| refusing to lead the project (despite the higher salaries,
| the union benefits are considered worth it - as an outsider I
| don't know what these are). Thus you end up with a lot of
| great mid-level engineers who try to stick to their own area
| of expertise instead of growing to make a better whole.
| GrigoriyMikh wrote:
| Why you think that Germany has a lot of good and cheap
| engineers? I think the biggest problem that low salaries
| are causing there is that people with some(5+ years)
| experience are moving either to Switzerland/US or to
| freelance for Switzerland/US companies.
|
| So, there's big deficit of experienced engineers. German
| companies are trying to solve it by inviting Eastern
| European/Indian/Asian workers, that are cheaper, but that
| results in mediocre one staying and exploiting job security
| system and good ones moving to Switzerland/US or back to
| native country(where foreign experience can help them to
| get to higher managerial positions).
| Hypocritelefty wrote:
| Why would any Indian go to Germany? Why don't you back up
| your point with some numbers otherwise this is nothing
| but prejudice.
| benhurmarcel wrote:
| That's funny because a lot of experienced engineers move
| to Germany from France, Spain, Italy, the UK, etc to get
| better salaries.
|
| Engineering salaries in Germany are high compared to most
| of western Europe.
| GrigoriyMikh wrote:
| Is that true even if sum up higher taxes and cost of
| living in Germany? At least in Eastern
| Europe(specifically Russia, Belarus and Ukraine), average
| salary for mediocre software engineer is about 3k$ per
| month after taxes which is already comparable with German
| average SE salary. But cost of living in EE is a lot
| cheaper, apartments in Moscow are 3 times cheaper than in
| major German cities. Food, on average 2 times cheaper and
| transportation(taxes, public transport and fuel)
| sometimes up to 10 times cheaper than in Germany.
| benhurmarcel wrote:
| Cost of living in Germany isn't significantly higher than
| other western European countries. And for engineers,
| after-tax income is easily 50% higher in Germany compared
| to the countries I mentioned.
| wuschel wrote:
| This. Quality and extended costs of life are definitely
| vague but important aspects when considering a move to
| Germany. There is no perfect lunch let alone free lunch.
| bluGill wrote:
| They are low compared to the world. However moving is NOT
| easy for personal reason. If you are going to move from
| the countries you listed Germany is going to be easier
| just because it isn't as hard to get back to visit
| family.
| bluGill wrote:
| As I said, the union has enough benefits that the value
| of higher salary positions isn't worth it to many. In the
| union you are not allowed to work more than 36 hours a
| week (I might have the numbers off a bit?) and they check
| to ensure that. Non-union can work longer hours, in
| practice they don't, but they are allowed to. There are a
| number of other things like that, the one lead engineer I
| work with in Germany doesn't think they are worth it, but
| the majority do.
|
| The above is about great engineers who are holding
| themselves back. I have no doubt that those who are
| willing to not be in the union are also willing to leave
| the country leading to some brain drain, but many are
| also holding themselves back as well.
| GrigoriyMikh wrote:
| What's "the union"? I never heard about it. Not a single
| engineer that i know personally is in this union(or at
| least they are hiding that). And literally all of them
| planning to leave Germany once the good opportunity
| arrives. Also, i know personally almost 20 engineers who
| left the country only for better pay and that's during
| pandemic only.
| bluGill wrote:
| Depends on the industry, different industries get
| different unions. I believe the ones I work with are in
| the steel workers union, but since I don't live in
| Germany I'm sure. I just know they find their union worth
| it.
| apflkx wrote:
| Many German companies (BMW, Siemens, Bosch, BASF, ...)
| historically cooperate with unions like "IG Metall".
| Unions win benefits for their members, but companies
| usually pass these benefits on to all employees. These
| benefits typically include: 35-hour work week, regular
| and performance-independent salary increases for all
| employees, at least 6 weeks of vacation per year,
| parental leave beyond the legal minimum, training and job
| placement if your current job is eliminated, etc. If you
| are a developer working for one of these companies, the
| union contracts will always affect you, even if you are
| not a union member.
|
| It is hard to tell if you are in a better or worse
| situation as a developer when you work in such a company.
| Many employees in such companies would like to have a
| 40-hour week, because that would result in higher pay.
| Unions, however, push to allow 40-hour weeks only to a
| small percentage of the workforce on the grounds that if
| the workload is higher, it should be compensated by new
| hires instead of overtime for existing employees, since
| more employees also means more union members and thus
| more power for unions.
| formerly_proven wrote:
| > regular and performance-independent salary increases
| for all employees
|
| What country are you talking about?
| benjaminsuch wrote:
| Labor Union. But if a Lead Engineer needs a Labor Union
| for his benefits, then he does something clearly wrong.
| [deleted]
| nazipolice wrote:
| So is most of Eastern Europe you nazi prick.
| sveme wrote:
| Aah, the self-deprecating German, so common it's almost a meme
| now.
|
| Remember, grass is always greener on the other side.
| cpach wrote:
| Why not? From my POV Germany seems good at manufacturing. E.g.
| Siemens. And cars.
| lazyjones wrote:
| Siemens was good 30 years ago. More recently, they seem a
| little bit too tied up with politics, hiring ex politicians,
| getting caught bribing (e.g. in Greece). It's not a pretty
| sight IMO and I wouldn't want to work there.
| thrwyoilarticle wrote:
| German engineering gave us BER
| ng55QPSK wrote:
| The lead of construction for BER was a dutch company
| thrwyoilarticle wrote:
| Imtech? It was their German branch. Regardless, at least
| they could rely on Siemens and Bosch to nail the fire
| system, PG BBI to do the planning, and GMP for the
| architecture.
| DangerousPie wrote:
| What does the (mis)management of a public infrastructure
| project have to do with Germany's attractiveness as a base
| for manufacturing?
| thrwyoilarticle wrote:
| Plants don't pop up overnight to the obliviousness of the
| state. This proposal brings into consideration vast
| amounts of money, tax revenue, and employment
| opportunities that the government will care about. All
| with unique infrastructure requirements and long
| roadplans.
|
| To flip the question around: what does the ability to
| produce executive cars have to do with Germany's ability
| to fix the problem Intel have been stuck on for the
| better part of a decade?
| zorked wrote:
| Everything?
| Bigpet wrote:
| Labor laws would still be sort of OK for a high-tech factory
| like TSMC.
|
| But I think environmental policy would be really hostile to a
| large fab. Politics seems really fickle about it too. For
| "old school" industries like coal they try to bend over
| backwards to make exceptions, but when it comes to new
| players especially local politics will have little
| reservations to tanking your multi million dollar projects.
|
| This can obviously be a huge benefit to the population, but
| if I were in the position to choose a location I'd factor
| that in heavily.
| corty wrote:
| Problem with new players imho is the high level of
| corruption in certain parts of government and industry.
| While you cannot usually bribe a policeman in Germany,
| construction, permitting and industry subsidies and
| politics are heavily corrupt. Old-school industries are
| propped up by an old-boys-network and revolving doors
| between political parties, unions, administration and
| industry. Many politicians who did well by the coal
| industry for example got their comfortable retirement
| position in the boards of energy giants. Same for the car
| industry. Parts of those industries are even still owned by
| the state or federal government, e.g. Volkswagen is
| partially owned by the state of Lower Saxony and Germany.
|
| That is also possibly the reason Tesla is in such trouble
| over their new factory. While they are a car manufacturer,
| and a modern, hip and green one at that, which politics
| openly hails as good, secretly they are damaging
| established interests by the traditional German car
| manufacturers and their allies in high positions. So the
| administration will nod and smile, but try to find ways to
| hinder them.
