[HN Gopher] Samsung plans $17B chip plant in Taylor, Texas
___________________________________________________________________
Samsung plans $17B chip plant in Taylor, Texas
Author : kungfudoi
Score : 411 points
Date : 2021-11-24 15:01 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.datacenterdynamics.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.datacenterdynamics.com)
| radium3d wrote:
| Nice, so they can be powered by Tesla's megapack / solar and ship
| chips directly to Tesla Terafactory via Boring tunnel! Cybertruck
| manufacturing is looking green
| diveanon wrote:
| Seems strange to build a chip plant in a place that can't even
| provide power to its citizens in winter.
| theduder99 wrote:
| I guess they know something you don't huh.
| diveanon wrote:
| No, seems like we are all pretty aware of the kickbacks and
| bribery.
| otrahuevada wrote:
| it makes perfect sense to have a factory right on your most
| critical client, even leaving the typically american grandiose
| fantasies of apocalyptic destruction aside.
|
| It even nets them a cool 3 billion dollars to do so, which I'm
| fairly sure is very welcome given Samsung's history of
| reinvesting this kinds of money for political gain.
|
| I do wonder why this isn't more common though, pretty much every
| gigantic company already has an administrative arm in the US, it
| sounds like it'd make sense to move at least some of their
| production side there too.
| eigen wrote:
| Are they doing package and test at this fab or do they need to
| ship parts out to somewhere else, likely another country,
| before the client can use them?
| otrahuevada wrote:
| Article doesn't say? I sure hope they do, if not in place, at
| least relatively locally, as that would point towards a
| bigger, more interesting commitment.
| bell-cot wrote:
| When it is an incredibly expensive factory, requiring an
| incredible level of technical expertise to operate, and air
| freight from anywhere on earth to your biggest client is
| scarcely a rounding error in the price of the finished products
| - then NO, it makes no sense to put the factory next to the
| client.
| otrahuevada wrote:
| On one hand, I misspoke. The US is not their biggest market,
| just a strategically _very_ important foothold in the
| continent, making and breaking financial decisions that
| impact every other country.
|
| On the other, do you happen to have sources for all that?
| Specifically,
|
| - That the cost of this plant is going to be in any way
| excessive/odd compared to, say, TSMC's plant basically next
| door
|
| - That the level of technical expertise required is
| inordinately hard to train in the US
|
| - That the air freight from (also, why air freight
| specifically?) prices to and from there are a constant,
| easily disregardable thing and will continue to be so
|
| Would help a lot to ground the conversation in reality a
| little bit more.
| newaccount2021 wrote:
| within ten years, the I35 corridor will be the most intensive
| economic region in North America
| markus_zhang wrote:
| That's a reasonable point.
| josaka wrote:
| After the TX grid failure last winter, it's probably not a
| coincidence that Samsung's new facility will be near ERCOT's
| operation center in Taylor, which manages the TX grid, and will
| likely be the last load to shed when the grid's stressed. Used to
| work in the Austin fab, and the amount of money lost per minute
| in a power failure is mind boggling. The tax breaks Taylor
| offered ($314m) are not that different from what Samsung was
| reported to have lost due to the grid failure ($270m).
| 5faulker wrote:
| As more and more companies start to invest in Texas there is
| more demand in tigetening the grid to avoid future
| catastrophes.
| 0_____0 wrote:
| tangentially related bit of trivium... when i was house hunting
| a looked at a house across from a fire station, and upon doing
| research about what it's like to live across from one, found
| that a.) they tend not to blast sirens upon exiting the
| station, in contrast to living near a hospital with an ED, and
| b.) the power grid segments that fire stations are on have
| priority and are less likely to lose power during blackouts.
| emodendroket wrote:
| I used to live a mile or two away from a hospital and getting
| the lights back on before everyone else was nice.
| m0zg wrote:
| > the power grid segments that fire stations are on have
| priority and are less likely to lose power during blackouts
|
| So do large grocery stores, for obvious reasons.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I lived in an area that lost power every time there was a
| stiff breeze. This was back in the 1990s, when we still used
| telephone modems. I blew up 3 of them. 2, even with surge
| protectors.
|
| But power came back quickly, because I was on the same trunk
| as the fire station.
| shortstuffsushi wrote:
| I wonder if the siren thing varies from location to location,
| a good friend of mine lived right next to one and it seemed
| you couldn't go 15 minutes without being drown out by them
| heading out.
| ddingus wrote:
| A conversation may yield better too. If they know they are
| waking a day sleeper, for example.
|
| I know I would attempt one. Try nice and some charm and see
| what comes of it. May end up popular with neighbors.
| mindcrime wrote:
| _I wonder if the siren thing varies from location to
| location,_
|
| In my experience (former firefighter here), it absolutely
| does. It also varies by call type, time of day, etc. So if
| we got a call at 2:00 AM and there was no traffic on the
| road near the station, we might leave the station with no
| siren out of respect for the people trying to sleep in the
| homes very close to the station. This would be more true if
| the call was a lower priority call in the first place. OTOH
| though, if the call as "residential structure fire with
| occupants reported trapped" our focus would not be on
| sleeping neighbors and there's a better chance that we'd be
| getting on the Q pretty much right out the door.
|
| Another factor for us was that our station was right next
| to an intersection that was very busy at times, and known
| for many traffic accidents. So any call where we had to
| turn left (towards the intersection) out of the parking
| lot, there was a better chance we'd be hitting the siren
| and air-horn pretty much right from the jump.
|
| Anyway, yeah, net-net, this is going to vary based on lots
| of factors: department policy / culture, geography, time,
| traffic, etc, yadda yadda.
| 41b696ef1113 wrote:
| >getting on the Q pretty much right out the door
|
| Q?
| howdydoo wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q2B
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| If the fire station is located on a busy road or near a
| blind curve, turning on the siren when exiting might be a
| good policy. Out on a county road with good sight lines and
| low traffic? They can wait until they're going at a
| hazardous speed or intersection.
|
| My main concern would be all of the communications
| equipment they typically have. Being that close to high
| powered transmitters can cause annoying interference.
| mynameisash wrote:
| Not just a good policy -- my wife is a former EMT &
| firefighter in MN, and at least there, apparently it's
| the law that fire trucks blast their horns at every
| intersection. Whether this is required when they leave
| the fire hall and turn onto the first road, I don't know.
| jws wrote:
| My office is adjacent to a fire station. The policy has
| changed over the years. They used to use the sirens all the
| time. Now they almost never use the sirens when they leave.
| In a way that makes it more disturbing when they do, you
| know there's a reason.
|
| Other things which are bothersome about a firehouse...
|
| * They put the communications radio on some sort of loud
| speaker sometimes, so you get to listen to all the calls in
| the city.
|
| * They have some sort of turbine that runs a lot. Maybe a
| hose dryer? I haven't gone to ask, but when I used to do
| audio recordings there were days we couldn't record because
| of it.
|
| * Their backup generator optimizes efficiency by minimizing
| the muffler. The tests are pretty loud.
|
| * The building department made me block up the windows on
| their side because I was too close to the property line and
| a fire might spread to the fire station. I say if the fire
| department can't keep fire from coming out my window and
| setting fire to their building 60 feet away, that's at
| least partly their fault. :-)
|
| * They are a multi-tier bureaucracy. When their tree slowly
| fell over on to my building it took many months to get them
| to admit it was their tree and maybe they should cut it
| down. Lots of finger pointing between the fire department
| and various city levels and a few "dead parrot"
| conversations with different functionaries.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| In NJ they go off all the time to alert the volunteers not
| at the station, and it's used for all emergencies, not just
| fires that need trucks to roll out.
| zrm wrote:
| Doesn't it cost less than that amount of money to have on-site
| backup power?
| bell-cot wrote:
| This...but did Samsung quietly negotiate a "any further energy
| supply f*ck-ups are 100% on YOUR dime" deal with the State of
| Texas, or what? By several accounts, the TX grid got darn close
| to collapse last winter - at which point "ERCOT Op Center is
| next door, and we get top priority" would not get you a single
| erg.
| 88840-8855 wrote:
| What finance guy will ever approve this? I doubt that the
| service agreement would ever be approved with that clause.
| kurthr wrote:
| LOL, the current political heads for the state of Texas
| (and county of Taylor) will happily trade future liability
| of their constituents for investment now (and kickbacks
| later). Honestly, I think Samsung's management is more
| comfortable in this sort of "political" environment than
| many others.
|
| If you watch local news reporting, it's hilarious that they
| (politicians) have no idea what the "factory" does. I'm
| personally highly doubtful that a fab which hasn't broken
| ground will be producing viable 5nm at the 2H of 2024 as
| claimed (or cyber trucks for that matter).
| DavidPeiffer wrote:
| Surely there's an insurance company that would take on that
| risk, and the government could pay for it. These government
| incentives are rife with excessive spending on a per-
| job/total economic impact basis. I see no reason why this
| detail would derail things.
| dylan604 wrote:
| You might want to do some research into the people in
| charge. You're kind of implying that those people would
| listen to bean counters over their pollsters. This is where
| the flaw in your logic is located. Also, you're using logic
| in the first place ;-)
| Kaytaro wrote:
| I was surprised the power outage affected Samsung because in
| DFW the outage only affected residential areas. I didn't see
| a single commercial/industrial space without power including
| fully lit empty parking lots.
| throw0101a wrote:
| > erg
|
| For anyone wondering, this is a unit of energy (100 nJ):
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erg
| tyingq wrote:
| FWIW, the problem wasn't a generalized grid management
| problem. It was a failure to properly winterize gas plants
| for rare freezing events. The Texas grid itself is in
| reasonable shape as far as I know.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| "The grid" tends to refer to more than just the
| transmission wires.
| tyingq wrote:
| That seems unnecessarily sarcastic. I wasn't saying just
| the "wires". I was trying to shed more light on what the
| actual problem was.
| bumby wrote:
| Tbf, lots of people conflate transmission wires with "the
| grid". Even on a fairly tech-savvy forum like HN, I've
| read where people insinuate things like if all ICE
| vehicles were suddenly replaced with EV, all "the grid"
| would need is more wires running to charging stations.
|
| Maybe people consider the grid distinct from all the
| supporting infrastructure.
| manigandham wrote:
| "The grid" never refers to just the transmission wires.
| xxpor wrote:
| For anyone interested, FERC basically just said this as
| well in their report on the outage.
|
| https://www.ferc.gov/media/february-2021-cold-weather-
| outage...
|
| Of course they said a bunch of things and made a bunch of
| recommendations the last time ERCOT fucked up, and they
| didn't listen to nearly any of them, so I would expect the
| same this time.
| adrianmonk wrote:
| Also, as I understand it, there's another "grid" which
| failed, which is the network of natural gas wells and
| pipelines. Natural gas wasn't being pulled out of the
| ground and pumped to the electric generation plants.
|
| Apparently natural gas isn't easy to store, so basically
| there's not a lot of buffer, and everything needs to stay
| online or there won't be any natural gas to burn at power
| plants even if they were winterized, which some of them
| were.
|
| I think some power plants may have even just shut down
| because natural gas was available but too expensive, and
| they weren't under a legal obligation to keep producing
| electricity.
|
| Point being, to solve the problem, winterization of plants
| is just part of the problem.
| chrisco255 wrote:
| The natural gas load was nearly double it's average load,
| because the entire state of Texas was below freezing for
| a week solid and almost nobody has gas heat in Texas.
| Everyone was pulling on inefficient electric heaters to
| warm their house. And the Windmills, which power about
| 22% of the Texas grid, went almost entirely offline.
| ironchef wrote:
| "Almost nobody has gas heat in Texas" That's incorrect.
| Approximately a third have gas heat per
| https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=47116
| jkestner wrote:
| The going deal is, if there's a power failure, we'll let you
| recoup your costs from the taxpayers even as you profiteer.
| The governor can be bought for a very affordable $1 million.
| Certainly the incentives are aligned to solve this problem!
| https://www.texasobserver.org/after-kelcy-warrens-energy-
| tra...
| scottcodie wrote:
| It remains to be seen if shifting the cost to taxpayers is
| harmful to the economy or not.
| eigenman wrote:
| ...but it will almost certainly hurt the taxpayers as a
| whole.
| SQueeeeeL wrote:
| Hacker news comment of the year
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| johnchristopher wrote:
| Isn't Samsung big enough to simply ask permissions to build
| their own nuclear reactor at that point ? Or wind turbine farms
| or whatever ?
| hutzlibu wrote:
| A new nuclear plant cost billions and takes years to get
| permission and construction to complete. I assume they rather
| want to make chips, soon.
| dboreham wrote:
| Reactors and wind farms still need a grid.
