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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

#251

Post by artemonster »

adwn wrote: post #234
artemonster wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there are some developments, but mostly you would get new additional tool on top of existing stack, rather than a new stack. Problem 1. patents. in early FOSS days people got momentum to push hard for corporations to give up compiler patents and other obvious nonsense and let GCC flourish. same situation is here in hardware, the very idea of simulating circuits is a mine field of patents and you'd be sued out of exis…

> the very idea of simulating circuits is a mine field of patents and you'd be sued out of existence. Doesn't that apply to basically every kind of software? How's it different for HDL simulation software?

the point is that for FOSS there was an active movement that forced IBM and old megacorps to forfeit such "nonsense" patents. So if you roll out a brand new c++ compiler you may have some buffs with intel if you try to go to their turf about some propreitary x64 specific optimizations, but, say, IBM wouldnt sue you because you dared to create "a program/method of transforming source code into machine code" that violated 250 patents from their portfolio.

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

#252

Post by _ph_ »

volta83 wrote: post #247
_ph_ wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you would offer $600k for an engineering position, there would be no problem finding any numbers of engineers in Germany. They all would have to line up behind me of course :). Yes, to quickly ramp up, you would have to pay more than teh average market salary, but as you pointed out, engineering positions are not as highly paid in Germany as in the silicon valley. There is nothing preventing you from paying good s…

> If you would offer $600k for an engineering position, there would be no problem finding any numbers of engineers in Germany. I'm baffled at some of the answers. Paying somebody 600k$ does not make that person a good engineer. You could pick an undergrad, offer them 600k$, and they could take the job, but that won't make them top talent. No company out there paying their engineers 600k$ is going to give an engineer…

I think there are plenty of engineers in Europe and Germany to find. Europe has a healthy semiconductor industry, just not so many fabs. And why wouldn't a lot of people want to move to Germany? Considering how many of my colleagues have moved to Germany for the job, I don't see a special obstacle there.

Also: wherever they build their new fab, if it is outside of Taiwan, they probably have attract the engineers to move there, which place would be better suited at the moment?

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

#253

Post by jandrewrogers »

nicbou wrote: post #184
suction wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Might be true, but in Germany, the salary you pay to your employee is also about 1% of all the labor cost for him or her. Which is hyperbole, of course, but Germany is one of those countries where the actual net payout is usually significantly less than 50% of the salary the company provides. I'm not criticising it as I think Germany is a good example of a well-working system but net salaries are low for most.

Eh the salaries are alright. It seems to me like the salaries are higher in America, while in Germany they're lower but include things American end up paying for: pensions, insurance, and education. If I were American, a part of my net income would still end up going to health insurance, student loans and other things. My employer might pay less benefits, but pay a higher salary to compensate for those costs. I think…

Americans have a government-provided pension (Social Security) that pays about the same as the German one, paid for by employment taxes.

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

#254

Post by volta83 »

wasmitnetzen wrote: post #131
volta83 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Top technical talent scarcity and cost. In Silicon Valley, you can find a dozen 600k$ engineers relatively quickly to scale up a random startup. In Germany... the salaries these people would be making would be This disparity in the valuation of top engineers cause many to emigrate, and once you are in the US, it is impossible to financially justify taking a 5x pay cut to go back to Germany. (You can justify it "non-f…

I don't know of a single person in my Master's degree class in Computer Science in one of Germany's top tech universities who went to the US. And I have most of them as contacts on LinkedIn. I'm not buying your premise.

Anecdotal evidence: I did my BSc, MSc, and PhD in Germany.

None of my PhD colleagues (from my and other top3 tech universities) is still in Germany, they are all in the US, except one which is now a Prof in the UK.

Most of my BSc and MSc colleagues are still in Germany, some spreaded out through europe, and few to the US.

Its pretty hard to some of us actually have work-related conversations with old friends still in Germany. They always ask about the salaries in the US, and guess something "absurd" like "you are probably making more than 200k$, 250k$?", to which the only thing you can actually say is "yes" kind of in shame, because making >500k$/year is "absurd"/"beyond imagination" by German standards.