| LeanderK wrote:
| I think Tesla is just in such trouble because they were
| building their factory without having all permits. They
| were allowed to do that, but had to get all the permits
| in the end. As I understood it Tesla then build stuff
| that are not usually allowed, I suspect Tesla was trying
| to establish facts and thereby trying circumvent
| regulation.
|
| I don't really see the german government here at fault.
| They were eager to get the factory up and running and
| were working with Tesla to get it built quickly. If Tesla
| wants to build first and get the permits later, it also
| has to retroactively improve things when they were not up
| to code. You can't just get permits because you've built
| something.
| LeanderK wrote:
| Bosch recently built a fab in Dresden (afaik), so it has to
| be possible.
| estaseuropano wrote:
| You get some local activism against individual factories,
| but generally Germany is huge in building specialized
| industry and they manage to push companies to clean things
| up. For me that's all a win.
|
| You can find giant chemical and manufacturing plants all
| across Germany.
|
| Thinking Germany is problematic is a very narrow worldview,
| in most countries you have huge
| political/corruption/business continuity risks, from
| unsteady electricity to broken roads to terror threats -
| Germany is a safe and stable bet.
| detaro wrote:
| Then why hasn't this been an issue for any of the existing
| fabs? Semiconductor manufacturing has been a large welcome
| prestige thing pretty much anywhere.
| eyelovewe wrote:
| It sounds like a positive incentive to cleanup the
| processes involved. Where there is a will,there is a way,
| etc. I don't think that offshoring dirty industry is
| anything but NIMBYism and ultimately we need to cleanup
| electronics fabrication
| RicoElectrico wrote:
| Probably red tape?
| 988747 wrote:
| In general investment in the "old" EU countries is less
| profitable due to higher taxes, salaries, and other costs.
| That's why most of the European companies choose to build
| their new factories in Central Europe: Poland, Czech
| Republic, Slovakia, Romania, etc. TSMC should do the same.
| RicoElectrico wrote:
| I wish :) There's no infrastructure or know-how in Poland
| regarding microelectronics. The only related field is ASIC
| design - a few offices of American companies like Synopsys
| (>100 employees), Silicon Creations (a few dozen
| employees), Cadence (a few dozen as well). Intel has a
| massive R&D site but they don't do hardware design here,
| maybe except FPGA.
| tester34 wrote:
| I'd bet that if they were opening actual edge fab in
| Poland, then the priest would appear to sprinkle EUV
| machine
| cromka wrote:
| Somewhat related though, that Poland has the only memory
| module fab in EU:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilk_Elektronik
|
| https://www.goodram.com/en/
| adrian_b wrote:
| In the more distant past, i.e. up to 1990, all the
| Eastern European countries, including Poland, had
| semiconductor plants and many people, both engineers and
| workers, with good know-how.
|
| However, after 1990, the plants have been closed and most
| of the skilled people have gone to USA, Canada or Western
| Europe.
|
| So for the present time you might be right, it could be
| difficult to find enough experienced workforce, unlike
| many years ago.
| bserge wrote:
| You can find it in the west... But then you have to pay
| them a lot heh
| raverbashing wrote:
| This is more relevant when you're building lower technology
| items (toasters, gasoline engines, etc)
|
| Personal cost in semi factories is much less relevant (and
| you actually want the higher-cost employees because they
| know how to drive the _multi-billion_ dollar machines)
| lispm wrote:
| TSMC would go to Dresden if it decides to invest in
| Germany.
|
| Bosch just opened a new chip fatory in Dresden.
|
| https://www.bosch.com/stories/bosch-chip-factory-dresden/
|
| Globafoundries and Infinion are there, too.
|
| https://gfdresden.de
|
| https://www.infineon.com/cms/dresden/en/
|
| The Dresden/Saxony area is said to have in semiconductor
| manufacturing "2,300 companies with roughly 60,000
| employees active in the industry in Saxony and generating
| revenues of some EUR16.5 billion last year."
|
| Apple invests heavily in a Chip design center in Munich.
|
| https://www.apple.com/uk/newsroom/2021/03/apple-to-invest-
| ov...
|
| Customers for the TSMC chips would be in the automotive
| industry.
|
| Tesla builds a new EV factory in Brandenburg near Berlin...
| Volkswagen has several factories working on current and
| future EVs, ... for example the ID.3 is being manufactured
| in Dresden, too.
|
| https://www.volkswagen-newsroom.com/en/press-
| releases/id3-st...
| nt2h9uh238h wrote:
| Germany is hands-off the best country to invest in all of
| Europe.
| lazyjones wrote:
| As a German, you'll pay for the subsidies with your taxes.
| martin_a wrote:
| As a German myself: Why would you not invest? Infrastructure,
| state of mind?
|
| I'd really love to see more high-tech companies invest here,
| after we've managed to kill the solar companies... :-/
| gallexme wrote:
| As a German Permits, the government is V slow. And labor is
| expensive. Also sounds expensive to use all the water they
| need, since they would need to clean it up very good and
| align the temperature with the rest of the attached rivers or
| what they use. And other climate relevant regulations.
| MarcusE1W wrote:
| I am not sure that it is a bad thing that a company, any
| company really is not allowed to play fast and loose with
| the environment they operate in.
|
| It's not that the relevant laws are a secret and used to
| club you over the head once you nicely settled in and set
| up everything to your own advantage
| ChemSpider wrote:
| Germany has plenty of water. Certainly more than Taiwan.
| sabjut wrote:
| That's what Elon Musk said too about the Brandenburg
| Facory ("Doesn't look like a desert so it must be ok")
|
| But environment groups are saying that ground water
| levels have been decreasing for years and the factory
| would demand too much from the water network.
|
| So who is in the right here?
| bildung wrote:
| I assume Tesla was just trying to be cheap. As soon as
| the water supplier said Teslas expected demand (372 m3
| per hour) wouldn't be possible, the demand suddenly
| shrank to 243 m3 per hour. So my guess is that Tesla
| tried to reduce capex by employing more wasteful water
| usage but now has to work more efficiently.
| https://www.quarks.de/umwelt/wie-problematisch-ist-der-
| bau-v...
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| I think the demand was _peak_ demand, so all you need to
| reduce that is a) accept it as a bottleneck and slow the
| most water intensive process to spread the peak out, or
| b) add a buffer pool.
| ulfw wrote:
| Germany gets round about 750mm of rain a year, Taiwan
| 2500mm.
| estaseuropano wrote:
| Taiwan is a tiny area compared to the diversity you get
| in Germany, which has very diverse weather across
| regions, significant rivers, accessible groundwater, etc.
| driton wrote:
| What happened to the solar companies in Germany?
| turbinerneiter wrote:
| We spent a lot of money on solar, lots of German companies
| started to fill the demand, the Chinese came in and dumped
| prices, Germany decided not to import-tax -> lots of German
| tax payer money spent on installing solar power, but all
| the German solar companies were priced out of the market by
| Chinese companies.
|
| Basically, Germany built Chinas solar industry, let our own
| die.
| aembleton wrote:
| Import taxes are decided by the EU, so it wouldn't have
| been simple for Germany to quickly react.
| Max-20 wrote:
| 100%, sadly this is exactly how it played out.
| est31 wrote:
| Germany entered a subsidy bidding war with China and
| eventually decided it's not worth the extreme skewing of
| the market and pulled out. This had the consequences that
| solar panels are now manufactured in China. IDK but from my
| point of view, solar panels are more dependent on salaries
| than chip manufacturing is.
| jansan wrote:
| It's also low-tech compared to chip manufacturing.
| corty wrote:
| Practically all went bancrupt between 10 and 12 years ago.
