Live data from Hacker News

Making the case for a homegrown Canadian semiconductor industry

financialpost.com

91–100 of 101 posts

Re: Making the case for a homegrown Canadian semiconductor industry

#91
post #57
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe we're on to something there.

By 'we', do you mean the US? It's generally considered one of the worst aspects of the American tax system. See eg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accidental_American#Taxation_o...

Yeah is a PITA if you're overseas.

Regarding the US and Canada, there are NAFTA cross-border tax rules which are complex and annoying, but not especially onerous in terms of tax obligations.

Re: Making the case for a homegrown Canadian semiconductor industry

#92
post #79

Canada has a long and shameful history of our innovations being screwed up or screwed over. In the 50s our fighter/interceptor was leagues better than the US's jets, but crooked politicians killed the project. In the 70s our CANDU reactors were safer and cheaper to run than the PWRs the Americans were exporting, somehow we lost out on that too. More recently Bombardier built some of the nicest small passenger jets, a…

Excellent article on the Avro Arrow: The project was genuinely ground-breaking. Avro’s engineers had been allowed to build a record-breaker without compromise. But Canadians would soon discover that the supersonic age had made aviation projects so expensive that only a handful of countries could carry them out – and Canada, unfortunately, wasn’t one of them. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200615-the-record-brea…

The Avro was a supersonic bomber interceptor that was going to be ready in the 1960's. It was good at one thing and one thing only (allegedly, it never flew at speed even close to the spec).

It was made to counter a hypothetical supersonic bomber that the soviets never built. Sputnik made them obsolete!

Re: Making the case for a homegrown Canadian semiconductor industry

#93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the Canadians I worked with in the US have gone back to Canada. Our Principle Engineer at my last gig did like ~10 years around the DC area and then pissed off back to Calgary to raise kids and settle down. Still works remotely for the said US gig. Plus have you ever been through a winter where it dips to -40C? Fuck that noise. I'm from the south and live in Canada and never though I'd miss bitter VA winters.…

> Plus have you ever been through a winter where it dips to -40C? Yes. I live in Calgary.

We do have it good with chinooks, let's be fair.

Re: Making the case for a homegrown Canadian semiconductor industry

#94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Plus have you ever been through a winter where it dips to -40C? Yes. I live in Calgary.

We do have it good with chinooks, let's be fair.

True, we are not Edmonton.

Re: Making the case for a homegrown Canadian semiconductor industry

#95
post #33

There's no reason Canada shouldn't have more fabs. It has Teledyne DALSA, making mostly imagers and some MEMS parts. Canada has a bigger population than Taiwan, after all.

Yes there is one very important reason which is that Canada has zero semiconductor manufacturing expertise or legacy. Who is going to design, manage, and operate the plants? And who are the customers going to be?

Well, how did Taiwan start? At the time, they would have been competing directly with the US. The US had to possess every advantage: money, skilled labor, all your customers in the same country. Why did all the fabs uproot and move across an ocean?

Re: Making the case for a homegrown Canadian semiconductor industry

#96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes there is one very important reason which is that Canada has zero semiconductor manufacturing expertise or legacy. Who is going to design, manage, and operate the plants? And who are the customers going to be?

Well, how did Taiwan start? At the time, they would have been competing directly with the US. The US had to possess every advantage: money, skilled labor, all your customers in the same country. Why did all the fabs uproot and move across an ocean?

How did Taiwan get its start... well, people there invented the foundry business model 30 years ago when barriers to entry in semiconductor manufacturing where much much lower than they are today. China has sunk hundreds of billions into the industry and is barely making a dent.

Re: Making the case for a homegrown Canadian semiconductor industry

#97
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no conflict between democracies and accomplishing long term goals. Common perceptions are skewed because (1) "everything works as expected" and (2) "obviously clever long term plan bears fruit" make boring headlines. If the democracies ever bring out the brass knuckles and try hard they'll probably succeed. Even mild tweaks like loosening IP protections and letting failed financial institutions go bankrupt o…

Solar energy (with storage!) is cheap energy. We aren't quite at the storage tipping point, but there is good reason to believe we will get there. Solar as generation tipped years ago. Make plans like energy in 2030 will be cheaper than it is now, not more expensive.

This is simply not true right now. It will be, I hope sooner than later, but not right now.

Re: Making the case for a homegrown Canadian semiconductor industry

#98
post #33

There's no reason Canada shouldn't have more fabs. It has Teledyne DALSA, making mostly imagers and some MEMS parts. Canada has a bigger population than Taiwan, after all.

Yes there is one very important reason which is that Canada has zero semiconductor manufacturing expertise or legacy. Who is going to design, manage, and operate the plants? And who are the customers going to be?

Well, Canada does manufacture other types of chips, there’s a huge case of brain drain to the US, we just need the government to incentivize Canadians who work in tech to stay in Canada

Re: Making the case for a homegrown Canadian semiconductor industry

#99
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes there is one very important reason which is that Canada has zero semiconductor manufacturing expertise or legacy. Who is going to design, manage, and operate the plants? And who are the customers going to be?

Well, Canada does manufacture other types of chips, there’s a huge case of brain drain to the US, we just need the government to incentivize Canadians who work in tech to stay in Canada

The minimum scale for a fab these days is thousands of employees... so it’s not a simple matter of keeping a few years of college grads in the country.

Re: Making the case for a homegrown Canadian semiconductor industry

#100
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By 'we', do you mean the US? It's generally considered one of the worst aspects of the American tax system. See eg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accidental_American#Taxation_o...

Yeah is a PITA if you're overseas. Regarding the US and Canada, there are NAFTA cross-border tax rules which are complex and annoying, but not especially onerous in terms of tax obligations.

Most overseas American don't pay American income taxes either, because of minimum thresholds and widespread (anti) double taxation agreements.

Those people still have the hassle of having to declare American taxes, without generating any revenue for the fisc. That's a pure deadweight loss, if there ever was one.

Post reply on HN