| johnchristopher wrote:
| Not if they are only interested in getting power to their
| factories ^^.
| wonderwonder wrote:
| They are setting up fairly close to Tesla. Wonder if they are
| working on a deal for Tesla to provide battery backup.
| Interestingly enough Austin, TX appears to be rapidly
| approaching SF status as a tech hub and may soon surpass them.
| Its an interesting thing to watch and really gives insight into
| how politics and taxes affect business and growth.
| tfehring wrote:
| The Bay Area had something like 20x as much VC investment as
| Austin as of 2017 [0]. This article [1] indicates that the
| trend is probably in Austin's favor, as I'd expect, but it
| also shows that Austin isn't even in the top 10 nationally
| (unless they lump it in with San Antonio?) by deal count as
| of 2020.
|
| [0] https://pitchbook.com/news/articles/the-bay-area-beyond-
| rank...
|
| [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/14/silicon-valleys-share-of-
| ven...
| kodah wrote:
| I don't know about SV status but I think it's getting there.
| Other tech hubs still extract graduates out of the state at
| an alarming rate and last I checked compensation wasn't close
| to SV (even with normalization for cost of living). It'll
| take a good bit of time to undo SV but the ball is rolling.
| bob1029 wrote:
| > Wonder if they are working on a deal for Tesla to provide
| battery backup.
|
| Running an entire leading edge semiconductor plant on battery
| backup is a crazy proposition in my view. Especially, for
| intentions of surviving another Texas winter situation
| without any disruption to operations. Approximately 24 hours
| of full-coverage battery backup would have been required to
| bridge the rolling blackouts.
|
| Last I checked (about a decade ago), the SAS A2/S2 lines
| accounted for ~13% of the electrical load for the _entire
| city of Austin_. Just look at the amount of power _one_ EUV
| light source requires today. These lines will have
| potentially dozens moving forward. Then consider that all of
| the photo area accounts for a tiny fraction of total power
| consumption in one of these plants.
|
| If it were even remotely feasible for the Samsung
| semiconductor lines to operate on standby generator power,
| they would have installed these units already and no losses
| would have been incurred.
|
| They might as well be smelting aluminum behind those walls.
| Any backup generator power or UPS devices are designed for
| life safety and stopping the line without causing 10+ figure
| losses. You cannot run one of these facilities on in-house
| power. Another commenter proposed a nuclear reactor
| installation. This is actually not a terrible idea once you
| understand the scale. Putting 10-15 semiconductor lines
| around a nuke plant makes perfect sense to me.
| throwaway95118 wrote:
| I'm a big fan of Tesla and Mr. Musk - but does anyone know of
| any non-vaporware large scale industrial facilities that use
| Tesla battery walls as power backup? Do Tesla manufacturing
| plants do this?
| borgel wrote:
| Not sure about industrial, but they have grid scale battery
| storage with their Megapack product. Hornsdale in Australia
| has been operating for a few years.
| https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/tesla-
| fulfills-...
| wonderwonder wrote:
| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-03-08/tesla-
| is-...
|
| Not quite what you were asking about but it does deal with
| the TX grid.
| nodicksplease wrote:
| care to share any sources? or did you just make this up?
| shmatt wrote:
| Yes, they made it up
|
| According to wikipedia/some google-fu SV has just above
| double the high tech jobs as Austin
| wonderwonder wrote:
| According to wikipedia/some google-fu Silicon Valley has
| a population of ~ 3 million people while Austin has a
| population of just under a million. Your numbers support
| my comment that you say I "Just made up"
| distribot wrote:
| That would be way more high tech jobs in Austin per
| capita.
| wonderwonder wrote:
| Make what up, The Tesla link? I just asked the question, I
| have no info either way, notice I said "Wonder if".
| nodicksplease wrote:
| > rapidly approaching sf status. That should be a
| quantifiable metric?
| wonderwonder wrote:
| Austin has seen a 40+ % increase in tech jobs in a decade
| and has recently attracted major companies like Tesla and
| oracle to headquarter there while the majority of FAANG
| companies are building large campuses there.
|
| This site does a pretty good job: https://sfciti.org/sf-
| tech-exodus/
|
| Article from the SF Chronicle:
| https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Austin-COVID-
| tec...
|
| Hopefully that addresses your question as to why I hold
| this opinion.
| picardo wrote:
| What are some interesting startups in Austin area?
| dawsmik wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Hills
| killjoywashere wrote:
| > Interestingly enough Austin, TX appears to be rapidly
| approaching SF status as a tech hub and may soon surpass
| them.
|
| Uh, maybe it's time to take a drive through Austin, but that
| was a pretty sleepy little college town 10 years ago. Most of
| my family lives in the central Texas region (San Antonio, San
| Carlos, College Station), and I presently live in Mountain
| View. I have a hard time believing SF-scale infrastructure
| was built that fast.
|
| As an example, here's the UT wind tunnel:
| http://research.ae.utexas.edu/floimlab/Mach5.php
|
| Here's the Moffett wind tunnel complex: https://www.nasa.gov/
| centers/ames/multimedia/images/2005/nfa...
| dawsmik wrote:
| I think he may have meant in terms of software companies.
| Many of them do not require a wind tunnel.
| wonderwonder wrote:
| I primarily meant software, computer manufacturing (chips,
| etc. ) style jobs but the fact that you went with wind
| tunnels is awesome :) You will always be cool in my books
| for this comment.
| joe5150 wrote:
| I don't think wind tunnels (of which these seem like
| fundamentally different types) are a great example for this
| argument.
| kwillets wrote:
| +1 for comparing wind tunnel capacity. Also TX has no
| dirigible hangars.
| msisk6 wrote:
| The ERCOT campus has their own generation capability along with
| sitting between two distribution grids. Same with their DR site
| in Bastrop. In the case of a black start condition (grid
| totally down), ERCOT would need to come up first to coordinate
| the grid restoration.
|
| Taylor is an ideal place for a large manufacturing operation
| since it's close to major highways and railroads, not too far
| from Austin, and land is very cheap.
| awsthro00945 wrote:
| I really doubt proximity to the ERCOT center has anything to do
| with it. The new facility isn't close enough at all to the
| ERCOT center to be on the same grid segment. And with a new
| facility like this that is in the middle of a field outside of
| town, the new fab will be built on its own grid segment anyway,
| completely separate from the rest of Taylor and the ERCOT
| center.
|
| Taylor was chosen because that area (northeast of Austin, just
| south of Taylor) is one of the last areas near Austin that has
| abundant amounts of wide open fields ready to be developed.
| They also got a good deal on the water usage, and of course the
| tax breaks from Williamson County.
| seltzered_ wrote:
| Do you have any thoughts on how water availability will be in
| the years/decades to come and how a fab would impact it and
| the communities depending on it?
|
| My understanding is when you cross east past round rock
| towards Hutto/Taylor, the water aquifer being used changes to
| use water piped over from Carrizo-Wilcox aquifer.
| awsthro00945 wrote:
| Newer fabs like this recycle a huge portion of their water.
| I did some back of the napkin math a few weeks ago and the
| amount of water that the fab will be drawing (after
| accounting for the recycling) will be about the same as the
| water usage of an equivalently-sized suburban neighborhood.
| So while water usage is definitely a concern, I'm not sure
| that this fab is a bigger concern than your typical
| neighborhoods or farms.
| samstave wrote:
| Two things:
|
| Terrorist #1: FOCUS ON THAT PLANT ANT TAKE IT OUT!!
|
| ---
|
| Second thing:
|
| WHY THE FUCK ARENT THESE COMPANIES BUILDING THEIR OWN POWER
| PLANTS?
| bloodyplonker22 wrote:
| Three things:
|
| why would a terrorist take it out when they could take out a
| ton of other higher priority targets?
|
| Why would a company waste tons of money to build a power
| plant when they could just use an existing power plant. It
| may not be 100% reliable, but it's a hell of a lot better
| than wasting tons of money building their own.
|
| Lastly, thanks for the completely nonsensical post and typing
| in all caps like it is a no-brainer when it's obviously not.
| russellbeattie wrote:
| Why in the world would Samsung choose Texas? Does that seem like
| a state with a functioning stable government, and well informed
| citizenry? No.
|
| So, Texas most likely won this investment by loads of tax
| incentives, side deals, offers to cut red tape (like those pesky
| environmental impact reports), and massive, massive graft.
|
| I guarantee that in the future we're going to read about how this
| particular investment is an environmental nightmare, in the end
| cost taxpayers billions, added little to the economy and only
| benefit was to make a few local politicians insanely wealthy.
|
| Remember, Texas went to the supreme court in an attempt to
| INVALIDATE the democratic votes of other states. They are barely
| part of the US any more, so I don't even consider this a win on a
| national basis.
|
| I really hope Samsung pulls out of the deal.
| cronix wrote:
| This is a great first step. The more fabs that are built here,
| the more supply chains that feed them will follow. Supply chains
| tend to follow the manufacturers where feasible. This will
| eventually improve things even more for the other high tech
| companies in the state as they do move supply chains closer to
| production. Texas has been making some pretty substantial long
| term investments in the last few years. If you don't plant trees
| today, you won't have shade to sit beneath 20 years from now. The
| best time to start is often yesterday. These things take time and
| a great deal of capital and I'm glad to see some places are
| moving forward.
| frellus wrote:
| Let's be clear why this is happening though, and where the credit
| is due: Trump's push for on-shore manufacturing, Gov. Abbot, and
| the attractiveness of Texas for a plant and FDI. $17B and 2,000
| jobs and, even more importantly, one less dependency put in
| China.
|
| Democrats would probably want to do years of environmental
| reviews. That's why you won't see anyone putting manufacturing in
| California anytime soon.
| paxys wrote:
| California has a wide lead (over 10% share in the US) in the
| industrial sector, so this narrative is false. More factories
| are still set up in California today than Texas.
| eximius wrote:
| Nobody is against on-shore manufacturing and the infrastructure
| bill will probably assist in the construction of this, not to
| mention gov private business subsidies being a massive point of
| hypocrisy for the GOP.
| JavaBatman wrote:
| I am still amazed by the shortsightedness of how these critical
| and strategic goods are off-shore. No wonder why the supply
| chains are fragile and not robust. It should be illegal for
| strategic goods and components such as chips and semiconductors
| to be produced offshore. Yes, it will raise prices in the short
| and medium-term, but it will make the domestic economy and
| manufacturing sector more robust, resilient to supply shocks, and
| antifragile.
|
| We need a true industrial policy and state capitalist system
| similar to what Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore have.
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| Well, we would actually have to rein in the oligarchs and
| puncture the asset bubbles to do that, and I think we have 0
| stomach for either.
|
| Our public transit woes also demonstrate how little US politics
| cares about details, and how much they stomp all over the
| independence of a civil service that would.
| kragen wrote:
| > _I am still amazed by the shortsightedness of how these
| critical and strategic goods are off-shore._
|
| You're not half as amazed as Xi is.
|
| > _Yes, it will raise prices in the short and medium-term,_
|
| Right now we have cutting-edge fabs in Taiwan and Korea. If we
| were to follow your recommendation, we would also have them in
| PRC, USA, Japan, Germany, the UK, India, France, Italy, Canada,
| and Russia, at least. In fact, that's more or less how things
| used to be. The difficulty is that this would mean increasing
| world fab investment by a factor of 6, which would probably
| make them all unprofitable until chip prices also increased by
| a factor of 6. Permanently.
|
| However, there _is_ still one country that uses this policy:
| North Korea.
| throw10920 wrote:
| > We need a true industrial policy and state capitalist system
| similar to what Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore have.
|
| You forgot China. If you institute strong controls over
| industry in a country the size (and culture) of America, you
| won't get Japan, you'll get China, and the corresponding anti-
| features of their system (such as authoritarianism in general,
| and companies acting as agents of the state in particular).
|
| Very few people want that, and certainly not me.
|
| There are far better ways to build robust manufacturing systems
| than complete government control.
| foobarian wrote:
| There are some uncomfortable questions raised here. Why is it
| desirable to build "robust manufacturing systems?" Why was it
| desirable to overengineer appliances to last decades in the
| 50s, other than "the designers felt it was the proper way to
| do it" and there was no market pressure to steer them
| otherwise. How many resources were wasted on such appliances
| over those decades?
|
| If the supply chains have very little slack and products are
| designed with minimal material inputs, sure there may be some
| availability hiccup here and there, but how bad is that
| really and by what metric. At the same time many more people
| get to have access to modern goods due to lower costs and
| less unneeded material, less is wasted due to inventory
| stockpiling, and we are overall more efficient.
| throw0101a wrote:
| > _I am still amazed by the shortsightedness of how these
| critical and strategic goods are off-shore._
|
| At what point do goods go from being _non_ -critical/strategic
| to being critical/strategic? At what point did car companies
| have to worry about chips being "critical"? At what point did
| smartphones become "critical" to people's lives?
