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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

#111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taiwan is currently having a drought. Water supply to TSMC has been limited. TSMC scrambling to secure enough water. Fabs are chemical plants that require lots of water. TSMC Signs Deal For More Than 100 Water Tankers As Taiwan Drought Expected To Worsen https://wccftech.com/tsmc-signs-deal-for-more-than-100-water...

Reminded me of the 2011 Thai floods that had a huge impact on HDD prices. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-thai-floods-drives/thai-f...

Was it grandparent comment's explicit mention of it that reminded you?

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

#112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminded me of the 2011 Thai floods that had a huge impact on HDD prices. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-thai-floods-drives/thai-f...

Was it grandparent comment's explicit mention of it that reminded you?

nop, my experience trying to buy a hard drive back then with a very small budget. I just noticed the grandparent comment now tho, thanks.

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

#113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some military planners thinks the Chinese will not invade but will enforce a maritime blockade around the island to force the issue. Ships would be inspected and food and medicine will be allowed through but all trade goods will be blocked. But that is all depended on the US and it's allies having a stomach for a naval confrontation or that the Chinese mainland umbrella of long range missiles and air defense can be a…

Does the chinese navy have experience with maritime blockades? Besides, for chips, worst case scenario is load those chips onto ruslans and offboard them in guam or okinawa. A minor marginal expense. Will china shoot down taiwanese planes?

No idea but it would be preferable optics wise to stage as an internal Chinese policing action against a rebellious province rather than a full on military invasion of another country and all that would entail.

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

#114
post #96
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Redesign, and re-certify a car selling at less than 10% markup. You will be underwater for the car's entire remaining lifetime on the market.

I meant as part of the original design, not as a stop-gap until the fabs are outputting enough chips.

Car safety regulations in quite a few places will require you to fully recertify a car even if you changed a stereo in it.

Some place limitations on safety critical electronics like ABS specifically requiring any modification to it being treated as a new car model for legal purposes.

Such laws are predatory, but laws they are

But even if they did find cheaper substitutes, it's not the more advanced chips which are in the most acute shortage, but really old ones, which were kept in production for decades specifically because of car industry's requirements.

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

#115
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

> What would installation have cost? What would maintenance have cost? More or less than a year's worth of profits? Power that's selling right now for $25/MWh was selling at the $9,000/MWh cap. A 36,000% increase in price can surely pay for enough to, say, keep your pressure sensing equipment from freezing over. (Which is why the 1,280MW STNP Unit 1 went offline at a $11.5MM/hour+expenses cost.) Not to mention the li…

This kind of analysis assumes the price would go that high if people had winterized their equipment. The price only went that high because the grid had basically already failed. It's extremely unlikely it would go that high if the grid was functioning. So the incentive to get that payout only exists if the grid falls over anyway. Basically this either allows smaller actors (who can't prevent the crises) to take a bet with long odds and a large payout (already not a winner as far as infrastructure investments go), or it basically removes its own incentive if enough of the larger actors take steps to avoid it.

Basically I think this idea of ultra-high pricing during a crisis providing an incentive to prepare for one (as opposed to paying for the capacity to that the crisis doesn't occur in the first place), is not necessarily well-formed: it's feels like it's assuming the market remains efficient in one half while it also requires that the market has effectively failed due to the crisis we're trying to structure the market to prevent.

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

#116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would imagine that some DoD plan states that all those fabs in Taiwan get blown up upon invasion.

Some military planners thinks the Chinese will not invade but will enforce a maritime blockade around the island to force the issue. Ships would be inspected and food and medicine will be allowed through but all trade goods will be blocked. But that is all depended on the US and it's allies having a stomach for a naval confrontation or that the Chinese mainland umbrella of long range missiles and air defense can be a…

The first US-flagged vessel stopped and searched would trigger WW3. I think there's little question about popular sentiment in the US. Backing down would be political suicide for any president.

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

#117
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes, absolutely. Still, the point is that the factory will be useful, but not a panacea to the US's lack of cutting-edge chip-making prowess.

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

#118
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From an industrial/automotive/aerospace standpoint Raspberry Pi's are hot garbage.

Granted it's just the Raspberry Pi compute module, but the existence of the Revolution Pi[1] would seem to counter your point. [1]: https://revolution.kunbus.com

Is it going to work when the car it's in has been sitting in the sun in Arizona?

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

#119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some military planners thinks the Chinese will not invade but will enforce a maritime blockade around the island to force the issue. Ships would be inspected and food and medicine will be allowed through but all trade goods will be blocked. But that is all depended on the US and it's allies having a stomach for a naval confrontation or that the Chinese mainland umbrella of long range missiles and air defense can be a…

The first US-flagged vessel stopped and searched would trigger WW3. I think there's little question about popular sentiment in the US. Backing down would be political suicide for any president.

Aren't most container vessels like the one stuck in the Suez flagged under the flag of Panama ???.

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

#120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

New Tesla Model S is rumored [1] to use latest AMD Ryzen chipset. Even Model 3 and Model Y are using 14nm Intel Gordon Peak chips. [1] https://wccftech.com/amd-navi-23-rdna-2-gpu-reportedly-power...

Some of the SoCs are using leading edge nodes - but most of the microcontrollers, power electronics, etc. are using 90nm+ nodes.
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