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TSMC eyes Germany as possible location for first Europe chip plant

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Re: TSMC eyes Germany as possible location for first Europe chip plant

#61

Post by sabjut »

ChemSpider wrote: post #40
gallexme wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a German Permits, the government is V slow. And labor is expensive. Also sounds expensive to use all the water they need, since they would need to clean it up very good and align the temperature with the rest of the attached rivers or what they use. And other climate relevant regulations.

Germany has plenty of water. Certainly more than Taiwan.

That's what Elon Musk said too about the Brandenburg Facory ("Doesn't look like a desert so it must be ok")

But environment groups are saying that ground water levels have been decreasing for years and the factory would demand too much from the water network.

So who is in the right here?

Re: TSMC eyes Germany as possible location for first Europe chip plant

#62

Post by ashergill »

bschne wrote: post #41
grlass wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention the people who design many of the machines that TSMC use in their plants: ASML. "The mirrors guiding this light, made of sandwiched layers of silicon and molybdenum, are ground so precisely that, if scaled to the size of Germany, they would have no bumps bigger than a millimetre" https://www.economist.com/business/2020/02/29/how-asml-becam... >

Extremely naive question, but I always wonder how you can "bootstrap" this kind of precision — intuitively for something to be this precise, the tools and equipment that "create" it should also have to be more or less equally precise. Or is it a matter of manufacturing it, testing it, and rejecting some percentage of things that don't fit your requirements due to imprecisions? Are there any good background resources…

You might enjoy this video, 'Origins of Precision'. https://youtu.be/gNRnrn5DE58

Re: TSMC eyes Germany as possible location for first Europe chip plant

#63

Post by artemonster »

hans1729 wrote: post #10
alexanderklein wrote: post #2

If i were TCMS, i would not invest in Germany. But as a german, living in Germany, i am happy that they consider an investment in Germany.

Germany is positioned excellently for chip production, why would you consider that a bad investment?

its not. you have to have _TEST HOUSES_ nearby. and this would mean, like for most of germany semiconductor output, that these wafers are flown to china for testing & assembly.

Re: TSMC eyes Germany as possible location for first Europe chip plant

#64

Post by symmetricsaurus »

bschne wrote: post #41
grlass wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention the people who design many of the machines that TSMC use in their plants: ASML. "The mirrors guiding this light, made of sandwiched layers of silicon and molybdenum, are ground so precisely that, if scaled to the size of Germany, they would have no bumps bigger than a millimetre" https://www.economist.com/business/2020/02/29/how-asml-becam... >

Extremely naive question, but I always wonder how you can "bootstrap" this kind of precision — intuitively for something to be this precise, the tools and equipment that "create" it should also have to be more or less equally precise. Or is it a matter of manufacturing it, testing it, and rejecting some percentage of things that don't fit your requirements due to imprecisions? Are there any good background resources…

Take three somewhat flat stones to start out. Alternate rubbing the surfaces together in a random fashion. As you continue the high spots of the stones will be ground down and the surfaces will become flatter and flatter. In the end you can get very precise flat surfaces.

Two stones is not enough, you can then end up with two spherical surfaces. With three this isn't possible (imagine two of them are convex, when you rub them together they will grind eachother down and become less convex).

Re: TSMC eyes Germany as possible location for first Europe chip plant

#65

Post by ulfw »

ChemSpider wrote: post #40
gallexme wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a German Permits, the government is V slow. And labor is expensive. Also sounds expensive to use all the water they need, since they would need to clean it up very good and align the temperature with the rest of the attached rivers or what they use. And other climate relevant regulations.

Germany has plenty of water. Certainly more than Taiwan.

Germany gets round about 750mm of rain a year, Taiwan 2500mm.

Re: TSMC eyes Germany as possible location for first Europe chip plant

#66

Post by sabjut »

corty wrote: post #37
driton wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happened to the solar companies in Germany?