|
| Things were not critical at all, and then when few people were
| looking, they moved across the spectrum to an area part that is
| considered critical by some measure.
| ruined wrote:
| semiconductors have been critical since the day they were
| invented, because computers were already critical at that
| time. the first major manufacturers of semiconductors were
| defense contractors.
| sct202 wrote:
| Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan don't have complete
| semiconductor supply chains either. All the companies in those
| countries are dependent on suppliers all over the region and
| the world.
| AdamN wrote:
| No single country is capable of producing the newest chips end
| to end. Lithograph machines, raw materials, clean room
| builders, educated workforce, and the scale to do each of these
| economically are simply not available in one location.
|
| By the time you could produce such a focus of the industry, it
| would already have moved on and require different inputs that
| are not in that country.
| hparadiz wrote:
| I think that's what the person you're replying to is saying.
| The government should subsidize domestic production because
| it's a prestige issue for the nation. Sort of like having an
| aircraft carrier group but in the form of economic power.
| mgfist wrote:
| It's not that simple. The components of a chip go through
| something like 40-50 countries, and include tens of
| thousands of suppliers. Involved in this are some of the
| most sophisticated technologies known to man.
|
| To centralize all of this in one country is most likely
| impossible. It's not even a matter of throwing money at it.
| $100 billion won't get you there.
| markus_zhang wrote:
| When you start thinking about politics/geopolitics from an
| "interest group" perspective, instead of a national
| perspective, you will understand all these. "Nation" is just a
| concept that we put up together as a "framework". It means a
| lot for common people like us because we simply have nothing
| else to rely one, but not much for different interest groups
| (I'm talking about banking, military, lobbyists, industrial
| conglomerate, those big shots).
| kwillets wrote:
| Samsung is considered the epitome of state capitalism, so there
| may be some confusion about that last sentence.
| csours wrote:
| How does making something illegal counteract economic forces?
| Hint: Look at Soviet Bloc economics. They imported high tech
| goods even after spending loads of money on trying to build
| them internally.
|
| I would agree that onshoring more of the supply chain makes a
| lot of sense, but I think it must be an economically viable
| solution. I don't know exactly how to do that, but things like
| having a guaranteed market (like we do for food) might be part
| of the solution.
| yaacov wrote:
| You might enjoy reading about
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export-
| oriented_industrializ...
| missedthecue wrote:
| You don't make semiconductors out of thin air. They're made out
| of inputs that we have to buy from other countries. The United
| States cannot possibly produce its own sufficient supply of
| rare earths and silicon for instance, they must be extracted
| where they occur naturally.
| kragen wrote:
| The US did produce its own sufficient supply of rare earths
| and silicon for decades, they occur everywhere, mainstream
| semiconductors don't contain any rare earths, and I suggest
| you at least skim a Wikipedia article on a relevant topic
| before writing your next HN comment.
| missedthecue wrote:
| The US imports massive amounts of silicon (from countries
| like Russia no less). We do not have our own supply.
|
| And no, rare earths are not contained in semiconductors
| specifically, but I assumed the parent comment wants to
| onshore more production than solely semiconductors, and
| rare earths are needed for lots of essential electronics.
| kragen wrote:
| Yes, the US has its own supply of silicon. Toledo, Ohio,
| was called the "glass center of the world" in the 01930s
| because of the combination of cheap energy (natural gas),
| low freight rates, and the high-quality silicon-dioxide
| sand mined at Silica, Ohio, twelve miles to the west
| (10.2307/141587). The US is the world's leading producer
| of silica, producing about 100 million tonnes per year
| and exporting 4 million
| (https://pubs.usgs.gov/periodicals/mcs2021/mcs2021-sand-
| grave...), ten times the 0.4 million tonnes it imports.
| The world's highest purity silicon dioxide deposits are
| at the Spruce Pine mine in North Carolina, and these are
| commonly used to source silicon for semiconductors,
| because you don't have to spend as much money to purify
| it; also they are used for high-purity glassware for
| silicon processing (https://www.thequartzcorp.com/
| https://www.wired.com/story/book-excerpt-science-of-
| ultra-pu... https://archive.md/BMFtO).
|
| More broadly, it's difficult to find a rock where silicon
| isn't a significant component. It is difficult for me to
| imagine the level of ignorance that could lead someone to
| claim that an entire country lacked silicon resources. It
| could be remedied by reading the _first paragraph of the
| introduction to the English Wikipedia article about
| silicon_ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon).
|
| It turns out to be true that rare earths are _used_ for
| lots of essential electronics, though most components are
| devoid of them. Essential electronics are silicon
| semiconductors (silicon, aluminum, copper, boron,
| arsenic, phosphorus), metals for wires and traces
| (copper, tin, lead, silver, gold, zinc), FR4 (glass fiber
| and epoxy), optoelectronic semiconductors (indium,
| gallium, phosphorus, arsenic), high-speed semiconductors
| (indium, phosphorus, gallium, arsenic), inductor cores
| (steel, silicon, barium, manganese, nickel, zinc again,
| cobalt, strontium), quartz crystals, and capacitor
| dielectrics. Capacitor dielectrics include plastics,
| mica, electrolytic anodized coatings, tantalum or niobium
| pentoxide, and ceramics. Ceramics include the high-
| capacitance ferroelectrics (lead, zirconium, titanium,
| sometimes barium) and the high-stability NP0 /C0G
| paraelectrics.
|
| And this is where you finally got something right! It
| turns the NP0/C0G dielectrics _do_ often contain rare
| earths: oxides of neodymium and samarium. There are non-
| rare-earth alternatives made from silica, manganese,
| titanium, barium, and zirconium
| (https://patents.google.com/patent/US5599757A/en) or
| titanium and magnesium
| (https://exxelia.com/uploads/PDF/ceramic-capacitor-non-
| magnet...), but the rare-earth compositions are widely
| adopted. Perhaps they have slightly higher permittivity
| (permitting smaller capacitors) or lower costs. I don't
| know.
|
| Regardless, essential electronics can be made without
| rare earths with only minor compromises, and of course
| rare earths are everywhere; they could easily be mined in
| the US again.
| xxpor wrote:
| They don't use silica sand to make semiconductors, they
| use quartzite. Which isn't available near near Toledo.
| There's plenty of other places in the US, but first you
| have to actually know the right mineral to look for.
| kragen wrote:
| You say, "They don't use silica sand to make
| semiconductors, they use quartzite." Even if this were
| true, quartzite is just silica sand that has been
| sintered together (naturally, underground). Moreover,
| Vince Beiser's Wired article (linked above) claims that
| in fact both high-purity silica sand and lump quartz
| (probably, as you say, quartzite) are used as sources of
| silicon.
| dukeyukey wrote:
| My understanding is that the US definitely _could_ produce
| everything needed, it's just not financially viable or
| desirable to do so. With tax changes, automation and the rise
| in cost of labor in non-western countries, it might just
| become viable.
| ecf wrote:
| The blame for this is purely on the shoulders of business
| leaders coming out of MBA programs across the US.
|
| It seems the only thing those places are teaching is how to
| join a company, strip it to the bone, hype up the short-term 5%
| growth, and get millions of dollars in raises.
| yaacov wrote:
| Blaming individuals doesn't help, it's a coordination
| problem. If any one MBA refuses to outsource they'll just be
| outcompetes by someone who does. This is the sort of problem
| that requires a government to solve
| alecco wrote:
| To be fair, they are often just following orders: "Maximize
| shareholder value" with a quarter/year schedule.
| PKop wrote:
| Which is why ceding so much power to these entities, rather
| than vesting that in the state and the people, is a
| mistake. Of course capital free to come and go and flow
| wherever it wants will discard a nation and its people's
| interests to pursue global profit margins at every turn.
| Just letting that happen with no recourse and restriction
| is a silly way to run a country.
| PKop wrote:
| And people wonder why China structures their political system
| to subordinate the interests of multinational corporations to
| the longer term interests of the nation, its people and
| economy as a whole.
| m0zg wrote:
| MBA programs do not produce "business leaders", except by
| accident. They produce business _administrators_, which is a
| different thing entirely, and often the opposite that of a
| leader. People often confuse management with leadership, and
| while a manager can be a leader, the two are rarely the same.
| vntx wrote:
| I don't like those MBAs anymore than you but blaming this
| group is disingenuous and an oversimplification. Business
| schools train people to profit, and if that comes at the cost
| of secure supply chains and national security, who cares,
| it's not their problem. Someone else mentioned that this is a
| coordination problem, and I think that's more accurate. You
| need governments to help fund these capital intensive
| ventures and incentives like tax-breaks and the fear of
| supply chain destroying pandemics to urge them on.
| omgwtfbbq wrote:
| Even as someone very anti-business school, this is a very
| poor take. It has much more to do with the short term
| incentive structures in corporate USA.
| oceanplexian wrote:
| The blame is clearly on the shoulders of politicians and
| those who keep voting for them. Most of the political class
| are pushing globalization, and thus align tax incentives
| towards outsourcing. Imagine if the politicians in charge
| practiced what they preach and refused to buy or import goods
| that were produced by countries who don't meet US labor law
| or emissions standards. The problem would practically solve
| itself.
| PKop wrote:
| >blame is clearly on the shoulders of politicians and those
| who keep voting for them
|
| Or a system that depends on "voters" to know any of the
| nuances and details of manufacturing and supply chain
| importance, or actually vote with long term broad national
| interest in mind, instead of short term, out of narrow
| self-interest, and largely be ignorant of all manner of
| political, economic and other issues.
| xxpor wrote:
| It would also collapse the economy into a depression never
| seen before, so that may be why it doesn't happen.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| This announcment by Samsung followed news that the onshoring
| semiconductor bill was moving through Congress (just saw it in
| the news today or yesterday). I doubt it's a coincidence,
|
| So, I think, at least with regard to chips, your dream is
| coming true.
| [deleted]
| burnished wrote:
| Ok, this article quietly gets fucking wild halfway through.
|
| >> Samsung spent years evaluating where to build the new fab,
| courting multiple locations and pitting them against each other
| for better incentives. But the ultimate decision came down to
| Samsung Group's leader Jay Y. Lee, who was granted early parole
| in August expressly to speed up crucial business decisions like
| the Texas chip fab. Accounting for between 10 and 20 percent of
| the nation's GDP, Samsung is often given preferential treatment,
| with executives pardoned for crimes in the name of ensuring
| national economic growth.
|
| In 2017, Lee was convicted of bribing a friend of then-President
| Park Geun-hye, and sentenced to five years in prison in Korea.
| His sentence was revised down to 30 months, of which he has
| served around 18 months.
|
| The Samsung leader bribed Choi Soon-sil, a pseudo-Christian cult
| leader nicknamed "the Korean Rasputin," who may have helped
| decide government policy during the Park administration. Park
| denied she held shamanistic rituals at the presidential compound,
| but was removed from office following the scandal. She has since
| been sentenced to more than 30 years in prison.
|
| Lee gave Choi money and horses in an effort to ensure a merger
| within different subsidiaries of Samsung would pass, helping him
| solidify control over the company after his ailing father passed.
|
| His father, Lee Kun-hee (who was also convicted of bribing a
| president, and subsequently pardoned), suffered a heart attack in
| 2014, and was left incapacitated as a result. But he was left
| technically in charge until his death last year.
|
| With Lee now the group leader, he must sign off on all large
| merger and investment decisions, including US chip expansion
| plans.
| markus_zhang wrote:
| I bet some part of the US government has something to do with
| all these things. It's just we will never know until the change
| of tide.
|
| Reference: Propaganda Due was not exposed until the end of the
| cold war.
| miohtama wrote:
| This is why I watch Korean dramas on Netflix. Juicey.
| elzbardico wrote:
| When I was a kid I was bullied by the kids calling me crazy,
| because of my overly imaginative approach to reality. Fast
| forward a lot of years later i look at reality and find out
| that the bullies had no clue at all. The real world is far more
| bizarre than any of the imaginary worlds I created in my mind
| during childhood
| nvr219 wrote:
| You really think your imagination is the reason you got
| bullied?
| glitchc wrote:
| Isn't there a douchebag contest you can compete in
| somewhere..? Away from here preferably?
| xibalba wrote:
| Hi, please read the HN comment guidelines. [1]
|
| Specifically, "When disagreeing, please reply to the
| argument instead of calling names."