| Starting around 2000, Germany began to heavily subsidize
| private solar panel installations with guaranteed prices
| around 1Eur/kWh (later falling to 0.5Eur/kWh, now around
| 0.1Eur/kWh). With subsidies falling, demand dropped. And
| initial high subsidies (some claim, see [0]) made the
| industry too lazy to get competitive abroad, so around 2008
| China began to ramp up production for cheaper panels at
| dumping prices. Politicians failed to react with import
| duties until it was too late (around 2013). Falling
| domestic demand, lower prices and higher production in
| China and political failure to protect domestic production
| all lead to the death of Germany's solar industry. Even big
| names such as Siemens solar branch, who could have easily
| weathered the storm and buy up their competition on the
| cheap, got out as fast as they could. Because political
| flailing signaled imminent doom and no betterment in the
| long term.
|
| Of course nowadays there is again political hypocrisy
| mounting around the need for shorter transport routes,
| domestic independence, more capacity, etc. But even so,
| measures to prop up European solar manufacturers are very
| weak, import duties have been lifted and China's production
| has now become too strong to oppose. So there is a little
| useless promising before an election, then silence.
|
| [0]
| https://www.handelsblatt.com/unternehmen/industrie/studie-
| zu...
|
| see also
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27942010#27943382
| sabjut wrote:
| I knew the Government mess up the solar market but I
| never knew just how much incompetence was at play there.
| Loosing industry to China (I am still furious about KUKA)
| is apparently a recreational sport for the CDU.
| nkmnz wrote:
| You got it wrong. The policies that heavily subsidized
| the solar industry were written by Merkel when she was
| the Minister for the Environmental Affairs in the 90s,
| but put in place by Minister Trittin from the Green Party
| after the '98 elections. The death of the German Solar
| industry was the result of KEEPING those subsidies TOO
| HIGH FOR TOO LONG. If the government makes sure that the
| demand is increasing at a very high pace, all you will do
| as a manufacturer is t put all the cash you can get your
| hands on into scaling your production with the current
| state of technology. You'll stop all R&D, because the
| immediate ROI of selling "state of the art crap" is much
| higher. In the mean time, China created competitive
| technology with lower cost and finally, at some point in
| time, they've even created the better solar panels.
| Max-20 wrote:
| Thats sadly wrong, Chinas solar industry was heavily
| subsidized by the state to purposely crash the market
| prices of panels and ruin the solar industry of western
| countries. Once they succeeded they raised prices again
| to make profit.
| nkmnz wrote:
| So Chinese subsidies are "purposely crashing the market",
| while German subsidies are... what exactly? Well, they
| did not crash the market, but they crush innovation and
| competitiveness, while China improved.
| yorwba wrote:
| Have prices actually increased? Lazard's Levelized Cost
| of Energy analysis shows a steady decline in cost
| https://www.lazard.com/media/451447/grphx_lcoe-09-09.jpg
| but that also includes operating costs. I can't find a
| source for the solar panels themselves.
| corty wrote:
| They just didn't decrase as fast as they could have,
| given falling prouction cost. But then again, the market
| was heavily distorted by German and Chinese subsidys
| anyways, so it is hard to know what the subsidy-free
| "real" market prices would have been.
| volta83 wrote:
| Top technical talent scarcity and cost.
|
| In Silicon Valley, you can find a dozen 600k$ engineers
| relatively quickly to scale up a random startup.
|
| In Germany... the salaries these people would be making would
| be < 100k$ because they are engineers, not managers. For some
| reason the only way to slightly increase your salary in
| Germany is to become a manager, but good luck with scaling up
| a start up by hiring 12 managers that don't have anybody to
| manage.
|
| This disparity in the valuation of top engineers cause many
| to emigrate, and once you are in the US, it is impossible to
| financially justify taking a 5x pay cut to go back to
| Germany. (You can justify it "non-financially", but these
| other justifications would need to offset the 500k$ yearly
| that you are leaving behind).
|
| So... finding top talent in Germany is hard. If you were to
| find them, hiring them would be 2x more expensive than in the
| US. Which makes a good that's very expensive, twice as
| expensive.
|
| This is one of the many reasons why the startup scene in
| Germany is poor. Nobody wants to be the engineer that
| actually builds the stuff, everybody wants to be a "manager".
|
| It turns out that many of the engineers that get to build the
| stuff become excellent managers once the company grows
| because they know it inside out.
|
| ---
|
| TL;DR: if you are a tech company that needs top engineering
| talent to grow a super high tech facility up, you can't find
| enough talent there, and the one you find is twice as
| expensive as somewhere else.
|
| As others have mentioned, the price of talent is
| insignificant for TSMC compared to the price of their
| machinery, so they can afford the 2x increased costs, but the
| lack of talent is harder to offset.
| wasmitnetzen wrote:
| I don't know of a single person in my Master's degree class
| in Computer Science in one of Germany's top tech
| universities who went to the US. And I have most of them as
| contacts on LinkedIn. I'm not buying your premise.
| kleiba wrote:
| Sorry, but just because they were in your Master's degree
| class does not necessarily make them top talent.
| GrigoriyMikh wrote:
| I know almost 20 engineers personally, who moved out from
| Germany, only because of low pay. But all of them were
| expats in a first place. Not all moved to US, some to
| Switzerland and some back to home country(for higher
| managerial positions).
| ahartmetz wrote:
| The thing about not coming back is probably true (30% the
| salary?!), but yeah, not many leave in the first place.
| nicbou wrote:
| Money isn't everything to many. Life in Germany is good
| enough, and there's no guarantee that it would be betted
| in the US. Sure, more money is nice, but the pay in
| Germany is still decent, and the perks are considerable:
| 22% fewer work hours, for instance.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| It's not, and that's perfectly fine from a societal
| standpoint, but people who are worried about working 22%
| fewer hours and are fine getting a "decent" salary are
| not the engineers you want to hire when trying to
| bootstrap a new enterprise.
|
| They can run your company steady-state, but they are not
| going to build anything internationally competitive.
| helloguillecl wrote:
| This is simply not true, as German tech companies have
| built more than just a few success examples.
|
| Why do you think you need people who don't care about
| having a life outside the workplace to build something
| competitive?
| bpodgursky wrote:
| Germany has 80 million people. The US has 330 million.
|
| Can you really tell me with a straight face that Germany
| has 25% of the success examples that the US tech industry
| has?
| wasmitnetzen wrote:
| Not in IT, but Germany has quite a few market leaders in
| "old tech": Cars, logistics (DHL, Schenker), retail
| (Aldi, Lidl), and a whole lot of B2B niche products.
|
| IT isn't a fair comparison, no country in the world can
| compete with FAANG right now, that's hardly Germany's
| fault. And still, there's SAP and Deutsche Telekom.
| Telekom has 50% of Google's revenue. Sure, the market cap
| is another story, but still.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| China is 100% competing with FAANG. India has a lot of
| close-second competition.
|
| Most of the companies you listed were founded before
| 1950. That's not at odds with my thesis -- these
| engineers can continue to drive an already-successful
| business but will not be able to start something
| genuinely new.
| SiempreViernes wrote:
| Adding to that, is there any general reason for a German,
| besides money, to go to the US? So if the ones that go
| mostly do it for the money, they'll most likely stay
| gone.
| volta83 wrote:
| Personal development.
|
| Working with people that are much smarter than you
| generally makes you better at your work.
|
| So from that point of view, going to the places where the
| concentration of super smart people is the "highest"
| makes sense.
| SiempreViernes wrote:
| There are plenty of smart people and high tech companies
| in Europe though, so there's no reason to take the job
| insecurity and parental leave hit for that alone.