Practically all went bancrupt between 10 and 12 years ago. Starting around 2000, Germany began to heavily subsidize private solar panel installations with guaranteed prices around 1Eur/kWh (later falling to 0.5Eur/kWh, now around 0.1Eur/kWh). With subsidies falling, demand dropped. And initial high subsidies (some claim, see [0]) made the industry too lazy to get competitive abroad, so around 2008 China began to ramp…

I knew the Government mess up the solar market but I never knew just how much incompetence was at play there. Loosing industry to China (I am still furious about KUKA) is apparently a recreational sport for the CDU.

Re: TSMC eyes Germany as possible location for first Europe chip plant

#67

Post by DaedPsyker »

emsy wrote: post #55
alexanderklein wrote: post #2

If i were TCMS, i would not invest in Germany. But as a german, living in Germany, i am happy that they consider an investment in Germany.

Another German here, I agree. The regulatory hurdles are insane, the sentiment among the population is anti-business and I see the chance that the Green Party will be in the Next government as another negative point for businesses.

While I get the sentiment, regulatory issues would be only one factor to decide and in some cases not that big (medical for example is heavily regulated the world over).

The fact that you guys have a large pool of talent for advanced manufacturing (for this kind of thing probably the biggest consideration), and central location with easy access to all other parts of Europe were the likely elements to win out.

Don't sell yourself short.

Re: TSMC eyes Germany as possible location for first Europe chip plant

#68

Post by reader_mode »

ChemSpider wrote: post #36
alexanderklein wrote: post #2

If i were TCMS, i would not invest in Germany. But as a german, living in Germany, i am happy that they consider an investment in Germany.

Germany is a great place to invest. So is most of Western Europe. The #1 thing you are looking for is _stability_ and a good engineering job market. Both is available. For this kind of automated high-tech manufacturing, nobody cares about salaries. They are <<1% of the cost.

Is Germany really stable considering Tesla story ?

Chip making isn't clean by any standard.

Re: TSMC eyes Germany as possible location for first Europe chip plant

#69

Post by dataflow »

bschne wrote: post #41
grlass wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention the people who design many of the machines that TSMC use in their plants: ASML. "The mirrors guiding this light, made of sandwiched layers of silicon and molybdenum, are ground so precisely that, if scaled to the size of Germany, they would have no bumps bigger than a millimetre" https://www.economist.com/business/2020/02/29/how-asml-becam... >

Extremely naive question, but I always wonder how you can "bootstrap" this kind of precision — intuitively for something to be this precise, the tools and equipment that "create" it should also have to be more or less equally precise. Or is it a matter of manufacturing it, testing it, and rejecting some percentage of things that don't fit your requirements due to imprecisions? Are there any good background resources…

> intuitively for something to be this precise, the tools and equipment that "create" it should also have to be more or less equally precise.

Very reasonable assumption that I used to have too. (Un?)fortunately it's also wrong, or at best, incomplete. :-) e.g., maybe you don't have the technology to make precisely straight lines, but if you can make a flat surface (like paper), then you can fold it in half and get a straight line. Then fold that in half and get a pretty-close-to-90-degree angle.

I also vaguely recall that feedback can increase precision in a system... like you can get 2% accuracy with a circuit that has only 5%-accurate resistors by using feedback (or something along those lines). Unfortunately I no longer recall how this is done. I just remember my mind was blown when I learned it.

Re: TSMC eyes Germany as possible location for first Europe chip plant

#70

Post by flohofwoe »

nbevans wrote: post #57

I find it surprising that they are choosing Germany - after everybody is seeing what Germany is doing to Tesla's Gigafactory there (embroiling it in so much red tape that Elon wishes he could pull out if it weren't for sunk cost). It seems that Germany has a very good ability to convince and lobby these mega-manufacturers to base themselves there, but a very poor ability to actually let them succeed after making that…

There's a bit of a "silicon cluster" around Dresden in Germany going all the way back to the late 60s and 70s (the GDR had pretty impressive chip manufacturing capabilities for such a small country on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain). Also regarding the "red tape", this depends a lot on the state you're in. Brandenburg/Berlin vs Saxony/Thuringia/Bavaria can be very different in that regard (of course it depends a lot on the local government that's currently in place).
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