We have all worked in Germany in industry before moving to the US (both internships, but also between MSc. and PhD, or briefly after the PhD), and there is just no comparison about the quality-level of the work and intellectual-growth in the US and Germany.

In my German employer, our 15 ppl team was 2 PhDs, and many MSc, all from different skill levels, doing a good job, etc.

In my US employer, our 50 ppl team has > 40 PhDs, couple of Stanford / MIT / Berkley / .. ex-Professors, pretty much all of them infinitely smarter than me, all giving me feedback, punching holes through my work, discovering my flaws, and teaching them to me, etc.

The difference in the amount of stuff you learn per day of work, the quality standards, etc. between both employers is abysmal.

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

#255

Post by iSnow »

suction wrote: post #76
Heliosmaster wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For those companies involved in semiconductor industry, where machines cost 100M usd EACH... People are just a rounding error. Should we hire 100 more? 1000 more? Whatever

Keep in mind that for a high-profile engineer or lead who expects to make 400k at least per year, the company would actually have to pay him 800k to make that much net. Labor cost in Germany is sky high. That times a thousand is not insignificant.

400K in Germany is upper management level, not C-suites, but most certainly not engineering either.

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

#256

Post by bogomipz »

I was curious about this statement:

>"TSMC supplies chips to almost all the key global chip developers, from Apple, Qualcomm and Advanced Microelectronics Devices to Intel, Infineon and Sony."

When exactly did Intel become a customer of TSMC? Is this for a recent process technology or is this only for specific types of chips? I under the impression Intel chips always came from their own fabs.

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

#257

Post by totalZero »

was_a_dev wrote: post #216
DougBTX wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With images: https://ericweinhoffer.com/blog/2017/7/30/the-whitworth-thre...

That is, one plate remains stationary while the other is lapped against it, and then the opposite is performed Is it a strict requirement that one plate remains stationary?

In relative terms, one of the two plates remains stationary even if both are moving.

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

#258

Post by jhickok »

bogomipz wrote: post #256

I was curious about this statement: >"TSMC supplies chips to almost all the key global chip developers, from Apple, Qualcomm and Advanced Microelectronics Devices to Intel, Infineon and Sony." When exactly did Intel become a customer of TSMC? Is this for a recent process technology or is this only for specific types of chips? I under the impression Intel chips always came from their own fabs.

https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Tech/Semiconductors/Apple-a...

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

#259

Post by totalZero »

bogomipz wrote: post #256

I was curious about this statement: >"TSMC supplies chips to almost all the key global chip developers, from Apple, Qualcomm and Advanced Microelectronics Devices to Intel, Infineon and Sony." When exactly did Intel become a customer of TSMC? Is this for a recent process technology or is this only for specific types of chips? I under the impression Intel chips always came from their own fabs.

Intel has been a customer of TSMC on the small-time stuff for a while now, if you consider the fact that they acquire companies that do business with TSMC (including Altera). However, the leading-edge customer relationship is very new[0]. I read it as a form of defense against AMD in the short term (pricing power and availability) and against Apple in the long term (x86 vs Apple Silicon).

[0] https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-to-outsource-some-ke...

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

#260

Post by iSnow »

RivieraKid wrote: post #123
martin_a wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a German myself: Why would you not invest? Infrastructure, state of mind? I'd really love to see more high-tech companies invest here, after we've managed to kill the solar companies... :-/

My general impression is that Germany is not innovative, dynamic and backwards in technology among developed nations. For example: http://cdn.statcdn.com/Infographic/images/normal/17307.jpeg Also, they've made some seemingly stupid decisions such as closing nuclear power plants. And I'm not a fan of their climate change policy, they should push for a worldwide carbon tax instead of forcing EVs.

IDK, this chart looks like a lot of German regions are pretty innovative: https://ec.europa.eu/growth/industry/policy/innovation/regio...

Also, Germany pushing for a worldwide carbon tax? That's neat, but I doubt it would cause more than a yawn in Washington, Beijing, or Delhi.

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