|
| You'd have to be in a niche where there's only a few
| teams world wide that are any good, and the US one is the
| one that's hiring.
| est31 wrote:
| I know people who came back after having worked a few
| years in the USA. Seems like a smart move to me,
| considering how large bay area home prices are compared
| to home prices in Germany. From my limited point of view,
| Germany is a way better and way less expensive place to
| raise your child than the USA. There is way more social
| peace. You don't have massive gun violence. Etc.
|
| I know people who emigrated to the USA decades ago, and
| now send their children to German colleges because those
| are practically tuition free for EU citizens (you need to
| pay rent tho). If you want to move back more early on,
| you can use your savings from your time in the USA to get
| the bulk cost of buying a house in one of the regions
| with good tech jobs like Munich out of the way. Then you
| can live a great life in Germany even with the limited
| German tech salaries.
|
| Note that I'm not saying that you shouldn't go to the the
| USA in the first place. In fact, I'm still strongly
| considering it myself. But the less healthy, young,
| single, and childless you are, the more advantages does
| Germany have for you.
| Roritharr wrote:
| I know several that went to FANGs from TU Darmstadt and
| are in the situation as described by parent. They even
| feel socially isolated from Germany as their salaries and
| wealth are incomprehensible to their former friends and
| so are met with envy.
|
| Personally I regret not leaving Germany earlier, it's
| much harder once you have kids.
| volta83 wrote:
| Anecdotal evidence: I did my BSc, MSc, and PhD in
| Germany.
|
| None of my PhD colleagues (from my and other top3 tech
| universities) is still in Germany, they are all in the
| US, except one which is now a Prof in the UK.
|
| Most of my BSc and MSc colleagues are still in Germany,
| some spreaded out through europe, and few to the US.
|
| Its pretty hard to some of us actually have work-related
| conversations with old friends still in Germany. They
| always ask about the salaries in the US, and guess
| something "absurd" like "you are probably making more
| than 200k$, 250k$?", to which the only thing you can
| actually say is "yes" kind of in shame, because making
| >500k$/year is "absurd"/"beyond imagination" by German
| standards.
|
| We have all worked in Germany in industry before moving
| to the US (both internships, but also between MSc. and
| PhD, or briefly after the PhD), and there is just no
| comparison about the quality-level of the work and
| intellectual-growth in the US and Germany.
|
| In my German employer, our 15 ppl team was 2 PhDs, and
| many MSc, all from different skill levels, doing a good
| job, etc.
|
| In my US employer, our 50 ppl team has > 40 PhDs, couple
| of Stanford / MIT / Berkley / .. ex-Professors, pretty
| much all of them infinitely smarter than me, all giving
| me feedback, punching holes through my work, discovering
| my flaws, and teaching them to me, etc.
|
| The difference in the amount of stuff you learn per day
| of work, the quality standards, etc. between both
| employers is abysmal.
| bserge wrote:
| > the startup scene in Germany is poor. Nobody wants to be
| the engineer that actually builds the stuff
|
| And nobody wants to fund a startup run by engineers. Double
| whammy
| _ph_ wrote:
| If you would offer $600k for an engineering position, there
| would be no problem finding any numbers of engineers in
| Germany. They all would have to line up behind me of course
| :).
|
| Yes, to quickly ramp up, you would have to pay more than
| teh average market salary, but as you pointed out,
| engineering positions are not as highly paid in Germany as
| in the silicon valley. There is nothing preventing you from
| paying good salaries though.
|
| Europe has a great supply of electronic engineers and
| physicists. The only challenge would be that currently a
| lot of semiconductor investments happen in Europe, but
| these investments don't happen because Europe is such a bad
| place to invest in. Including a great supply of engineers.
| volta83 wrote:
| > If you would offer $600k for an engineering position,
| there would be no problem finding any numbers of
| engineers in Germany.
|
| I'm baffled at some of the answers.
|
| Paying somebody 600k$ does not make that person a good
| engineer.
|
| You could pick an undergrad, offer them 600k$, and they
| could take the job, but that won't make them top talent.
|
| No company out there paying their engineers 600k$ is
| going to give an engineer 600k$ if they are not worth
| each $ of those 600k$.
|
| ---
|
| It's not about finding engineers that are willing to have
| a 600k$ salary (who wouldn't if someone offers it to
| you?), but about attracting the best of the best
| engineers of a particular field, many of which already do
| have that salary. Why should they move to Germany?
| stackbutterflow wrote:
| > You could pick an undergrad, offer them 600k$, and they
| could take the job, but that won't make them top talent.
|
| But that's exactly what is happening. People are paid
| these insane salaries because they're either born
| American or got a green card. Do you think the 20
| something hired at $200k+ in the Silicon Valley are worth
| 5 times the seniors devs at $40k in Thailand, Spain,
| Poland? The only difference between a 5 digits salary
| engineer and a 6 digits salary engineer is a green card.
| _ph_ wrote:
| I think there are plenty of engineers in Europe and
| Germany to find. Europe has a healthy semiconductor
| industry, just not so many fabs. And why wouldn't a lot
| of people want to move to Germany? Considering how many
| of my colleagues have moved to Germany for the job, I
| don't see a special obstacle there.
|
| Also: wherever they build their new fab, if it is outside
| of Taiwan, they probably have attract the engineers to
| move there, which place would be better suited at the
| moment?
| FabHK wrote:
| You're saying in SV, they're 600k$, but in Germany they're
| only 100k$, but it would be 2x expensive to hire them?
|
| Why don't you pay 600k$ gross then, they get 300k$ net, and
| thus 3x what they'd get otherwise in Germany, but don't
| have to move to the US? Seems like a feasible strategy to
| me.
| volta83 wrote:
| Paying somebody 300k/year doesn't make them "top talent".
|
| The top talent is in the US, Taiwan, etc. designing the
| 3nm plants, operating the 5nm plants, doing research,
| etc.
|
| Why would a 600k$/year engineer relocate from the US to
| Germany for a 300k$ salary pay cut ?
|
| I've always made more money at my next job than the
| previous one.
|
| If a company wants me to leave my life here behind and
| move 15000km, they better offer me more, like 700k$ or
| 800k$. In Germany, that would cost the company 1.6
| million $ yearly.
| bserge wrote:
| I mean, it's not like it's impossible to assemble a team
| that can become top talent.
|
| But they need the ability to "level up" (by working with
| already existing high tech). And then they leave for the
| US anyway heh.
| volta83 wrote:
| This is a bit of a doubled-edged sword for German
| companies actually.
|
| For example, Bosch has a research campus in california to
| try to achieve this.
|
| The problem is, that after being 2 years in the US
| "becoming top talent", you now have the option of staying
| there making $$$ or coming back to germany.
|
| Even companies like Bosch that invest a lot of money in
| these types of systems, have huge problems making
| competitive offers for the people that consider going
| back.
| raverbashing wrote:
| Do you think they're not paying any tax in the US? That
| 600k gross is at most 500k net (probably less)
|
| Also you assume they are a) happy to stay in the US b)
| have no immigration issues to deal with c) don't have a
| crazy CoL on SV that eats most of that 500k...
|
| Yes, it's not a clear-cut move, but not too bad neither.
| Salary is not everything.
| stackbutterflow wrote:
| For reference: 600k USD is 508k euros. 500k USD is 423k
| euros.
|
| We're already down a notch. People tend to assume $1 =
| 1EUR in this thread.
| volta83 wrote:
| When you are making 600k$ a big part of your compensation
| is stocks.
|
| There are lots of ways to pay fewer taxes in the US when
| holding stocks. Plus you have 401k, backdoor Roth, etc.
| retirement saving plans that are non-existent in Germany.
