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Fire Destroys 300mm Line of Renesas’ Naka Factory

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

#31

Post by wtallis »

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.

TSMC is also a bit more geographically diverse than a lot of people assume. Their largest fabs are split between three different cities in Taiwan, so a fire isn't going to knock them all offline. And their smaller or less-advanced fabs include several more locations. So it's not quite like the semiconductor industry has put all their eggs in one basket, even for leading-edge logic nodes.

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

#33

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

jandrese wrote: post #3

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

>Automakers were already struggling with chip supply

TBH, that is their own fault.

When the pandemic started a year ago, they chickened out thinking people won't have money to buy anymore cars and halted production, cancelling orders for semiconductors. Then, when the demand for cars exploded, since nobody wanted to be on a subway/bus full of people carrying a contagious virus, they wanted their chips to resume production, but the semiconductor fabs have already allocated the wafer capacity the automakers have just freed up to other industries that were booming.

The automakers basically sold both their kidneys to the pawnshop for a quick buck and are now trying to buy them back during a kidney shortage.

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

#34

Post by gscott »

jnwatson wrote: post #30
an_opabinia wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

One Raspberry Pi in every car and problem solved.

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

#35

Post by pwdisswordfish0 »

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...

Having worked in the semiconductor industry, it would be good investment for Apple, Google, or Microsoft to get into fabbing stuff for themselves and others just on the basis of being able to outcompete everyone else in operational efficiency. There's a killing to be made from low-hanging fruit all over the place, at least for anyone who's able to front costs of opening or acquiring a billion dollar fab.

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

#36

Post by refulgentis »

post_break wrote: post #28
refulgentis wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Apple can quell the stock market crash, depression, and ensuing national mental health crisis by going back to what they were doing, industry standard practice, dual sourcing from Samsung fabs.

AMD/Team Red...well, same thing. They're not due to be on the TSMC node you're worried about until 2022 at the _very_ earliest

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

#37

Post by JumpCrisscross »

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...

> if anyone in Texas had the good foresight to winterize they could have made a year of profit in a few days

Price gouging laws generally discourage this business model.

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

#38

Post by jacquesm »

varispeed wrote: post #24
whatshisface wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 :-)

At least you'd be able to buy some spares for a stepper, or maybe a set of manuals. It's a start.

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

#39

Post by pradn »

dnautics wrote: post #17
whatshisface wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

you mean like how TSMC is building a fab in arizona and samsung in texas?

But TSMC's Arizona plant will make 5nm chips in 2023, by which time 5nm wont be the leading-edge node - 3nm will be. It's nice to see some geodiversity however.

In any case, TSMC is dependent on ASML, which has a monopoly on leading-edge EUV tech.

There is a decent amount of competition at older nodes, like > 40nm. So we'll still be able to make some chips if TSMC completely goes out of business, but obviously it wont scale to the demand and will seriously hamper business, science, and government.

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

#40

Post by jacquesm »

dnautics wrote: post #17
whatshisface wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

you mean like how TSMC is building a fab in arizona and samsung in texas?

I think they have a Chinese move against Taiwan more on the mind than an earthquake or other natural disaster.
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