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| IMTDb wrote:
| > my overly imaginative approach to reality
|
| I think he does
| vadansky wrote:
| I keep hearing about Park Geun-hye and all the crazy
| allegations, but it's always snippets like these or a reddit
| post, is there a good comprehensive resource that covers
| everything? Or should I wait for the eventual book to come out?
| kjuulh wrote:
| If you want to read something wild: Rooftop sword master. It is
| a wild fictional comic based in south korea. I believe it may
| be a bit of a commentary to what you've written.
| syngrog66 wrote:
| > Lee gave Choi money and horses in an effort to
|
| note to the cryptokids: at least with using horses as currency
| you can pet them and ride them and race them for prizes!
| yongjik wrote:
| ...which was also given the absurdly humorous name of "horse
| laundry" (malsetag), because, you know, it's just like money
| laundry, except with horses.
| jaywalk wrote:
| BRB, buying an NFT horse
| sixothree wrote:
| > with executives pardoned for crimes in the name of ensuring
| national economic growth.
|
| Is that really so different from how things work here?
| _jal wrote:
| Criming USian overlords typically don't have to suffer the
| indignity of a conviction.
| stefan_ wrote:
| Yeah, the only difference here is that these people are
| never charged or convicted. "Just a smart businessman"
| cronix wrote:
| And on the rare occasions that they do, it's usually just
| a fine, of the companies money.
| quickthrowman wrote:
| Nope, it works like that here too. See Elon Musk and the SEC
| kid gloves treatment for an example of a similar situation in
| the US.
| hermes8329 wrote:
| That cult leader is a crazy story on its own. She killed a
| presidential nominee in a ritual
|
| Definitely check it out
|
| Oh and she used to be a popstar too
| 6gvONxR4sf7o wrote:
| > She killed a presidential nominee in a ritual
|
| Any source on that one?
| hermes8329 wrote:
| I think I misremembered this case
| https://youtu.be/AibQvvuEsZo
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| bradhe wrote:
| Man that just kept getting better and better.
| abledon wrote:
| great find! But is it really that bizarre that someone who
| finds themselves thriving in an insanely high-stress and
| powerful position such as leader of Samsung, is involved in
| dishonest power games, as well as having an interest in
| Spiritual experiences? One can have everything available money
| can buy, but inward experiences can go largely unexplored.
| javajosh wrote:
| The allegation is of a corrupted spiritual experience, hence
| the Rasputin reference. It's one thing to go on a meditation
| retreat; its another to go on retreat and have the guru
| follow you home to advise you on policy when they learn
| you're powerful.
|
| Money corrupts spirituality, and it always has.
| goatherders wrote:
| Good to see the clown-car that is Texas state government embrace
| foreign investment from a company run by criminals when it suites
| them. I'm a Texan and my house if full of Samsung products, but
| the Gov and Lt Gov are, as always, hypocrites.
| tills13 wrote:
| Texas is nothing if not hypocritical and reactionary.
| rllearneratwork wrote:
| with Tesla, SpaceX, Samsung and other tech investing this heavy
| in Texas, when/will it surpass CA as a tech powerhouse of the
| future?
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| Can they get similar talent with draconian social policies like
| abortion bans? If I suggested moving to Texas my wife would
| (rightfully) tell me to go fuck myself.
|
| There's been a lot of talk about Texas "turning blue" over the
| past few years and I wonder if these companies either moving
| their operations or building new plants there could be the
| tipping point.
| extheat wrote:
| There's no way the abortion ban will survive in its current
| form once it gets to SCOTUS. Even the Texas state legislature
| knows that. So it's just a matter of time before it gets
| watered down.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| I imaging taking on a TX job would feel a lot like
| collaborating with an invader.
|
| I mean, I get that some folks are into that but still.
| finiteseries wrote:
| Ask your European colleagues how their decision to move
| somewhere with draconian social policies went.
| rllearneratwork wrote:
| "Can they get similar talent with draconian social policies
| like abortion bans? If I suggested moving to Texas my wife
| would (rightfully) tell me to go fuck myself."
|
| - I am very much against TX's policy on this. However, how
| many people are affected by this policy Vs how many kids will
| be denied Algebra in CA now?
|
| It is never 100% all good or bad policies in any place. It is
| always a mix. Rational people chose what's best for them and
| their loved ones _overall_.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| You're really comparing an abortion ban to delayed algebra?
|
| Also, that was just a single example. If you want to stick
| to education, Texas lawmakers have also been trying to push
| a book ban for public schools just this past month.
|
| There's also a bill targeting the concept of critical race
| theory that would ban curriculum where "an individual
| should feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form
| of psychological distress on account of the individual's
| race or sex."
|
| This is significantly different from pros/cons like high
| taxes... there's a fairly strong current of anti-
| intellectualism across Texan politics.
| mrep wrote:
| You're really comparing a state level abortion ban to
| delayed algebra?
|
| Abortion at the state level is not something I would even
| consider in my list of priorities when choosing where to
| live when you can just drive to another state for a once
| in a lifetime event if you ever actually needed one.
| Public school systems are a whole other level though as
| your kids will deal with that daily.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| > I am very much against TX's policy on this. However, how
| many people are affected by this policy Vs how many kids
| will be denied Algebra in CA now?
|
| I'm not sure these two things are meaningfully related.
|
| > It is never 100% all good or bad policies in any place.
|
| This argument works for about any systemic harm one can
| think of.
| adam_arthur wrote:
| Beyond specific companies, Texas has more favorable business
| climate and tax rates.
|
| Housing alone is such a huge knock against CA for new
| companies. Even paying somebody 500k there leaves them feeling
| middle class when trying to raise a family.
|
| Perhaps a bit of an exaggeration, but in Texas they build like
| crazy to support population inflows. If you drive through
| Austin you'll see every third or fourth house is getting torn
| down to be rebuilt into 2-3 houses on the same plot.
|
| Fundamentally this just gives you a lot more runway to grow.
|
| I don't know why anybody would start a company in SF these
| days, aside from VC being local and sometimes requiring it.
|
| I have no doubt Texas will overtake CA in terms of economic
| output, but will take decades just due to previous inertia.
| Also remote work may be the true winner in the end.
|
| I do think CA is still the place you want to be if money is no
| object though. Unfortunately that doesn't apply for most
| people. There may actually be a change in political winds that
| blow things back the other way though, just viewing this from
| today's lens.
| rllearneratwork wrote:
| they are also not hostile to kids in public schools (CA dumbs
| down math, requires masks, requires CRT, etc.)
| tills13 wrote:
| > hostile
|
| > requires masks, requires CRT
|
| This is some serious "won't somebody think of the children"
| energy.
|
| Every day people like you make me ashamed to be from Texas.
| adam_arthur wrote:
| Yeah, I suspect things will reach a breaking point and the
| pendulum will swing back.
|
| Just look at all the organized retail crime in Northern
| California. There's a new article pretty much every day
| about groups of 20+ coordinating mass retail thefts.
|
| Voters explicitly put into place DA and laws that basically
| decriminalized crime, and now are bearing the fruits of
| that.
|
| Don't think voters will continue voting for those policies
| now that repercussions being seen and lived.
| rllearneratwork wrote:
| >>"Don't think voters will continue voting for those
| policies now that repercussions being seen and lived."
|
| - I really hope you are right, but I am not expecting
| this. Unfortunately, average voter (both on the left and
| right) seems to be willing to reject realities of
| cause->effects if they conflict with their identity.
| JaimeThompson wrote:
| The Texas State Board of Education routinely tries to push
| young earth Creationism into science classrooms which is a
| bit hostile to those who want their kids to learn actual
| science.
| rllearneratwork wrote:
| did they succeed though? And if yes, did it came at the
| expense of "actual science"?
|
| An important lesson a parent should teach to their kids
| is that not 100% of what is taught to them is true and
| that some stuff taught to them is non-sense/political
| propaganda. In CA it is CRT, it TX it is Creationism.
|
| But which place will still teach them Algebra?
| JaimeThompson wrote:
| You should look up all that Texas SBoE has done in
| regards to science, math, history, and health and their
| often unique and counterfactual ideas on what should be
| taught.
| boston_clone wrote:
| When I went to high school in Texas, my History textbook
| still framed the Civil War as a "states rights" and
| "economic freedom" issue.
|
| Many school districts also defied the governors short-
| sighted/partisan order of banning masks in schools. I don't
| recall any representative from Texas' HHS department
| supporting that order.
|
| Some CRT would be a welcome breath of reality for our
| education system. Could you share why you think that it's
| hostile to children?
| throaway46546 wrote:
| Can you give an example of something specific that is
| taught in California schools with regards to CRT that you
| object to?
| optimalsolver wrote:
| When their power grid isn't held together with blu tack.
| cozzyd wrote:
| It needs more good universities first.
| [deleted]
| paxys wrote:
| Trillion dollars companies setting up shop after getting
| billions in tax breaks is the opposite of how a tech ecosystem
| should develop. Look at the amount of VC dollars that come to
| Silicon Valley vs Texas.
| jeffbee wrote:
| I don't know but if you were waiting for a signal, Samsung
| built another, larger, and more valuable fab in Austin a decade
| ago. And if you are judging by fab capacity the question you
| should have asked is when Texas will overtake Arizona. There
| really are very few semi fabs in California.
| dntrkv wrote:
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/424167/venture-capital-i...
|
| As far as VC money goes, Texas has a ways to go.
| [deleted]
| peter_retief wrote:
| Texas is the new choice for multinationals, they seem to be doing
| something right or is it that some states are a mess?
| sangnoir wrote:
| >> Samsung spent years evaluating where to build the new fab,
| courting multiple locations and pitting them against each other
| for better incentives
|
| Perhaps other states are not willing to top the gobs of money
| Texas offered to Samsung. The Amazon HQ2, race-to-the-bottom
| strategy is alive and well
| summerlight wrote:
| I think it's the latter. Over the last decade, CA (especially
| northern) has demonstrated a spectacular failure on meeting
| housing demands. TX is the second largest economy so it's a
| quite natural to become the new candidate, especially in the
| context that NY has been suffering from a similar housing
| issue.
| shmatt wrote:
| the only mix of well educated locals without relocating people,
| and wide areas of empty land
| sweetbitter wrote:
| Great, but how could it be verified that the NSA is not adding a
| backdoor to every one of these processors? Could anyone explain
| how easy it would be for them to compromise it in this manner?
| guai888 wrote:
| 'Impossible':TSMC founder Morris Chang on US dreams for onshoring
| chip supply chain
|
| https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4327937
|
| Morris Chang spent 25 years (1958-1983) at Texas Instruments.He
| knows US very well.
| justapassenger wrote:
| You have to take his words with a grain of salt. Without going
| into politics, it's impossible to talk about TSMC without
| geopolitical context.
|
| It's essential to TSMC survival for their production to
| physically stay focused in Asia.
| drawkbox wrote:
| Once the chip shortage happened, partially due to
| geopolitical reasons, that changed everything. The West/US
| will never fully rely on a single point of failure again no
| matter how hard the HBS MBAs and Chicago thinking push it to
| trim and be "efficient". Some industries are too important
| for other industries and leverage on that over those areas is
| too risky and costly now.
|
| I'd pay double right now for GPUs directly from the source,
| not from some sketchy third party.
|
| Right now our EV/auto, space and even AR/XR industries as
| well as gaming and everything that requires chips, we are at
| the mercy of an external market that has a slant against the
| West. It will take some years to get out but we'll never not
| expect that in the future again. If costs go up costs go up,
| but availability should never be allowed to be used as
| leverage again, that is too risky and too costly long term.
|
| Availability that is reliable is always more important than
| efficiency or cost, because right now lack of availability is
| costing lots of extra time that has the potential to lose
| entire industries, that is not acceptable in any way.
|
| Very little margin and too much optimization/efficiency is
| bad for resilience. Couple that with private equity backed
| near entire market leverage monopolies/duopolies/oligopolies
| that control necessary supply and you have trouble.
|
| HBS is even realizing too much optimization/efficiency is a
| bad thing. The slack/margin is squeezed out and with that, an
| ability to change vectors quickly. It is the large
| company/startup agility difference with the added weight of
| physical/expensive manufacturing.
|
| The High Price of Efficiency, Our Obsession with Efficiency
| Is Destroying Our Resilience [1]
|
| > Superefficient businesses create the potential for social
| disorder.
|
| > A superefficient dominant model elevates the risk of
| catastrophic failure.
|
| > *If a system is highly efficient, odds are that efficient
| players will game it.*
|
| Hopefully that same mistake is not made in the future. It
| will take time to build up diversification of market leverage
| in terms of chips for availability. Hopefully we have learned
| our lesson about too much concentration, with that comes
| leverage and sometimes a "gaming" of the market.
|
| This chip shortage, and all the supply chain problems during
| the pandemic as well, will hopefully introduce more wisdom
| and knowledge into business institutions that just because
| things are ok while being overly super efficient, that is
| almost a bigger risk than higher prices/costs. Competition is
| a leverage reducer. Margin is a softer ride even if the
| profit margins aren't as big.
