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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

#81

Post by jhayward »

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...

> 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.

This fundamentally mis-states the situation in Texas during the recent cold catastrophe. Gas suppliers that had winterized had their electricity cut off and could not pressurize their distribution. Generators who had winterized had their gas supply curtailed. And so on.

It was a systemic failure by the PUCT and the RRC, who are the regulators. Ultimately, the Governor who appoints those boards and the Legislature who grants their authorities failed.

It wasn't some yahoo generator too dumb to winterize, although there were plenty who didn't find it financially convenient to do so.

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

#82

Post by baybal2 »

pwdisswordfish0 wrote: post #78
baybal2 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. They can try... Surely they have cash, and so did the Chinese who were signing 10 digit cheques for anybody claiming to be able to setup a modern fab. Running a fab is not like running a cat video website, or making a c…

> Running a fab is not like running a cat video website, or making a cookie cutter electronics from reference designs. You're squaring up against a stickman. The companies cited are not fly-by-night startups "running a cat video website". Dave Cutler got his start on the factory floor, working out better processes for a toilet paper manufacturer. Apple has plenty of hardware chops and the vertical integration bug. Go…

> Not a chance. The semiconductor industry, perversely, has no idea how to put computers to use, and the leadership and organizational structures are aligned against that kind of achievement ever coming from within (or being airdropped in by a leadership hire who cuts across the lanes from another industry) and making the necessary top-down sweeping changes).

I've seen attitudes like this in the industry many times, and every time such "bright idea man" comes, a previously well faring company dies.

Take a look at Sun Micro, people now will never believe that they once had ambitions to "corner" the server/internet market the very same way those bright "financial strategist" boys suggesting chip companies to "go undercut this, and that, and we will own the Internet!"

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

#83

Post by slaw »

post_break wrote: post #29
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.

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.

FED could just print even more money to pump stock market.

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

#84

Post by UncleOxidant »

pwdisswordfish0 wrote: post #35
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...

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.

None of those companies have any expertise in running a semiconductor fab, though. There probably is low-hanging fruit, but you have to be really familiar with the process to know where it might be.

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

#85

Post by UncleOxidant »

pradn wrote: post #39
dnautics wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 won…

There will still be plenty of demand for 5nm chips in 2023. There will still be plenty of demand for 5nm chips in 2030 for that matter. Not everything uses the latest process node.

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

#86

Post by pwdisswordfish0 »

baybal2 wrote: post #82
pwdisswordfish0 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Running a fab is not like running a cat video website, or making a cookie cutter electronics from reference designs. You're squaring up against a stickman. The companies cited are not fly-by-night startups "running a cat video website". Dave Cutler got his start on the factory floor, working out better processes for a toilet paper manufacturer. Apple has plenty of hardware chops and the vertical integration bug. Go…

> Not a chance. The semiconductor industry, perversely, has no idea how to put computers to use, and the leadership and organizational structures are aligned against that kind of achievement ever coming from within (or being airdropped in by a leadership hire who cuts across the lanes from another industry) and making the necessary top-down sweeping changes). I've seen attitudes like this in the industry many times,…

> every time such "bright idea man" comes

You're ignoring everything I'm saying. (Probably because you don't want to consider the idea that emperor really isn't wearing any spiffy new clothes.) We're not talking about bright ideas. We're talking about dumb, dead simple ideas. Dumber than UPS's fabled "let's try to minimize how much time we waste on left turns".

Go watch that Dave Cutler clip and pay attention to what he says near the end of the video about being a leader and about there being no task too small when it comes to getting the job done.

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

#87

Post by hjiofdgojhi5489 »

baybal2 wrote: post #57
pwdisswordfish0 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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. They can try... Surely they have cash, and so did the Chinese who were signing 10 digit cheques for anybody claiming to be able to setup a modern fab. Running a fab is not like running a cat video website, or making a c…

>...stealing each other's wives in the most literal sense...

...With four guys in balaclavas and a van?

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

#88

Post by pwdisswordfish0 »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #84
pwdisswordfish0 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

None of those companies have any expertise in running a semiconductor fab, though. There probably is low-hanging fruit, but you have to be really familiar with the process to know where it might be.

No, you don't. That's what makes it low-hanging fruit.

-- Signed, someone who is really familiar with the process.

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

#89

Post by jychang »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #69
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...

> 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... Hmm. When would this foresighted person have made their preparations? What would installation have cost? What would maintenance have cost? More or less than a year's worth of profits?

A few days in advance, and no installation or maintenance costs. It costs about $4000 to rent a 1000kW diesel generator for a week. It consumes about 70gal of diesel per hour, and it costs $2.90 ish for diesel in Texas. That comes to $4000 + $203/hr running costs.

At one point, Texas electricity prices hit above $9000/MWh. Running the generator for 1 hour would net you $9000. Not bad for peak profit. The average profit will be a bit lower; here's some very rough back of the envelope math:

Taking a look at an example here: https://dfw.cbslocal.com/2021/02/22/texans-sky-high-power-bi...

> On a typical February day, she pays Griddy less than $2.50 for power. But the one-day cost spiked to hundreds of dollars after the storm. In all, she was automatically charged $1,346.17 for the first two weeks of February

So $2.50 a day over 2 weeks is $35. The spike to $1346 is 38x her normal cost, and Griddy uses wholesale prices. I see wholesale costs around 6.7cents/kWh, so at 38x normal pricing, that means electricity would cost around $2546/mWh. Not as high as $9000, but still a nice profit averaging for 2 weeks. Profit per hour would be $2343/hour; multiply that by 24/day and 14/two weeks, gets you $787,248 total. Subtract out $4000 for the rental, and you get $783,248.

Close to a million dollars over 2 weeks is not a bad haul. Even if you divide the price by 2, it's still pretty good.

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

#90

Post by colinmhayes »

quickthrowman wrote: post #72
jacquesm wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I wouldn’t be surprised if TSM has self-destruct features built into their operations as a deterrent, or at least a plan to let the USAF bomb the hell out of the foundries if China invaded. The former might be a bit too risky :)

Which still means there's a crippling semiconductor shortage. With how long fabs take to make it could last for years.
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