| GoOnThenDoTell wrote:
| Backdoor Roth?
| mercutio2 wrote:
| It's a thing.
|
| Mega backdoor Roth is an even bigger thing:
|
| https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Mega-backdoor_Roth
| sveme wrote:
| So you're living in SV now?
| RivieraKid wrote:
| My general impression is that Germany is not innovative,
| dynamic and backwards in technology among developed nations.
|
| For example:
| http://cdn.statcdn.com/Infographic/images/normal/17307.jpeg
|
| Also, they've made some seemingly stupid decisions such as
| closing nuclear power plants. And I'm not a fan of their
| climate change policy, they should push for a worldwide
| carbon tax instead of forcing EVs.
| f1refly wrote:
| I don't know why you're under the impression technological
| backwardness has anything to do with abandoning cash.
| There's a lot of things to critizise the german government
| for - 16k broadband lines for newly built industrial parks
| anyone? - but not replacing cash is certainly not it.
| imtringued wrote:
| Von der Leyen is pushing CO2 tariffs on the EU level to
| force CO2 taxes world wide.
| bserge wrote:
| > closing nuclear power plants
|
| Making electricity more expensive, leading to A/C being
| expensive, leading to beer being sold unrefrigerated,
| leading to a general cognitive decline.
|
| Butterfly effect :D
| iSnow wrote:
| IDK, this chart looks like a lot of German regions are
| pretty innovative: https://ec.europa.eu/growth/industry/pol
| icy/innovation/regio...
|
| Also, Germany pushing for a worldwide carbon tax? That's
| neat, but I doubt it would cause more than a yawn in
| Washington, Beijing, or Delhi.
| nazrulmum10 wrote:
| its a great news for Germany . If TSMC located their chip plant
| in there.
| gfiorav wrote:
| This is a major geopolitical decission. TSMC is responisble for
| 1/3 of chips worldwide (in an industry with few players). China's
| claim on Taiwan has a lot to do with that.
| atc wrote:
| A UK FreePort would be far more beneficial for skill set, JIT
| trade and global connectivity.
|
| Plus a long way from the stranglehold of EU protectionism, red
| tape and corruption
| varispeed wrote:
| From a security point of view, it's interesting that they don't
| look to build a fab in the UK. Given that the Europe used to be
| an arena of devastating conflicts - with things like completely
| levelled down cities, to murders on an industrial scale, the long
| term investment like this may be subject to a lot of uncertainty
| as the EU moves closer towards being an authoritarian regime,
| this may wake up internal conflicts that are deeply embedded in
| some of the nations.
| dangerface wrote:
| The last European war was over 70 years ago and today it is one
| of if not the most stable regions in the world. The idea that
| they are doom spiralling into authoritarianism is a conspiracy
| theory that is easy to dismiss.
| varispeed wrote:
| Were you born yesterday? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o
| f_conflicts_in_Europe#On...
| fxtentacle wrote:
| If you consider GlobalFoundries to be a valid competitor, then
| that move would make a lot of sense. Infineon and AMD used to do
| a lot of research and production in Dresden. The AMD fab has
| since become a part of GlobalFoundries. But there's still a
| healthy ecosystem of university research and medium-sized
| software companies. Or at least there was, when I visited
| GlobalFoundries in 2014.
|
| Also, there has been a growing amount of research activity into
| chip design in Germany lately, driven in no small part by CERN's
| needs.
|
| For example https://ohwr.org/project/white-rabbit/wikis/home used
| by the Control and Timing System at CERN and GSI
| Panoramix wrote:
| I don't see GlobalFoundries as a realistic competitor to TSMC.
| Also CERN's needs cannot be compared to the needs of Amazon,
| Apple, Microsoft, Facebook and the likes. That right there is a
| huge chunk of the world's economy and they all rely on TSMC
| directly or indirectly.
|
| My guess would be this is more about diversifying. I think it
| makes a lot of sense to have factories in the US, Europe and
| Asia, especially given China's stance on Taiwan.
| spaniard89277 wrote:
| Very interesting. Clicking around seems they have open hardware
| suppliers in the EU.
| gsnedders wrote:
| There's also Texas Instruments in Freising (near Munich), which
| I think is ex-NatSemi, and AFAIK now their only European fab
| after the closure of their one in Greenock (Scotland).
| nixass wrote:
| Also Apple is heavily investing into chip design in their
| Munich campus.
| Bombthecat wrote:
| Yeah, just thought that they probably pick munich / near
| munich.
| kken wrote:
| Actually there is a lot of current semi activity in Dresden.
| It's the biggest cluster in Europe.
|
| Notable fabs in Dresden: Globalfoundries, Infineon, Bosch
| (recently opened), X-Fab, First Sensor, Plastic Logic (now
| defunct). May be noteworthy that some of these fabs are among
| the semi fabs with the highest degree of automotation world
| wide.
|
| Add to this many bigger and smaller suppliers, universities,
| reasearch institutes and so on.
|
| https://www.silicon-saxony.de/nc/en/members/sorted-by-alphab...
|
| There are also plenty of Fabs in other parts of Germany:
| Infineon, Bosch, Nexperia, TDK, Osram, TI, X-Fab, Vishay, Elmos
| and some I forgot probably.
|
| There are also many design companies. Especially noteworthy is
| probably Apples modem team that keep growing and growing...
|
| CERN certainly stimulates some semi research, but it is rather
| specialized.
| depereo wrote:
| They'd additionally have a closer base to ASML HQ and more
| opportunities for cross-pollination of talent.
| rurban wrote:
| We don't have enough water anymore in Dresden
| j_walter wrote:
| Didn't stop Intel or TSMC from building in Phoenix...where
| there is literally no water and they are having one of the
| worst droughts ever.
| delfinom wrote:
| They'll just get a government bailout so it's no real
| problem. We are big on corporate socialism
| Phobophobia wrote:
| Corporate socialism. What a loaded phrase. I can't wait
| to use it in different connotations to bring more
| attention to the flip flopping of perspectives on fiscal
| policy between individual and corporate.
| nixass wrote:
| Make it Munich, make it Munich, make it Munich
| sabjut wrote:
| Please no, my rent is already high enough as it is and more
| specialized and skilled technical workers in the area won't
| drive them down.
| mqus wrote:
| But this also means that wages would be higher than in
| Dresden which makes Dresden the more likely location... But
| ultimately it probably comes down to tax credits :D
| ng55QPSK wrote:
| Please not Munich. We're dealing already with an overcrowded
| area where the cost of living and cost of renting apartments is
| exploding and the market of engineers is literally empty.
|
| North of bavaria closer to e.g. Audi in Ingolstadt or BMW in
| lower-bavaria would make more sense.
|
| Still, you could reach Munich by train or 30min drive and 30min
| traffic jam.
| nicbou wrote:
| I'm all for concentrating the problems in a place where I
| don't live.
|
| - A Berliner
| pacificmint wrote:
| Wouldn't Dresden seem more likely? I think after AMD built the
| first fab there in the nineties a lot of suppliers settled
| there as well?
| artemonster wrote:
| I would also like that, but its highly unlikely :) Saxony is
| actively pushing towards becoming "Silicon Saxony". Munich
| established itself as a design hub.
| tobessebot wrote:
| Munich does have Infineon as well and it's closer to lots of
| the eventual customers in the automobile industry.
| ng55QPSK wrote:
| IFX and the split of part of Intel doesn't have Fabs in
| Munich area - but some testing.
| moooo99 wrote:
| But is the automotive industry really the main customers
| for TSMC? Judging by all the news I read about the company,
| the main reason for the hype is that they are always on the
| bleeding edge of semiconductor manufacturing, which isn't
| usually something that you'd find in the automotive sector.