|
| [1] https://hbr.org/2019/01/the-high-price-of-efficiency
| nathanm412 wrote:
| It's essential to Taiwan's survival for production to
| physically stay focused in Taiwan. I don't know if the US
| would be as willing to defend Taiwan if our own recovery
| wasn't affected by the chip shortage.
| ineedasername wrote:
| Yep. to use a quote I've heard about another resource: "No
| one would care as much about stability in the Middle East
| if they produced toothpaste instead of Oil".
|
| Unfortunately at the same time for Taiwan, once the West's
| reliance on that area of the world for production becomes
| less of an issue, China's timeline gets accelerated much
| faster to the "No but really you're part of the PRC" point.
| Similar to how the PRC ratcheted up control over Hong Kong
| in 2020 when the rest of the world was basically "Sorry HK
| we got COVID issues k'bye"
| ksec wrote:
| Morris Chang has been exceptionally clear on this issues when
| he was still CEO of TSMC, even before the whole politics and
| TSMC becoming leading edge.
|
| It is impossible with respect to current cost structure,
| without substantial government money, while getting the same
| margin. Of course it is entirely possible to throw money at
| the problem and succeed. Which is what Intel is trying to do
| right now with the help of US government.
| m0zg wrote:
| > Morris Chang has been exceptionally clear
|
| He can be "exceptionally clear" and still biased in favor
| of TMSC.
|
| > It is impossible with respect to current cost structure
|
| Well, we'll have to pay a few cents (or dollars) more per
| chip then. It is infeasible for us to continue to depend on
| TMSC in the long term - it will be taken over by our
| largest geopolitical adversary by 2030 at the latest. We do
| not have a choice but to either on-shore, or shift
| production to countries with far less geopolitical risk.
| ksec wrote:
| >He can be "exceptionally clear" and still biased in
| favor of TMSC.
|
| Probably. But It wasn't that TSMC doesn't want to move,
| he made it clear the maths doesn't work out. Giga Fabs
| operate at scale and efficiency is precisely why you
| could make a $30 M1 Die.
|
| >Well, we'll have to pay a few cents (or dollars) more
| per chip then.
|
| That is easier for mature node. But most of the time we
| are not talking about mature node but leading edge.
|
| If the maths were a few cents or even a few dollar things
| would have been done already. In US, for TSMC having the
| same margin would probably put M1 close to $50, while
| having higher initial R&D cost, meaning more volume to
| amortise the cost, or higher final retail price depending
| on sector.
|
| So Morris's question to TSMC's client, are you willing to
| pay 50% to double for US made silicon. As far as all
| major US players, that is Qualcomm, Nvidia, AMD and
| Apple. The answer has been a simple no. They want it
| cheaper! ( Looking at Nvidia's constantly moaning )
|
| Of course there is another path, forcing TSMC to operate
| in US while lowering their Net Profit margin. Which is
| likely what is happening here. The only good thing is
| that US is _finally_ understanding the risk of its supply
| chain. For some people like me who has been crying about
| it for nearly a decade.
| m0zg wrote:
| OK, then we'll pay $20 more for a $3K laptop. Hardly a
| tragedy. Same with labor by the way. If Apple made phones
| here and charged $20-30 more per unit, their user base
| wouldn't even blink.
| ksec wrote:
| I guess I have to be explicit.
|
| For a $3K Laptop you are looking at M1 Pro or M1 Max,
| those would cost at least $50 to $100 more BOM cost.
| Excluding other factor. That translate to roughly $125 to
| $250 retail price increase at the same margin.
|
| For a labour of $20 to $30 increase per iPhone unit,
| would equate retail price increase of $50 to $75.
| Excluding other factors. Not to mention I seriously doubt
| labour would be an increase of only $20-30 per unit. The
| different in cost / productivity is likely higher than
| 3x.
| PeterisP wrote:
| On the other hand, from the perspective of TSMC, if
| production does not get transferred to USA mainland, then
| it secures the future of TSMC because in that case USA
| will ensure that they do _not_ get taken over by a
| geopolitical adversary in the coming decade. Geopolitical
| risk is not something external that exists in isolation;
| the location of semiconductor manufacturing is a big
| factor that shapes the geopolitical risk by shaping the
| interests of key players. If USA can afford to walk away,
| Taiwan is at large geopolitical risk; but as long as
| their interests are tied together, then the risk to
| Taiwan is greatly limited.
| petersellers wrote:
| > in that case USA will ensure that they do not get taken
| over by a geopolitical adversary in the coming decade
|
| How will the USA ensure that?
| PeterisP wrote:
| If the push comes to shove, a US carrier group parked in
| Taiwan's territorial waters makes any sea invasion
| impossible; you can't ship and land a million soldiers
| across a hostile sea.
|
| It's debatable to what extent USA is _willing_ to fight
| for that, but now and at least until 2030 USA has enough
| military might to enforce a stalemate /status quo across
| the Taiwan strait, no matter how much it gets escalated.
| China can force Kinmen and Matsu islands, but invading
| Taiwan proper requires either USA abstaining or a
| stronger China.
| varenc wrote:
| I suppose "ensure" is too definite of a claim. But it's
| clear that the US can apply all types of pressure to try
| to hinder a takeover of TSMC/Taiwan. Methods range from
| open negotiations, to trade/economics sanctions, etc.
| dnautics wrote:
| key phrase:
|
| > a _full_ chip supply chain in the country
|
| (emphasis mine)
|
| TSMC is, after all, ALSO building a fab in the country, so it's
| not like TSMC doesn't believe in onshoring chips to the US. The
| fabs are {high capital expense/high recurring expense/high
| skilled labor} operations so the US is very competitive due to
| the labor value-add. Not every part of the _full_ supply chain
| is like that.
|
| To serve (aka reduce risk to) US supply chain interests in the
| short term, you also don't need access to the full stack
| domestically. You could potentially send a lot of activites
| that need low-skilled-labor to, say, Mexico, which is a much
| lower supply chain risk that Asia (aka thailand, vietnam,
| china). National security onshoring, which possibly has less
| tolerance for even outsourcing to Mexico, is likely a different
| story and more aligns with Morris' statement.
| luis8 wrote:
| This was mentioned in the last meeting held by Biden with the
| North America group. The Mexican president said that the
| imports from China should be reduced as much as possible in
| order to stop China becoming more powerful that it already
| is. Mexico at least in the mid/near future is a safe bet in
| terms of supply chain risk.
| dnautics wrote:
| Maquiladoras (near the border) are even more resistant to
| supply chain risk
| 41b696ef1113 wrote:
| I also think people get focused on having a state-of-the-art
| production. Lots of value in having a domestic facility that
| can make last N-tier generation chips (10, 14, 22, 32, etc)
| are all capable of providing significant value.
| fabfabfab wrote:
| Having worked in Fab, the supply chain is already in the
| US+EU+Japan. About the only change in last 5 years or so is
| Intel's ability to compete in lithography process and get
| sufficient yield to stay competitive in pricing. Lithography is
| one of the 400 or so steps in Fab processing, but arguably the
| most critical and a bottle neck. TSMC does not have a lead in
| every single of these 400 steps, in fact quite the opposite.
|
| Anytime someone says "impossible", I would take that opinion
| with a grain of salt.
| SECProto wrote:
| > Anytime someone says "impossible", I would take that
| opinion with a grain of salt.
|
| Or to quote Arthur C Clarke:
|
| > When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that
| something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he
| states that something is impossible, he is very probably
| wrong.
| ineedasername wrote:
| Or, morbidly from Planck, "Science progresses one funeral
| at a time."
| tooltalk wrote:
| According to US Semiconductor Association's recent State of
| the Industry Report, Taiwan's share in the manufacturing
| equipment part of the supply chain is almost nil and entirely
| depends on suppliers in the US, Japan and EU.
| Manufacturing Equipment (12%): US: 40% Japan: 32%
| EU: 18% S Korea: 4% Taiwan: <1% Wafer
| Fabrication (19%): Taiwan: 20% S Korea: 19%
| Japan: 17% China: 16% US: 12% EU: 9%
|
| I guess Apple's decision to leave Samsung's Austin fab back
| in early 2010's to TSMC in Taiwan had an outsized role in
| TSMC's lead in tech and rise in revenue -- Apple accounts for
| 25% of TSMC sales.
|
| [1] https://www.semiconductors.org/wp-
| content/uploads/2021/09/20...:
| throw0101a wrote:
| > _Lithography is one of the 400 or so steps in Fab
| processing, but arguably the most critical and a bottle
| neck._
|
| In their ongoing series on supply chains, the _Odd Lots_
| podcast had episodes on both TSMC and ASML:
|
| * https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-story-of-how-
| tsmc-...
|
| * https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/asml-the-obscure-
| power...
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Biggest change since then are relative energy costs between
| Texas and Taiwan. (To say nothing of geopolitical stability.)
| dnautics wrote:
| quote is from oct 2021
| HWR_14 wrote:
| Person who runs billion dollar business says competitors will
| fail, encourages people to continue to rely on him. News at 11.
| ineedasername wrote:
| _> dreams for onshoring chip supply chain_
|
| Depends on what the dream is. Bulk onshoring? Probably not
| while the geopolitical situation stays on the status quo.
|
| But I don't think that's the attempt we're seeing here anyway.
| I think what we're seeing is the foundations built for the
| _capability_ to bootstrap more robust manufacturing in the West
| if /when China decides that Taiwan really should stop claiming
| independence, and perhaps at the same time exerts its local
| power over that entire region of the world and thus South Korea
| as well.
| tooltalk wrote:
| The Taiwanese gov't was deeply involved in TSMC from its
| inception in the 80's to what it is today. I'm guessing it's in
| their best economic, geopolitical interest to keep things in
| Taiwan as much as possible.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| Well that sounds about right from the guy who moved it all to
| Taiwan. I hope the scene has changed a little in the last 40
| years. The US is eager to have these businesses, and I can
| imagine a lot of incentives and regulatory reductions.
| kragen wrote:
| It _has_ changed. That 's what makes it impossible.
| fovc wrote:
| Why do big investments get tax breaks but not smaller ones? Is
| there a rationale other than ~~corruption~~ political power
| having great economies of scale?
| RandallBrown wrote:
| I think that small businesses already get tax breaks compared
| to big businesses.
|
| In a lot of cases I'm sure their profits are small enough they
| don't pay any taxes at all.
| dylan604 wrote:
| I wonder if FoxCon is seeing other fabs commiting to US
| development like this and wonder if they should too rather than
| just the con job they pulled? Would the current trends influence
| them to go ahead and start moving forward on the deal they made?
| esalman wrote:
| Texas is the size of 4 Bangladesh's. Why do they have build
| everything in the vicinity of Austin?
| catillac wrote:
| Most of Texas is very remote and hard to attract talent or
| investment to. Certainly cheaper to put the plant in Uvalde or
| something, but harder to recruit hard tech talent there.
| dhritzkiv wrote:
| Middle of nowhere Texas is not connected to services,
| utilities, amenities. The area in the vicinity of Austin is.
| bnt wrote:
| So everyone is on the "Let's build a Fab in the USA" train, will
| that eventually bring down the chip production costs? (not an
| expert in the field, so asking naively)
| politician wrote:
| It'll reduce geopolitical strategic risk.
| cxr wrote:
| > the "Let's build a Fab in the USA" train
|
| We have fabs in the USA right now. To speak of Austin alone,
| Samsung's own S2 has been here since the late 90s, and there
| are a handful of others here, too.
| deelowe wrote:
| This is more about national security and business continuity
| than cost. Costs matter most when things are running smoothly.
| However, COVID has taught us a hard lesson. When SHTF, you
| better have a back up plan. Making money on IP alone while
| someone else handles all of the manufacturing and integration
| work looks great on a spreadsheet. Then some state actor cuts
| off the supply chain (or a virus) and your genius MBAs start to
| not look so smart after all.
|
| With any luck, COVID (and tariffs) has transformed business for
| the future.
| optimalsolver wrote:
| How is relying on a foreign company helping the situation?
| kube-system wrote:
| Samsung is probably more accurately described as a
| multinational company in this context. The location of a
| company's headquarters is not a primary determining factor
| for all different types of geopolitical risk. Like other
| multinationals, they have some ability to pick the
| jurisdictions they operate, and each of those locations
| have their own geopolitical contexts.
|
| However, in this case, South Korea is also a close US ally.
| There is little risk to the US that the headquarters of
| Samsung is in South Korea.
| optimalsolver wrote:
| >However, in this case, South Korea is also a close US
| ally
|
| So is Taiwan.
