Fire Destroys 300mm Line of Renesas’ Naka Factory • Hacker News Board

Re: Fire Destroys 300mm Line of Renesas’ Naka Factory

#21

Post by refulgentis » Wed, Mar 24, 2021, 7:39 PM UTC

post_break wrote: post #15

This is horrible. What keeps me up at night is thinking about TSMC. One company. Just needs an earth quake, fire, explosion, something and the whole world is crippled. I know we have samsung, intel, etc other fabs. But if TSMC ever went down it would make the thailand floods for hard drives look like a joke.

You can sleep a _little_ better: the narrative around this ended up being focused around TSMC, but it's simply because that's the most visible part of the chain, they're first to a new node and all the newest gadgets need the newest node, so all the newest gadgets are on TSMC. They're not solely responsible for like 90% of chips or anything.

Re: Fire Destroys 300mm Line of Renesas’ Naka Factory

#22

Post by BostonEnginerd » Wed, Mar 24, 2021, 7:42 PM UTC

refulgentis wrote: post #21

post_break wrote: post #15

This is horrible. What keeps me up at night is thinking about TSMC. One company. Just needs an earth quake, fire, explosion, something and the whole world is crippled. I know we have samsung, intel, etc other fabs. But if TSMC ever went down it would make the thailand floods for hard drives look like a joke.

You can sleep a _little_ better: the narrative around this ended up being focused around TSMC, but it's simply because that's the most visible part of the chain, they're first to a new node and all the newest gadgets need the newest node, so all the newest gadgets are on TSMC. They're not solely responsible for like 90% of chips or anything.

Especially in the automotive sector which is mostly using relatively ancient processes.

Re: Fire Destroys 300mm Line of Renesas’ Naka Factory

#23

Post by throwei4u243 » Wed, Mar 24, 2021, 7:43 PM UTC

post_break wrote: post #15

This is horrible. What keeps me up at night is thinking about TSMC. One company. Just needs an earth quake, fire, explosion, something and the whole world is crippled. I know we have samsung, intel, etc other fabs. But if TSMC ever went down it would make the thailand floods for hard drives look like a joke.

Not to mention the PLA and the turning of mainland back to Maoist policies. Taiwan's critical role is the tech sector is IMO a deterrent bigger than Nuclear weapons at this point, and its invasion may well be a casus belli in the coming years.

Re: Fire Destroys 300mm Line of Renesas’ Naka Factory

#24

Post by varispeed » Wed, Mar 24, 2021, 7:47 PM UTC

whatshisface wrote: post #16

post_break wrote: post #15

This is horrible. What keeps me up at night is thinking about TSMC. One company. Just needs an earth quake, fire, explosion, something and the whole world is crippled. I know we have samsung, intel, etc other fabs. But if TSMC ever went down it would make the thailand floods for hard drives look like a joke.

It might even be a good investment to build a fab just to clean up in the event of a shortage. Kind of like how if anyone in Texas had the good foresight to winterize they could have made a year of profit in a few days...

Someone should start a Kickstarter for a new fab :-)

Re: Fire Destroys 300mm Line of Renesas’ Naka Factory

#25

Post by unwind » Wed, Mar 24, 2021, 7:47 PM UTC

As someone who has had to endure over a year of very close to the metal (in this case, imagine centuries old, gnarly, rusty random pot metal, maybe) development on a Renesas platform, I'm tempted to think "fewer Renesas products? Awesome!!" but obviously that would be childish.

I'm sorry for all the people hurt by this, fire is no joke.

Edit: added missing words.

Re: Fire Destroys 300mm Line of Renesas’ Naka Factory

#26

Post by an_opabinia » Wed, Mar 24, 2021, 7:48 PM UTC

post_break wrote: post #15

This is horrible. What keeps me up at night is thinking about TSMC. One company. Just needs an earth quake, fire, explosion, something and the whole world is crippled. I know we have samsung, intel, etc other fabs. But if TSMC ever went down it would make the thailand floods for hard drives look like a joke.

Nothing would really happen. We’d keep using 2 year old processors from Intel, and pay more for them. The GPUs, whose price is high because of cryptocurrency, will not be missed. These auto manufacturers could pay a little more for a general purpose CPU instead of ASICs.

Re: Fire Destroys 300mm Line of Renesas’ Naka Factory

#27

Post by oh_sigh » Wed, Mar 24, 2021, 7:49 PM UTC

jandrese wrote: post #3

Ouch. Automakers were already struggling with chip supply. This is going to shut down production lines.

Since cars generally have a large physical space for chips and ample power, why don't automakers just use chips from older fabs?

Re: Fire Destroys 300mm Line of Renesas’ Naka Factory

#28

Post by post_break » Wed, Mar 24, 2021, 7:50 PM UTC

refulgentis wrote: post #21

post_break wrote: post #15

This is horrible. What keeps me up at night is thinking about TSMC. One company. Just needs an earth quake, fire, explosion, something and the whole world is crippled. I know we have samsung, intel, etc other fabs. But if TSMC ever went down it would make the thailand floods for hard drives look like a joke.

You can sleep a _little_ better: the narrative around this ended up being focused around TSMC, but it's simply because that's the most visible part of the chain, they're first to a new node and all the newest gadgets need the newest node, so all the newest gadgets are on TSMC. They're not solely responsible for like 90% of chips or anything.

As someone with a new phone, managed to find an nvidia card at msrp, and who likes computers made by team red, no sorry, I'm still not going to sleep good at night. You tell the population they cant get new iPhones, you watch the anarchy. Not just plebs, but the stock market react to Apple saying no new iPhones, actually no iPhones in stock at all. It would be devastating not from a "I can't have the shiny new gadget waaa".

Re: Fire Destroys 300mm Line of Renesas’ Naka Factory

#29

Post by post_break » Wed, Mar 24, 2021, 7:52 PM UTC

an_opabinia wrote: post #26

post_break wrote: post #15

This is horrible. What keeps me up at night is thinking about TSMC. One company. Just needs an earth quake, fire, explosion, something and the whole world is crippled. I know we have samsung, intel, etc other fabs. But if TSMC ever went down it would make the thailand floods for hard drives look like a joke.

Nothing would really happen. We’d keep using 2 year old processors from Intel, and pay more for them. The GPUs, whose price is high because of cryptocurrency, will not be missed. These auto manufacturers could pay a little more for a general purpose CPU instead of ASICs.

The stock market would crash guaranteed if Apple had no inventory of phones. AMD no gpus or cpus, etc. It wouldn't just be like oh sorry out of stock. It would touch every aspect of your life.

Re: Fire Destroys 300mm Line of Renesas’ Naka Factory

#30

Post by jnwatson » Wed, Mar 24, 2021, 7:52 PM UTC

an_opabinia wrote: post #26

post_break wrote: post #15

This is horrible. What keeps me up at night is thinking about TSMC. One company. Just needs an earth quake, fire, explosion, something and the whole world is crippled. I know we have samsung, intel, etc other fabs. But if TSMC ever went down it would make the thailand floods for hard drives look like a joke.

Nothing would really happen. We’d keep using 2 year old processors from Intel, and pay more for them. The GPUs, whose price is high because of cryptocurrency, will not be missed. These auto manufacturers could pay a little more for a general purpose CPU instead of ASICs.

Auto manufacturers can't just put in a general purpose CPU. Embedded CPUs have functionality general purpose CPUs don't have. Not to mention it would take months to design new hardware and write new software.

The chips being put into cars today were selected at least 5 years ago.