|
| And assuming that the automotive industry is the target
| customer: Volkswagen has their biggest plant in Saxony,
| which is their main EV plant. Also, Saxony is reasonably
| close to Brandenburg where Tesla is currently building
| their factory.
| ng55QPSK wrote:
| Looking closely at the net of motorways, any part of
| germany is in close distance to VW, BWM, Daimler and
| Porsche.
| baybal2 wrote:
| Automotive chips are less than 1% of TSMCs volume, but
| they can shout the loudest, have big pockets, and
| lobbying power.
| orbifold wrote:
| It probably will be Bavaria with subsidies from the COVID
| relief fund. Intel has plans to that effect, as well:
| https://www.eenewseurope.com/news/intel-eyes-bavaria-
| wafer-f....
| ipnon wrote:
| TSMC is really the keystone for everything else done that ends up
| getting talked about on this website. They are constantly at the
| bleeding edge of computer manufacture and pushing it further
| still. We should feel some sense of amazement to be alive still
| in the middle of the computer revolution.
| tester34 wrote:
| Overall semiconducting industry seems to be way more exciting
| than boring computer industry
| thehappypm wrote:
| I've worked on hard science problems and while it's more
| bleeding edge it's all very, very slow moving. You're not
| shipping anything in less than a year, max. And that's OK.
| It's just very glacial and you go VERY deep into the topic.
| artemonster wrote:
| ha! I guess you haven't worked as a designer or verification
| engineer, designing chips then? let me tell you: you work
| with a commitee-designed c++ like abomination language with
| 300 non-composible keywords that make no freaking sense. all
| of that crap grew from legacy-upon-legacy of crutches as an
| attempt to fix the goddamn broken-by-design verilog.
| Ultimately, this craplanguage + library that is 90% non-
| debuggable macros, works only with ~3 vendor simulators (all
| 3 would do different stuff on big designs and you are locked
| almost forever). When you simulate you designs, most of
| external components would be either encrypted blackboxes or
| be calling "magic" functions (called system tasks) that are
| absultely opaque to you and do some global side-effects. All
| of this multiplied by the fact that every statement is
| executed in parallel in your huge design and evolves in time.
| Oh, did I mention how crappy the actual tools are? Think of
| 90's era with outdated and moronic UI/UX, some poorely
| integrated quasi-TCL interpreter for configuration & ability
| to crash that tool in <3 clicks. Ah, you will be paying
| 15kUSD/year per license, thank you very much. You will be
| needing lots of them (> 50).
| lordnacho wrote:
| What's the compensation / benefits / work-life balance
| like?
| dataflow wrote:
| Any thoughts on Chisel?
| artemonster wrote:
| as much as it pains to say me, but IMO its a wasted
| effort. we don't need new design languages. VHDL/Verilog
| "pain points" as RTL are tiny and don't require solving,
| we pretty much figured out design. Verification, on the
| other hand, is still an evolving (now stagnating) mess
| that needs inputs.
|
| The biggest offender on that project list is FIRRTL.
| Cleary outgrew as someone's university work of "hey, lets
| do IR, but for RTL" without knowing anything of the
| industry, tools, etc. At best you can do the same with
| one reduced canonical simplified verilog source-to-source
| translation. at worst it does not do the primary function
| of "being" IR for RTL, because it should've been a graph,
| not another language with simplified syntax.
| GregarianChild wrote:
| Chisel's being hooked into the Java / Scala tool chain
| give makes setting up automated verification pipelines
| much easier:
|
| - You can use SBT or MVM to pull in dependencies
|
| - You can wrap up designs as .jar files
|
| - Powerful testing tools like QuickCheck come ready made
|
| None of the above is rocket science, but simply by being
| there things become easier. without
| knowing anything of the industry, tools,
|
| It's pretty difficult for a student to find out about
| what is actually used in industry. The semi industry's
| secrecy doesn't help. But software and hardware people
| really don't even have a shared language, and
| misunderstand each other's abilities and pain points. The
| very term "verification" is understood quite differently
| between the different communities.
| ekiwi wrote:
| > At best you can do the same with one reduced canonical
| simplified verilog source-to-source translation.
|
| Parsing Verilog and generating valid Verilog is fairly
| difficult. If you want to stay with Verilog, the most
| realistic alternative to firrtl right now is the RTL-IL
| representation used inside of yosys.
|
| > at worst it does not do the primary function of "being"
| IR for RTL, because it should've been a graph, not
| another language with simplified syntax.
|
| Canonicalized LoFirrtl (i.e., the representation the
| compiler lowers Chisel to) is essentially SSA (single
| static assignment) which encodes a dataflow DAG. So on a
| per module level, firrtl does represent the circuit as a
| graph.
|
| What you might be talking about is the fact that this
| graph isn't global. Having a global circuit graph could
| make some analyses easier, but it might require
| essentially in-lining the whole circuit which is
| something a lot of designers are opposed to. Even small
| optimizations like removing unused pins from internal
| modules are often times opposed.
|
| Chris Lattner and others are currently working on an
| "industry" version of firrtl as part of the CIRCT
| hardware compiler framework:
| https://github.com/llvm/circt As you can see they did not
| decide to go with a global graph based IR and instead
| opted to just represent local data-flow graphs as SSA.
| spaniard89277 wrote:
| Hmmm, isn't there people pushing for better standards,
| language, tools?
| Heliosmaster wrote:
| Yes there is. But moving at enterprise speeds. Python
| considered "new" and young. Codebases are 30 to 40 years
| old
| artemonster wrote:
| there are some developments, but mostly you would get new
| additional tool on top of existing stack, rather than a
| new stack.
|
| Problem 1. patents. in early FOSS days people got
| momentum to push hard for corporations to give up
| compiler patents and other obvious nonsense and let GCC
| flourish. same situation is here in hardware, the very
| idea of simulating circuits is a mine field of patents
| and you'd be sued out of existence.
|
| Problem 2. features. there are a lot of features that you
| need to push out a working chip into an existence. open
| source tools or alternatives are SO far behind that they
| cannot be used or can be used only on something really
| small.
|
| Problem 3. verification. there are no (VIABLE! that
| python coco stuff doesnt count!) open-source alternatives
| to UVM (uvm as a library is open source, but there are
| either no simulators that can run it). If we had some of
| the older verificaion languages to go open source (like
| specman, vera), maybe we had a chance.
| adwn wrote:
| > _the very idea of simulating circuits is a mine field
| of patents and you 'd be sued out of existence._
|
| Doesn't that apply to basically every kind of software?
| How's it different for HDL simulation software?
| artemonster wrote:
| the point is that for FOSS there was an active movement
| that forced IBM and old megacorps to forfeit such
| "nonsense" patents. So if you roll out a brand new c++
| compiler you may have some buffs with intel if you try to
| go to their turf about some propreitary x64 specific
| optimizations, but, say, IBM wouldnt sue you because you
| dared to create "a program/method of transforming source
| code into machine code" that violated 250 patents from
| their portfolio.
| adwn wrote:
| I get that, but you wrote:
|
| > _the very idea of simulating circuits is a mine field
| of patents and you 'd be sued out of existence_
|
| Do you think a startup selling a new HDL simulator is any
| more at risk of getting sued than any other software-
| based startup?
|
| Not trying to be combative, I'm genuinely curious.
| artemonster wrote:
| Yes. Happened twice? already
| adwn wrote:
| Really? Wow! Do you happen to remember their names?
| artemonster wrote:
| one remember - "magma automation". they were sued to
| pieces and then bought out
| adwn wrote:
| Thanks!