| kube-system wrote:
| Correct. Which is the reason why having TSMC in Arizona
| would also help. https://tsmccareers.com/tsmc-arizona/
| PeterisP wrote:
| For these risks physical location matters more than the
| organizational structure. If something (perhaps a conflict,
| perhaps something else) disrupts manufacturing or shipping
| around East Asia, supply from the Samsung fabs in Korea and
| TSMC fabs in Taiwan would be disrupted, but any
| manufacturing capacity that's physically located in the
| West would be still available.
| jaywalk wrote:
| > With any luck, COVID (and tarrifs) has transformed business
| for the future.
|
| Until we're far enough removed from the situation, everything
| is comfortable again, and the MBAs start saying "you know, if
| we just offshored fabrication..."
| notyourwork wrote:
| The pendulum swings back and forth similar to how politics
| have shifting tides that ebb and flow.
| lkbm wrote:
| (Also not an expert.)
|
| In general I wouldn't expect US manufacturing to do a lot to
| lower production costs. More capacity in general obviously
| helps, and I could definitely see the US doing a lot to
| subsidize domestic production, if that counts as bringing down
| the costs.
|
| Maybe higher wages will lead to more automation.
| jason-phillips wrote:
| > Maybe higher wages will lead to more automation.
|
| Samsung Austin Semiconductor has been fully automated since
| 2008-ish. One number I was quoted was that you only need 19
| technicians on the floor to run the fab, compared to 500+
| pre-automation.
| [deleted]
| fabfabfab wrote:
| Expert here. Worked in a Fab (Automated Material Handling
| Systems or AMHS group).
|
| You might be suprised how automated it already is [1]. Notice
| the OHTs (Overhead Hoist Transport)[2] running on a system of
| highways and superhighways on the ceiling. Each of these OHTs
| carry a box inside it called a FOUPs (Front Opening Unified
| Pods)[3] carrying upto 25 wafers. That can easily be worth
| $1M+ per box. They have standardized JEDEC interfaces so any
| process tool can accept a FOUP and get wafers out of it. The
| environment inside these FOUPs is ridiculously clean and each
| one costs $15k for what most people would think is a plastic
| box with a door in the front. FOUPs are used internally. If
| wafers are shipped, they're shipped in a similar box called
| FOSB or Front Opening Shipping Boxes [4]. These boxes are the
| reason automation happens with standardized "APIs". We don't
| need to know who made the process tool to hand them a box of
| wafers.
|
| Another automation feature are the AGVs or Automated Guided
| Vehicles [5] that carry the same FOUPs and FOSBs [5]. They
| also can be equipped with a robot arm that takes a wafer out
| of the box and hands it over to the tool. The AGVs run on
| specialized roads inside the Fab and remains docked on the
| tool during processing.
|
| Usually, there are hardly any humans around the tool.
| Material (wafer) is fed by AMHS systems, picked up by the
| same. Fab is probably one of the most automated manufacturing
| places out there. Way more than Automotive manfacturing.
|
| If you're looking to do software engineering, I would highly
| encourage people to go work in semiconductor industry. It is
| just a fucking cool place and lot of room for improvement
| still.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRlcZqqyBM8
|
| [2] https://www.muratec.net/cfa/products/
|
| [3] https://www.entegris.com/shop/en/USD/Products/Wafer-
| Handling...
|
| [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FOUP#/media/File:Front_open
| ing...
|
| [5] https://www.muratec-usa.com/machinery/clean-
| room/transport/A...
| dekhn wrote:
| thanks for this highly interesting comment about the fab
| floor.
| edge17 wrote:
| For someone interested in robotics and automation, what
| types of groups/jobs would one look for specifically in
| this industry? Also geographically where are these types of
| jobs located?
| echelon wrote:
| Globalization led to an erosion of US wages and the hollowing
| out of our middle class.
|
| If we buy local, it creates domestic jobs. Wages go up too.
|
| We need to onshore _more_.
| mbesto wrote:
| If you think bringing manufacturing to the US is about jobs,
| then I have a bridge to sell you.
|
| > We need to onshore more.
|
| Simple solutions to overly complex problems is not the
| answer.
|
| First, manufacturing output has steadily increased since the
| 90s. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/INDPRO
|
| Second, the number of manufacturing jobs have steadily
| declined since the 90s.
| https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MANEMP
|
| How is this possible? Automation. These plants aren't
| creating US jobs and increasing wages, they're simply
| creating more wealth for corporations which they would have
| done anyway overseas. And since Samsung is a Korean company,
| the wealth is being created in Korea, not the US.
| jaywalk wrote:
| > they're simply creating more wealth for corporations
| which they would have done anyway overseas
|
| They're also resolving some pretty serious national
| security concerns, so...
| oneplane wrote:
| That's so many assumptions you might as well put on a robe
| and special hat and become a fortune teller.
|
| The effective erosion itself is a policy choice, there is
| this thing called 'minimum wage' which you can use to make
| sure that there is more than just 'warm bodies' as the lowest
| common denominator in job requirements, and as a result
| everything above that has to be 'upgraded' to a higher
| standard as well, otherwise people aren't willing to do the
| work (just like is happening now). The examples are all
| around you.
|
| There is no onshoring of talent or natural resources since
| they are not 'constructed' the same way and importing those
| are against the current ideas/fears of immigration and
| relying on third parties for goods.
|
| In other words: globalisation isn't a choice, it's a side-
| effect from the needs of humanity. Reverting to a more
| primitive state that decreases those needs could be a path,
| but I doubt anyone would choose that willingly.
|
| Besides those things, there is this concept of ideals or
| principles which are almost as important and it doesn't
| require any extreme form of meddling either. If people really
| care about something (say, the well-being of other humans and
| therefore not really being happy with an authoritarian regime
| somewhere) then that can be incentive enough. And if it isn't
| then some protectionism won't be enough either.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| Protectionism makes everyone worse off.
| phkahler wrote:
| >> Protectionism makes everyone worse off.
|
| Yeah I mean look at how China has grown the last 25 years
| with their fully open markets. </sarcasm>
|
| Every approach has pluses and minuses. Putting your own
| first is common and healthy. The US has been failing to do
| this for some time now, and the economy is pinned in a
| corner with no easy way out.
| panick21_ wrote:
| China is now much more open then they were for a long
| time and as it happens their growth really started when
| they did that. The are 1.4 billion people who have
| embraced mostly 'typical capitalism' that is comparable
| to most countries in the world do. Its not like they are
| the first to have the idea of tarrifs or helping
| strategic industries. China has continental scale and
| 100s of millions of people living on the coast with
| billions of people in close distance to export to. Of
| course they are gone do well, the internal market they
| generate alone is absurdly gigantic.
|
| Just like the US in the late 1800 century, they also had
| some protectionism. But it crazy to suggest that is the
| main reason why they were successful.
|
| Nobody says government should make important technology
| investment, have some strategic supply chain and so on.
| However just blanked Trump style protectionism across
| random industries is not really the solution to anything.
|
| > Putting your own first is common and healthy.
|
| This is a myth of what protectionism achieves. You
| protect some sector but potentially damaging other
| sectors considerably. The US protects Flordia suger
| farmers and as a result everybody else pays more for
| sugar.
|
| Most of the time its groups that can lobby effectively
| that get tariffs and those groups then profit against the
| benefit of everybody else.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| Opening up trade doesn't necessarily make everyone better
| off. If makes everyone better off _overall_ , at least to
| first order, but if you have national security requirements
| for needing domestic capacity _anyway_ , that may make a
| bigger difference.
|
| And you can make trade better for everyone period if you
| redistribute some of the gains of trade to those that it
| makes worse off. But... we don't always do that...
| justapassenger wrote:
| There's huge difference between protectionism and investing
| locally.
| benque wrote:
| False. Exhibit A: China from 1980-Present. QED.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| China's growth has been mostly due to the liberalization
| of their markets. You're proving me right.
| justinzollars wrote:
| Does it? Early covid we didn't even have enough PPE.
| Countries that produced PPE had it.
| rei_ayanami wrote:
| Yes, but why? Let me answer, because slave labor is
| cheaper.
| justinzollars wrote:
| not cheaper than robot labour
| kesselvon wrote:
| Hollowing out the industrial base leaves us even worse off.
| oneplane wrote:
| It only leaves lower tiered hierarchies worse off and
| only in the short term. Extracting value that way is
| never a long-term plan since the needs will either be
| fulfilled or the extraction will be complete and no more
| value can be created.
|
| If people don't want to buy a product because it is
| inferior in some way, the solution isn't to ban superior
| products but to upgrade those inferior products to be
| superior again. And inferiority/superiority doesn't just
| mean quality, it can also mean features and the price-
| quality balance in itself. At the same time, the rest of
| the world doesn't "go away" if you construct an island
| within your borders that nobody is allowed to join, so at
| best it's going to end up in some sort of useless
| industrial-cold-war.
| newaccount2021 wrote:
| > It only leaves lower tiered hierarchies worse off and
| only in the short term.
|
| not when your offshore solution is more educated,
| industrially advanced, yet still cheaper
|
| you are thinking of pillow factories moving to Mexico
| echelon wrote:
| How?
|
| It's not protectionism. It's anti-fragility. It's having
| strong domestic capabilities to meet our every need and not
| suffer when the world is uncertain.
|
| It's having jobs and prospects for our future generations.
| The hope Millennials and Gen Z have is dim, and I can point
| my finger at a huge contributing cause.
| dv_dt wrote:
| I don't know if it will bring down production costs, but it may
| reduce logistical shortages and bring down chip prices.
| rossdavidh wrote:
| So chip production does have a labor cost, but the equipment
| used is quite pricey, and so the relative cost of labor is
| less. Also, given how pricey the equipment and how demanding
| the cleanroom protocol (which, if not followed, reduces yield
| of saleable products), there are a lot of incentives to make
| sure you have long-term employees who are well trained and
| motivated to keep their job.
|
| Also, Austin (and other parts of Texas) already have a fair
| number of chip fabs, and have for decades. I used to work in
| some of them. Samsung even has existing fab capacity in Texas.
| So it's not such a new thing.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| Well in principle Texas has lower (almost half) industrial
| energy costs than Taiwan, which could help reduce wafer
| production costs especially at the lower resolution nodes. As
| Moore's Law slows, things like energy and raw material costs
| may matter more. And having wafer plants close to fab plants
| can help.
|
| Rough order of magnitude, but for a lower cost wafer (think
| like 90nm or above, not 7nm), electricity and energy could be
| about 10% of the overall cost. As a lot of the capital cost of
| the automation and industrial equipment is the same wherever in
| the world you are, that might be an important factor.
|
| Taiwan is an island that imports almost all of its energy.
| Texas is an energy rich state with lots of wind, solar, and
| especially natural gas that is exported to the world.
|
| We talk about higher natural gas prices in the US with Texas
| seeing slightly above $4/MMBTU, but LNG prices in Asia are
| above $35/MMBTU at the moment, nearly an order of magnitude
| higher. The government of Taiwan is basically eating half the
| entire cost of LNG right now to keep costs low for businesses
| and consumers, but that's not a sustainable strategy. (At the
| moment, industrial electricity is about 13C//kWh in Taiwan even
| with the government subsidizing most of the LNG cost and
| 7-8C//kWh in Texas.)
| mrweasel wrote:
| I was wondering why Texas keep coming up when new US fabs a
| being talked about. From an outsider it just looks like the
| low energy cost comes from failing to properly manage and
| upgrade the Texas energy grid.
| megaman821 wrote:
| The Texas grid has been diversified and transmission
| upgraded. The problem is that it hasn't been winterized.
| While this is costly, I doubt this is the main reason why
| prices are low. Texas has a large, cheap supply of natural
| gas and good areas for both wind and solar.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| The energy prices are low because Texas has tons of oil and
| gas and wind. The energy grid is actually more efficiently
| managed than California, which has had similar problems
| with electricity supply.
|
| But the main reason Texas comes up is it has a very long
| history in semiconductors with a big workforce and lots of
| semiconductor companies.
| posguy wrote:
| Efficiency in electrical grids can often be
| counterproductive to reliability.
|
| It is economically efficient to not winterize your
| generation capacity or build longhaul electrical
| transport infrastructure to move electricity regionally,
| but without these rarely used elements you could end up
| with severe load shedding or a black start event.
| pie42000 wrote:
| Why are people concerned about energy and material costs?
| Semiconductors are probably the highest margin manufactured
| goods on the planet, with materials and energy being the
| lowest cost input to the process. The only good that can
| compete is bottled water or movie theater popcorn.