|
| According to their Wikipedia page, they paid 12.5 M$ to
| settle in 2007 and continued to operate for another 4
| years before being bought for half a billion USD. Not
| exactly what I would consider "sued to pieces" ;-)
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| https://clash-lang.org/ http://www.clifford.at/yosys/
|
| I am hoping we can start proving many if the things they
| brute-force model check today, too.
| Heliosmaster wrote:
| Or working with a 40M Loc codebase started in the 80s with
| 50% code duplication. Because it's so mission critical that
| nobody really touches existing code. Or that everything
| needs to be rubber-stamped by a ton of people and even a
| rename takes months to make it in the codebase. Oh well.
| That's probably every enterprise
| ineedasername wrote:
| _That 's probably every enterprise_
|
| Yep, pretty much any industry or individual organization
| that's been around for 40 years will have decades-old
| cruft complicating attempts to make changes. That's why
| it's good to have some sort of skunkworks unit as well.
| tralarpa wrote:
| As somebody without any experience in that field: When
| you say "codebase", what is that? Is it code describing
| circuit blocks (e.g. an ALU) that is reused in different
| projects or is it code for the tools that you use? (in-
| house tools, plugins for commercial tools, etc.)
| Heliosmaster wrote:
| There are several machines required to make a chip, and
| many steps involved. Those machines are crazy complex and
| accurate (i remember having a precision of around 3 atoms
| of silicon, femtometer scale). I meant firmware fot these
| machines, in general. Crazy complex (and amazing) tools
| with complex software
| baybal2 wrote:
| Pure sarcasm, but no :)
|
| > Overall semiconducting industry seems to be way more
| exciting than boring computer industry
|
| The most groundbreaking things all tech must be about are cat
| video websites, and internet companies :D
|
| People completely forget that were Morris Chang (the previous
| CEO of TSMC,) not been polite, and ethical to a fault, the
| industry would've still be dominated by monster big semis,
| manufacturing every chip around, and who would've milked all
| big chip users like internet companies to death.
|
| I can't imagine Panasonic, Toshiba, Motorola, or AMD of old
| not scheming to squeezing their clients to the last cent, and
| strategizing to prevent clients from gaining negotiating
| power.
|
| TSMC's benevolent stance in comparison to that would be
| almost bordering on charity.
| openandshut wrote:
| >still in the middle of the computer revolution Are you
| implying it will end? Either Moore's law leveling off or an
| externality (unrest/war/climate change) that ends it?
| grlass wrote:
| Not to mention the people who design many of the machines that
| TSMC use in their plants: ASML.
|
| "The mirrors guiding this light, made of sandwiched layers of
| silicon and molybdenum, are ground so precisely that, if scaled
| to the size of Germany, they would have no bumps bigger than a
| millimetre" <https://www.economist.com/business/2020/02/29/how-
| asml-becam...>
| lispm wrote:
| and ASML works together with Trumpf (lasers) and Zeiss
| (optics).
| quakeguy wrote:
| And the silicon ingots come from Wacker-Chemie.
| ineedasername wrote:
| That's a good start, but ASML may want to call in Rick [0] on
| this one to go a little further
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQoRfieZJxI
| vijayr02 wrote:
| Looks like countries are the intuitive units to capture
| deviations at this level of scale. From NASA's web page about
| the mirrors in the James Webb telescope [0]:
|
| "That means if the continental United States was polished
| smooth to the same tolerances, the entire country - from
| Maine to California - would not vary in thickness by just
| over two inches!"
|
| Given the US is roughly 27 times the area of Germany, looks
| like semiconductor manufacturing requires roughly double the
| accuracy of space telescopes (1 mm * 27 is slightly more than
| 1 inch)
|
| [0] https://www.nasa.gov/topics/technology/features/webb-
| craft.h...
| apendleton wrote:
| Hm, I think the magnitude in the z direction would scale
| with the magnitude in the x direction or the y direction,
| rather than with the area (x*y), right?
| sdiepend wrote:
| And don't forget to mention imec in Leuven where lot's
| research and development gets done for ASML:
| https://www.imec-int.com/en/about-us https://www.imec-
| int.com/en/infrastructure
| NicoJuicy wrote:
| You forget Imec in Belgium, which does a lot of the R&D in
| semiconductors.
|
| I suspect lot of the production facilities would want to be
| near them.
|
| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-07-13/u-s-
| and-c...
| cma wrote:
| Don't forget DARPA, DoE, and US semiconductor industry
| funding EUV LLC in the 90s:
|
| https://www.intel.com/pressroom/archive/releases/1997/CN0911.
| ..
| Animats wrote:
| Nobody has yet come up with a better approach to generating
| focused soft X-rays than that tin plasma nightmare. The
| "light source" today is the size of a 3-story house to get
| 250W on target. One of the main reasons wafer fabs now cost
| so much.
|
| There must be a better way.
| baybal2 wrote:
| > The "light source" today is the size of a 3-story house
| to get 250W on target. One of the main reasons wafer fabs
| now cost so much.
|
| Yes, EUV machines are said to increase fab electricity
| consumption few times over, over regular UV steppers.
|
| > There must be a better way.
|
| The better way may well be worse. The alternative proposal
| is to build the whole fab around a synchrotron.
| Animats wrote:
| There are several "tabletop synchrotron" projects, but as
| yet none with the right output for an IC fab. Hopefully
| someone will solve this problem.
| baybal2 wrote:
| Synchrotrons would not be better by much. Efficiencies
| will still be just above single digits, which still means
| multimegawatt light sources.
|
| That's still better than tens of megawatt light sources.
| sveme wrote:
| Those mirrors (like all of ASML's optics) are actually
| developed and made by Carl Zeiss. And the lasers come from
| Trumpf.
| bschne wrote:
| Extremely naive question, but I always wonder how you can
| "bootstrap" this kind of precision -- intuitively for
| something to be this precise, the tools and equipment that
| "create" it should also have to be more or less equally
| precise.
|
| Or is it a matter of manufacturing it, testing it, and
| rejecting some percentage of things that don't fit your
| requirements due to imprecisions?
|
| Are there any good background resources on how some of these
| things are done?
| rosetremiere wrote:
| Look at the <<Whitworth three plate method>>. As far as I
| understand, it should allow a <<gain>> in precision.
| nudgeee wrote:
| On a very high level, a good place to start is on Metrology
| -- the science of measurement [0].
|
| Test, measurement and calibration equipment for new
| technologies (think 5G/UWB, mmWave, even up to CERN LHC)
| can be right on the cutting edge of technology. Companies
| who specialize in these areas tend to have large budgets on
| research and commercialization.
|
| [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrology
| Lev1a wrote:
| From what I've seen as an amateur that is yet fascinated by
| mechanical engineering: iteratively work up to the
| precision limits with your current methods then try to
| find/research a (slightly) better way of measuring and/or
| manufacturing. Since humanity has worked up to this point
| over centuries/millenia, you wouldn't need to "bootstrap"
| it from the beginning anymore, just choose the appropriate
| level of (manufacturing/measuring) precision for your
| usecase. Otherwise start with a surface plate.
|
| Nice summary:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNRnrn5DE58 ("Origins of
| Precision" by "Machine Thinking")
| _pmf_ wrote:
| This is a beautiful video!
| ashergill wrote:
| You might enjoy this video, 'Origins of Precision'.
| https://youtu.be/gNRnrn5DE58
| symmetricsaurus wrote:
| Take three somewhat flat stones to start out. Alternate
| rubbing the surfaces together in a random fashion. As you
| continue the high spots of the stones will be ground down
| and the surfaces will become flatter and flatter. In the
| end you can get very precise flat surfaces.