|
| This is 100% politically motivated.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| It takes about 3 kWh per square centimeter to make a high-
| quality silicon wafer. 90 nm node silicon wafer might cost
| about three dollars per square centimeter. So it isn't a
| rounding error for actual wafer production. The
| unsubsidized electricity cost in Taiwan is on the order of
| 30C//kWh for natural gas vs about 7-8C//kWh in Texas. So
| the difference isn't zero.
|
| Purifying and growing high quality wafers is very, very
| energy intensive. This becomes more important as Moore's
| Law slows and more of chip costs become just the wafer
| costs.
| gmadsen wrote:
| is there a labor demand for electronic assembly? we can barely
| get workers for decently tipped restaurants, and we now going
| to have 1000s lining up to twist a screw for 8 hours straight?
| justinzollars wrote:
| No, it increases the security and continuity of our
| civilization when China invades Taiwan.
| consumer451 wrote:
| Well, there's a huge benefit of COVID.
|
| The related chip shortage finally woke up the US gov on
| supply chains.
|
| My question is why did it take this long? I have been worried
| about this for nearly a decade.
|
| My next question is how many mask factories have we built in
| the US since we realized that was important?
| trasz wrote:
| Thing is, you are assuming that's what is important.
|
| Look at the billions the US spends on military, all of it
| domestic. In US, the masks are simply less important than
| all that, as is healthcare in general.
| echelon wrote:
| We shouldn't stop there.
|
| America needs to make steel again. Plastics. Chemicals.
|
| We need to make electronics, fertilizers, tools.
|
| Everything we need should be onshored. Especially if we
| expect a cold war with our biggest producer.
| lkbm wrote:
| The "imperialist" model can still work fine if we want to
| stick with it.
|
| We can keep production in poorer countries with poor
| worker and environmental protections so long as those
| countries will clearly side with us and aren't all
| concentrated in China's sphere of influence. No one's
| doing a naval blockade of the entire US coastline. And
| even if they did, we also have some long land borders
| with allies.
| markus_zhang wrote:
| The problem is that US needs to find responsible
| governments other than the ones close to China. There are
| not many in the world. They are poor for some reasons.
|
| BTW when I say responsible governments I don't mean
| democratic, but mean they care about people's education,
| can keep long term policies and build good
| infrastructures.
| phkahler wrote:
| >> My next question is how many mask factories have we
| built in the US since we realized that was important?
|
| There's a guy with a small company that makes N95 masks in
| the US. He got pissed when they came looking for a
| production increase. He would be happy to increase
| production, but nobody was willing to buy from him long-
| term. They'll just go back to importing cheaper product
| (probably from China) after the crisis is over. He
| basically told them to go pound sand.
|
| I just Googled this and it seems a bunch of companies tried
| to increase production:
| https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/10/health/covid-masks-
| china-...
|
| The original guy basically said nobody wants to pay for
| anything, and I think he's right.
| lkbm wrote:
| > My question is why did it take this long?
|
| In general, I'd say we've been able to deal with issues by
| outbidding other countries and exerting international
| political influence.
|
| > My next question is how many mask factories have we built
| in the US since we realized that was important?
|
| We're so bad at building.
|
| I'd add to your question with: how custom-built do
| factories need to be to be efficient?
|
| I expect chip fab is _very_ tailored, but can a t-shirt
| factory quickly pivot to surgical masks? How about N-95?
| Can a vacuum cleaner factory start building ventilators?
| How about HEPA filters? mRNA vaccines?
|
| What are critical things we may need to ramp up rapidly,
| not just for pandemics, but for the next disaster, and can
| they be done without building dedicated factories just for
| those items?
|
| Humans are fabulously general-purpose, so I'd imagine that
| the more automated the process, the more expensive it is to
| switch. This would put high-wage countries like the US at a
| disadvantage with regard to flexible domestic
| manufacturing. But I've no expertise in this area at all.
|
| These are questions and guesses, not questions and answers.
| :-)
| max-ibel wrote:
| The machines to make mask material are very different
| from other textile machines.
|
| They are expensive, and take a long time to build.
|
| https://www.oerlikon.com/polymer-processing/en/solutions-
| tec...
| adventured wrote:
| > My next question is how many mask factories have we built
| in the US since we realized that was important?
|
| It's not important. Masks don't effectively stop the
| transmission of SARS2 and N95 masks are only highly
| effective against something as infectious as SARS2 Delta if
| you wear them precisely as intended (and to go with that
| you need to take many other precautions that the mass
| population is never going to take with great precision on a
| day to day basis). Even the vaccines don't stop Delta
| effectively, which you can plainly see from the large
| outbreaks in highly vaccinated nations.
|
| > My question is why did it take this long?
|
| Because the US Government spends nearly all of its effort
| on dumb shit, like shuffling papers, playing at admin,
| processing lobbyist appointments, screeching out empty
| promises every 2-4 years, going on talk shows and managing
| PR, managing a globalist superpower clown show, projecting
| power to every corner of the globe for no great reason
| other than to fulfill the powerlust of those in control.
|
| They're supposed to be running our government for our
| people. They're simultaneously running the equivalent of
| one of the world's largest governments outside of our
| borders. Think about that for a moment. Do I think the
| people in power can run the US Government, domestically,
| effectively? Hell no. Do I think they can then
| simultaneously run a gigantic other foreign system -
| military bases, personnel, war, huge embassies, global
| trade, sticking their noses in every foreign political
| issue and at all times - on top of that? Triple hell no.
| amelius wrote:
| Samsung could build the plant in South Korea?
| dfsegoat wrote:
| Same situation. Most of South Koreas infrastructure / urban
| centers would be decimated in an 'all out' conflict with
| North Korea.
|
| [1]
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelpeck/2020/08/11/north-
| ko...
| HideousKojima wrote:
| In particular, all of Seoul is in artillery range of the
| north
| hermes8329 wrote:
| Rusty dusty equipment that probably won't even fire..
| that offensive line is hardly a major threat
| AngryData wrote:
| It doesn't matter if it is a 100 year old artillery
| piece, they aren't exactly complicated, just large breach
| loaded guns. The only thing modern guns and artillery
| have over old guns is accuracy, which doesn't really
| matter when you have enough of them firing down range at
| a massive target.
| ratsforhorses wrote:
| What's to stop China moving in with theirs? I mean after
| all they're friends and that's what happened during the
| lasy war...
| missedthecue wrote:
| NK holds regular military exercises. And 152mm guns are
| tried and true; they aren't exactly the most finicky
| pieces of equipment.
|
| Here's a massive artillery drill they held just a few
| days ago.
|
| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-11-07/north-
| kor...
| JohnJamesRambo wrote:
| This will cause WWIII so yes we will need chips in that
| scenario. Let's hope that doesn't happen.
| justinzollars wrote:
| Maybe it won't cause WWIII
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| If China were to invade Taiwan, I'm guessing that all product
| flow from China/Taiwan to (most) other countries would stop.
|
| If that happened, I'm curious what _other_ manufacturing
| /product issues would impact other countries, and how long it
| would take them to adapt.
|
| E.g., what _tool_ manufacturing, raw materials mining, etc.
| are currently happening only in China and /or Taiwan?
|
| And that's assuming that China didn't _also_ sabotage
| industrial capabilities in other countries that depend on
| Chinese /Taiwanese manufacturing.
| kesselvon wrote:
| The U.S. supply chains would be completely wrecked. We're
| probably close to a point where in the event of a global
| war with China, we wouldn't be able to mobilize industry in
| the same way we did during WW2 simply because the
| industrial output fo yesteryear no longer exists in the
| U.S.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| On the other hand, people forget the amount of IP
| (including semi design) that goes from the world to
| China/Taiwan to design products.
|
| But that's what the whole point of free trade is supposed
| to be: increased interdependence, so that everyone has a
| gun to everyone else's head, and no one is incentivized
| to pull the trigger.
| jakeinspace wrote:
| China can manage with loss of most or all access to
| American/NATO IP. America/NATO can't really manage
| without Chinese imports.
| hermes8329 wrote:
| They just steal the IP anyways
| ethbr0 wrote:
| That's not accurate today. It might be different in 10
| years, depending on how successful China is at becoming
| self-sufficient in semiconductor design and
| manufacturing.
|
| Global companies didn't just outsource _all_ the work to
| China. Even in the 90s, they were aware of the risk
| /reward, and specifically retained high-value, low-
| headcount/capital work outside of China.
|
| As a result, China makes _most_ of a device, but many
| core components are imported.
|
| https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/huawei-revenue-slides-
| in-q3-...
| kesselvon wrote:
| We're not even talking about semiconductors. All of the
| basic goods you'd need to supply an army, or the
| industrial capacity for consumer goods that could be
| shifted to wartime production no longer exists. It's a
| problem the DoD has been talking about for years, but
| little action has happened.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Basic goods like food?
|
| Imports, Total Estimated Value by Country, 2017 (most
| recent) [0]: Canada: 26,200.3, Mexico: 23,541.0, [...]
| China: 6,159.7
|
| Or energy?
|
| "In 2020, the United States exported about 8.51 MMb/d and
| imported about 7.86 MMb/d of petroleum1, making the
| United States a net annual petroleum exporter for the
| first time since at least 1949." [1]
|
| Or arms?
|
| Based and manufacturing in the US: Honeywell, Huntington
| Ingalls (ex: Northrup Grumman Shipbuilding), L-3, UTC,
| General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, Boeing, and
| Lockheed Martin [2]
|
| If you're talking a full manpower, total war scenario
| that requires mobilization of the entire country's non-
| military industrial base...?
|
| I think there's a reason there haven't been any wars like
| that between nuclear armed powers. Ever.
|
| Because by the time it gets to that stage now, someone
| has fired nuclear weapons if they have them.
|
| [0] https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/us-food-
| imports/us-fo...
|
| [1] https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/oil-and-
| petroleum-produc...
|
| [2] https://www.therichest.com/the-
| biggest/top-20-largest-arms-m...
| phkahler wrote:
| >> The U.S. supply chains would be completely wrecked.
|
| China: Hey cool, we can destroy the US without engaging
| with them at all, we can just complete our takeover of
| Taiwan which we wanted to do anyway. We just need to make
| it disruptive enough to stop exports for a year or so -
| maybe a bit longer.
| FooBarWidget wrote:
| The best way to keep China from invading Taiwan is by
| upholding the One China Policy. With that policy in place,
| China has plenty of reasons to avoid a war. Unfortunately the
| US and many other parties are increasingly tearing this
| policy down, not seldomly without fully understanding why
| that policy was invented in the first place.
| trasz wrote:
| China has no reason to invade Taiwan, and plenty of reasons
| to avoid doing it. The whole thing is just another American
| wet dream.
| swagasaurus-rex wrote:
| Xi Jinping has been threatening invasion for years, and
| before that, decades of CCP threats.
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-58854081
| trasz wrote:
| >he said unification in a "peaceful manner" was "most in
| line with the overall interest of the Chinese nation,
| including Taiwan compatriots".
|
| Are you sure that's the article you wanted to link to?
| whichfawkes wrote:
| As far as American access to semiconductors goes, it
| doesn't matter if the takeover is peaceful or not.
| Chinese control over Taiwan could easily disrupt the
| supply chain through tariffs, export bans, backdoored
| hardware, etc etc.
| tomatofarmer wrote:
| Did you feel the same way about Hong Kong?
| sleepysysadmin wrote:
| This is about the war with china.
|
| Europe: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/tech-is-make-or-
| break-i...
|
| Germany: https://www.infineon.com/cms/en/about-
| infineon/press/press-r...
|
| Korea: https://fortune.com/2021/05/13/south-korea-chip-
| semiconducto...
|
| Japan: https://www.aroged.com/2021/11/23/japan-has-
| allocated-5-2-bi...
|
| Non-OP USA: https://9to5mac.com/2021/06/09/us-chip-
| production-52b/
|
| Key players are expecting an all out war with China:
|
| France: https://www.economist.com/europe/2021/03/31/the-french-
| armed...
|
| Taiwan: https://thediplomat.com/2021/10/taiwan-says-it-is-
| preparing-...
|
| Australia: https://au.news.yahoo.com/chilling-warning-of-
| australias-rol...
|
| AUKUS: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/sep/16/what-
| is-the...
|
| Japan: https://hamlinemidwayhistory.org/japanese-aircraft-
| carriers-...
|
| China is fully aware of the cold war:
| https://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/chinas-leader-xi-w...
|
| Let me blow your mind far more:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentagon_UFO_videos
|
| These aren't hillbillies. This is US government technology
| recording and confirming UFOs.
|
| https://www.cbsnews.com/news/pentagon-ufo-report-released-ma...
|
| And nobody is talking about it? This is completely related to
| the war with china.
|
| It's all an attempt to prevent war with China. Though that does
| mean a peasant revolt in china is coming.