|
| Two stones is not enough, you can then end up with two
| spherical surfaces. With three this isn't possible (imagine
| two of them are convex, when you rub them together they
| will grind eachother down and become less convex).
| Akronymus wrote:
| Obligatory machine thinking:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNRnrn5DE58
|
| Altough, I disagree with the "random fashion".
| Alternating the pairs AB -> BC -> CA seems more logical
| to me.
| etrautmann wrote:
| or a long-form textbook on the foundations of mechanical
| accuracy. Someone linked to this a year ago and I found
| it a fascinating deep dive:
|
| https://pearl-
| hifi.com/06_Lit_Archive/15_Mfrs_Publications/M...
| reportingsjr wrote:
| It is necessary to grind in a random fashion (OP is
| talking about the method of grinding, not the order), or
| you will end up with imperfections. Lots of info about
| this if you look in to grinding mirrors for telescopes.
|
| Also, the order being random wouldn't effect the end
| result.
| platz wrote:
| When grinding the concave plate why didn't that make then
| other flat plate convex again?
| jlokier wrote:
| As the sibling comment explains, it does make the other
| flat plate convex, but by a smaller amount. Their shapes
| sort of average out.
|
| I'll add that this depends on the materials having
| similar properties, so when ground together, they are
| grinding _each other_. This means whatever residual shape
| you have in one of them, it won 't be transferred
| completely to the other.
|
| If the materials had very different hardnesses, one of
| them would dominate over the other when they're ground
| together.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| It did - but less so than the original was concave. By
| rubbing them together, you're effectively "averaging out"
| the convex / concavenesses.
| openandshut wrote:
| If it's a machine doing the grinding, what is the source
| of randomness?
| ruined wrote:
| input
| dylan604 wrote:
| function setPostion(float x=random(), float y=random()){}
| DougBTX wrote:
| With images:
| https://ericweinhoffer.com/blog/2017/7/30/the-whitworth-
| thre...
| was_a_dev wrote:
| _That is, one plate remains stationary while the other is
| lapped against it, and then the opposite is performed_
|
| Is it a strict requirement that one plate remains
| stationary?
| totalZero wrote:
| In relative terms, one of the two plates remains
| stationary even if both are moving.
| dataflow wrote:
| > intuitively for something to be this precise, the tools
| and equipment that "create" it should also have to be more
| or less equally precise.
|
| Very reasonable assumption that I used to have too.
| (Un?)fortunately it's also wrong, or at best, incomplete.
| :-) e.g., maybe you don't have the technology to make
| precisely straight lines, but if you can make a flat
| surface (like paper), then you can fold it in half and get
| a straight line. Then fold that in half and get a pretty-
| close-to-90-degree angle.
|
| I also vaguely recall that feedback can increase precision
| in a system... like you can get 2% accuracy with a circuit
| that has only 5%-accurate resistors by using feedback (or
| something along those lines). Unfortunately I no longer
| recall how this is done. I just remember my mind was blown
| when I learned it.
| samus wrote:
| You mention it already - bootstrapping. Always optimising,
| always correcting for yet another flaw in materials,
| processing, environmental conditions, quality control and
| usage procedures. Usually, it is helpful that there are
| multiple ways to do a particular thing that can be used to
| calibrate each other. Also, there are physical processes
| that can produce high-quality surface finishes that can be
| used for calibration tasks, for example by splitting
| crystals. The resulting shapes are dependent on the crystal
| lattice, and improvements in material purity reduce any
| irregularities.
|
| A more general approach is to understand measurement as a
| process where a minute signal has to be amplified to be
| more easily evaluated. There are many such methods.
|
| In the case of surface metrology, Coherence scanning
| interferometry is such a method which uses the properties
| of interfering light waves to directly visualize surface
| anomalies as bands of lights. Another, more direct method
| is to drag a stylus across the surface and to amplify
| variations in position. Sort of like a turntable does.
| throw0101a wrote:
| > _Are there any good background resources on how some of
| these things are done?_
|
| For a cultural history of precision see _The
| Perfectionists: How Precision Engineers Created the Modern
| World_ by Simon Winchester:
|
| * https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35068671-the-
| perfectioni...
|
| * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvOEcyYsiHc
| magicalhippo wrote:
| On a related note, there's the powerful technique of doing
| things in a way where the factor(s) that are difficult to
| measure or control cancel out.
|
| Examples of this is the device[1] used for the redefined
| kilogram[2], LIGO[3] and many others.
|
| [1]: https://www.nist.gov/si-redefinition/kilogram-kibble-
| balance
|
| [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_redefinition_of_the
| _SI_ba...
|
| [3]: https://www.ligo.caltech.edu/LA/page/faq (first
| question)
| imtringued wrote:
| >Extremely naive question, but I always wonder how you can
| "bootstrap" this kind of precision -- intuitively for
| something to be this precise, the tools and equipment that
| "create" it should also have to be more or less equally
| precise.
|
| You can build a machine like that and most machines are
| built like that because simply reproducing the precision
| that is already in the machine is cheaper than building a
| complex intelligent system that knows how to compensate for
| flaws in precision. Think about how many 3d printers do
| auto leveling in software rather than simply make the bed
| perpendicular to the print head by hand. Those old manual
| milling machines and lathes didn't have all that fancy
| software so they simply reproduced their own flaws.
|
| Well, given a smart enough human he can compensate for the
| flaws in the tools and get to a higher degree of precision.
| baybal2 wrote:
| > Extremely naive question, but I always wonder how you can
| "bootstrap" this kind of precision
|
| Scraping https://www.toyoda.com/news-events/rpd-blog-the-
| importance-o...
| selimthegrim wrote:
| Simon Winchester's book "The Perfectionists" [1] is a good
| popular level intro to Maudsley, Whitworth et al.
|
| [1] https://www.amazon.com/Exactly-Precision-Engineers-
| Created-M...
| selimthegrim wrote:
| NB: I guess he changed the title to Exactly for the
| paperback release.
| arwhatever wrote:
| How big would the bumps be if the layers were scaled to the
| size of Texas? :-)
| dirtyid wrote:
| Wonder how much TSMC Biontech vaccine deal influenced decision.
| Assume some level of gov involvement considering Germany was
| annoyed that US car manufactures got first dibs during shortage.
| MangoCoffee wrote:
| >TSMC Biontech vaccine deal influenced decision
|
| that'll be really stupid to build billion dollar fab just
| because of that. Japan can sell/donate AZ vaccine since they
| have a deal with AZ and American can sell moderna which Taiwan
| bought. either way, it is a really stupid business decision if
| that's case.
| dirtyid wrote:
| In context of broader geopolitical developments, it was also
| "really stupid" for TSMC to build new US fabs after already
| planning record capex in TW proper in 2019. Few thought TW
| would erode their silicon shield by allow TSMC to expand fabs
| abroad. Right now both US/EU wants to reshore semi supply
| chain, and both have the leverage to coerce TSMC/TW into
| submitting against their own interests since TSMC is wholey
| reliant on US/EU tech. Side considerations like semi
| subsidies and vaccines are there to sweeten pot. The timing
| is interesting since this follows shortly after TSMC Biontech
| deal. IMO there was never any doubt EU would get TSMC
| expansion, question was who had the leverage to determine
| where. Most of interviews by Morris Chang suggest he's not
| enthused about fragmenting supply chains, yet we keep seeing
| new fabs outside of TW being proposed. Whether these
| proposals are serious or performative is another qusetion.
| Havoc wrote:
| It does make some sort of sense if you're trying to stay clear of
| the US/China catfight & EU is not a bad place to start in that
| regard. Plus it ticks the box of EU origin, which is interesting
| in itself if you want to expand there.
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