| trasz wrote:
| The easiest (and probably the only) way to prevent a war with
| China is to convince the US to not start it.
| president wrote:
| Who do you think is the aggressor? China or the US?
| sleepysysadmin wrote:
| >The easiest (and probably the only) way to prevent a war
| with China is to convince the US to not start it.
|
| Noam Chomsky recently wrote similar to this. The military
| threat is really against china.
|
| The point of a cold war is to prevent a real war. So when
| you hear about dick waving of the US military and allies.
| IT's about warning China from doing anything.
| tw04 wrote:
| >The easiest (and probably the only) way to prevent a war
| with China is to convince the US to not start it.
|
| Yes, if there's one thing we should have learned from WWII,
| it's that capitulating to land-grabs results in the bad-
| actor stopping. If we just let them take over the entirety
| of the South China Sea, Taiwan, and maybe just half of the
| African nations they've been lending money to who will
| never be able to repay their debts, they'll definitely be
| satisfied and stop. Korea, Japan, and India have nothing to
| worry about. Nothing at all...
| trasz wrote:
| Until you realize that you are fine with the same stuff
| being done by US.
| tw04 wrote:
| Your response has literally 0 substance. Ignoring the
| fact that whataboutism is a tired and lazy rebuttal,
| remind me which country has the US has annexed in the
| last decade, or whatever you're trying to claim. I
| haven't heard Canada or Mexico complain that they're
| concerned we're going to invade.
| trasz wrote:
| Remind me what country has China annexed in the last
| decade?
|
| Your arguments were about eg Africa, which is obviously
| similar to the Marshall Plan.
| tw04 wrote:
| > Remind me what country has China annexed in the last
| decade?
|
| They've been annexing parts of Nepal for the last decade.
| They are attempting to claim parts of the South China Sea
| that belong to multiple neighbors.
|
| Violating the agreement they made with the UK is
| essentially annexing Hong Kong.
|
| The Marshall Plan was absolutely nothing like what China
| is doing and to claim so is utter ignorance of what is
| happening whether intentional or not. Given your
| responses so far I'll assume it's intentional.
|
| You still have not provided a single example of what
| you're accusing the US of.
| betwixthewires wrote:
| OK, a lot to unpack.
|
| Lots of militaries prepared for conflict. OK.
|
| What do the pentagon UFO releases have to do with war with
| China? You say it's completely related, would you elaborate?
|
| And a peasant revolt in China? That's a big statement and I'd
| like to know more about your reasoning.
| shigawire wrote:
| Best standard of living for Chinese "peasants" in history.
| Not sure where this revolt comes from
| omgwtfbbq wrote:
| Does no one understand the situation with nukes? All out war
| with China isn't even possible. Any major war between nuclear
| powers would inevitably lead to nuclear war. It will never
| happen. It can't. If it does then chip production is moot
| because we will be living on a dead planet.
| kragen wrote:
| How does research on poorly understood atmospheric phenomena
| relate to war with China?
|
| If there's danger of a peasant revolt, war with the US would
| be a pretty effective way to prevent it.
|
| French Economist article archive: https://archive.md/fcTkA
| ("brigades, or a division" sure doesn't sound like WWII)
|
| Grauniad AUKUS article archive: https://archive.md/LFsoo
| ericmay wrote:
| > This is about the war with china.
|
| > It's all an attempt to prevent war with China.
|
| So the Chinese have UFOs and we have a war with China but we
| are moving chip production to all these countries you
| mentioned to prevent the ongoing war with China?
|
| I'd like to give you the benefit of the doubt here though. I
| think if you were able to be a little more clear I'd at least
| understand what you intend to say, but I find your comments
| here a bit confusing.
|
| > And nobody is talking about it? This is completely related
| to the war with china.
|
| Who _isn't_ talking about it? Assuming you're talking about
| poor relations ("Cold War") and /or loving chip production.
| It seems to me to be pretty common knowledge and is widely
| reported in global media sources and the Internet. Don't the
| links you provide demonstrate that?
| politician wrote:
| We're moving fabs to the West to defuse a potential hostage
| situation where China strangles the global supply of
| semiconductors.
|
| The UFO releases are either about telling China that we are
| aware of and can track their surveillance assets, showing
| China our new highly advanced classified assets, or else
| demonstrating the superiority of our current Air Force
| assets.
|
| Both activities serve to dissuade the Chinese military from
| taking aggressive actions.
| trasz wrote:
| Except that 1. It's the west (in particular the US) that
| is strangling the semiconductor supplies in order to
| hamper Chinese industry, and 2. China is completely
| uninterested in military aggression, as opposed to US,
| which just finished a war and is probably looking for
| another one.
| tomatofarmer wrote:
| > China is completely uninterested in military aggression
|
| Except they increasingly fly their fighter jets in
| Taiwan's airspace. And regularly engage in deadly border
| disputes with India. And continue to conduct
| cyberwarfare.
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-58794094
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020%E2%80%932021_China%E2%
| 80%...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberwarfare_by_China
| politician wrote:
| This is just wrong.
|
| The White House recently identified semiconductors as an
| essential product critical to US national security [1].
| These actions by the US and allies to onshore fabs is
| part of the adjustment to defuse a supply chain risk
| caused by potential future actions by China.
|
| During the Cold War, both sides used strategic release of
| classified information on capabilities to notify the war
| planners on the other side in order to prevent
| miscalculations that could lead to a nuclear exchange.
| This is common knowledge and a good tactic to tamper
| escalation. It would be extremely irresponsible to
| surprise a nuclear peer with new capabilities.
|
| [1] https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-
| releases...
| FooBarWidget wrote:
| That's not what this is about. The US is sanctioning
| SMIC. It forced TSMC to release customer data of mainland
| Chinese customers, presumably with the goal of checking
| which more Chinese companies to sanction. The US's goal
| is to prevent China from building a self-sufficient
| semiconductor industry. Or conversely: to keep China
| dependent on the US so that the US can sanction China at
| any time.
| politician wrote:
| Yes, SMIC looks like one aspect of a global
| reorganization of semiconductor manufacturing.
|
| I'm not sure I buy your reasoning though. I don't
| understand how effective blocking the use of US
| technology by SMIC will be given the propensity for IP
| theft, so I don't see how it furthers the goal of
| preventing China from becoming self-sufficient. Nor would
| I really agree with the assumption that they are not
| already self-sufficient.
| sleepysysadmin wrote:
| >So the Chinese have UFOs and we have a war with China but
| we are moving chip production to all these countries you
| mentioned to prevent the ongoing war with China?
|
| Is it China's UFOs? I don't think so.
|
| https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/28/elon-musk-says-the-
| fighter-j...
|
| Elon is 100% correct the fighter jet era is over. Did you
| know Elon was on Trump's tech council?
| https://www.engadget.com/2017-06-01-elon-musk-leaves-
| trump-c...
|
| >I'd like to give you the benefit of the doubt here though.
| I think if you were able to be a little more clear I'd at
| least understand what you intend to say, but I find your
| comments here a bit confusing.
|
| The blow your mind factor is hard to address because of the
| roswell factor. I 100% don't believe those UFOs are
| extraterrestrials.
|
| >Who isn't talking about it? Assuming you're talking about
| poor relations ("Cold War") and/or loving chip production.
| It seems to me to be pretty common knowledge and is widely
| reported in global media sources and the Internet. Don't
| the links you provide demonstrate that?
|
| I guess I didn't make that clear. Obviously it's being
| talked about.
|
| I guess step back for a second. The war with china is
| obvious. I never even talked about cyber aspect of the war,
| its not relevant exactly. A nuclear bomb is going to do
| more in the war than some BGP route stealing tech. The
| irony of it all, it's China's capitalist zones that are
| going to be robbed for 'common prosperity' at the same time
| that the cold war kills those zones like Evergrande
| situation.
| jason-phillips wrote:
| I worked at Samsung Austin Semiconductor for ten years as a
| software engineer. AMA.
|
| I very much love the people I worked with at SAS. It was one of
| the best experiences of my life and I'm very happy to see them
| expand like this.
|
| Wayne at Louie Mueller's BBQ had better add a few more pits,
| they're about to get a lot busier!
| dylan604 wrote:
| >I very much love the people I worked with at SAS.
|
| What color is the boat house at Hereford?
| [deleted]
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| How do you get into chipmaking, really? Is it a Physics degree,
| or is it a Computer Science degree with just lots of on-the-job
| training?
| dreplogle wrote:
| At least on the hardware side of things, it's an Electrical
| or Computer Engineering degree, usually with at least a
| Masters
| jason-phillips wrote:
| It depends on what you want to do.
|
| If you want to work on one of the processes in the fab
| (metrology, chemical vapor deposition, photolithography, etc)
| then an engineering degree (especially chemical engineering)
| may be your best bet.
|
| If you want to design the chip architecture, then computer
| engineering is the degree path you want. Samsung has their
| own chip design subsidiary in Austin too, over on Highway 360
| in west Austin, if I remember correctly, called SARC.
|
| Austin Community College has associate degree programs
| designed for technicians.
|
| I was a software engineer responsible for many of the
| internally-facing enterprise systems, as well as the
| intranet. I worked with all of these engineering departments
| on many different projects, so I had exposure to and
| visibility into many functional areas and processes of a
| truly global, high-tech manufacturing concern. In one of the
| random ways the universe has rolled the dice in my favor, one
| day a recruiter called me and asked, "Would you like to work
| for Samsung?"
| throw10920 wrote:
| I know a few people who went to university near a large
| Intel campus that was always hiring.
|
| These people told me that if you got hired into Intel, it
| was almost always as a design verification & validation
| engineer, and that getting an actual design (architecture)
| job was near impossible (especially as a recent graduate,
| even with an MS).
|
| Is it the same for Samsung?
| a45a33s wrote:
| how could a new grad be qualified to design a new intel
| chip?
|
| seems like those are necessary stepping stones to learn
| all the real world issues that would be involved in
| actually designing a chip.
| throw10920 wrote:
| > how could a new grad be qualified to design a new intel
| chip?
|
| How could a new grad be qualified to design a new Google
| tool?
|
| By being an apprentice (intern) at Google who is
| initially only responsible for a small bit of code (not
| "the tool" nor "the chip" - just a piece), and whose
| contributions are thoroughly reviewed and tested before
| pushing to production.
|
| This comment isn't very constructive.
| jason-phillips wrote:
| In the Austin area for Samsung, there is an order of
| magnitude more staff dedicated to verification and
| validation as part of the manufacturing process than chip
| design. My perception was that the chip design folks
| (SARC) are like the golden children of the ecosystem.
| Their salaries reflect that it's obviously a more
| competitive, demanding environment. I don't know how hard
| it would be for a fab engineer to transfer positions from
| SAS to SARC, but I do remember that it was not a common
| occurrence.
| jason-phillips wrote:
| I should add, if this is a path you're seriously considering,
| I will get you in touch with people at SAS, either in HR or
| in the engineering departments who can offer guidance.
| Samsung Austin Semiconductor has community engagement
| programs as well as career days for Austin-area high school
| students.
|
| Samsung also recruits directly from Texas universities. I
| remember many Longhorn and Aggie engineers being hired
| straight from school every year. I don't know what your
| school situation is like, but I can also get you information
| about how that pipeline works.
| Aromasin wrote:
| This is just my experience working at another Big 5
| manufacturer, but the easiest route was entry from another
| engineering role (if you didn't know anyone on the team there
| already). They never had any undergraduate roles available as
| the pipeline generally came through at MSc or PhD level.
|
| I started in application engineering with an EEE degree,
| built a name for myself there over a couple of years, and
| made my intentions known once I built a good repertoire with
| my manager and mentors that I wanted to transition into chip
| design. They helped me network with the right people, and the
| chip design team took me on. Some of the skills I learnt at
| university, most of it I learnt on the job.
|
| Networking > Qualifications to be honest. On the team we had
| Physicists, Electronics Engies, Comp Scientists, ML Engies,
| Mathematicians, Chemists and so on. Provided you can get a
| foot in the door and convince them you've got some skills
| that would be of use, then you're good.
| duped wrote:
| Undergrad in electrical engineering at a school that teaches
| coursework in VLSI and computer architectures. There are a
| few that have professors and course studies at the undergrad
| and graduate level in semiconductors, integration with
| partnerships with industry. Off the top of my head, UIUC, UC
| Irvine, UC Berkeley, NC State, UF, UT Austin, Cal Tech. I'm
| sure there are many more.
|
| Graduate degrees in physics and EE focused on semiconductor
| physics and manufacturing are also useful. I've known a few
| post grad/doctoral folks from nuclear engineering and optics
| that have careers in the field.
| lkbm wrote:
| Previously posted here:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29314269 (paywalled article)
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