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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

#281

Post by stackbutterflow »

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…

> You could pick an undergrad, offer them 600k$, and they could take the job, but that won't make them top talent.

But that's exactly what is happening. People are paid these insane salaries because they're either born American or got a green card. Do you think the 20 something hired at $200k+ in the Silicon Valley are worth 5 times the seniors devs at $40k in Thailand, Spain, Poland? The only difference between a 5 digits salary engineer and a 6 digits salary engineer is a green card.

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

#282

Post by samus »

suction wrote: post #223
jcfrei wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A well-working system? Germany only has an income tax but no wealth tax, unsurprisingly there's a huge inequality in wealth. If you earn your living in Germany through work you are basically a sucker: You have to hand on average 38.9% to the state. Taxation on capital gains, interest and dividends is 25%. This difference is compounding every year so the net effect over a lifetime is huge.

By well-working system I mean there are still enough checks and balances in place to make the rise of a figure like Trump or Putin very unlikely. And this of course is tied to economic well-being.

Well, they could use a term limit for chancellors. The position is not as powerful as the US president (the term limit is really the most important check to the president's power), and most people will agree that Merkel did at least a decent job during her tenure, but long office terms tend to fossilize the political system.

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

#283

Post by aryonoco »

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 TSMC client for many years. Not for their CPUs but for many of the multitude of other chips that Intel produces, from NICs to Wifi chips. Current estimates is that 7.2% of TSMC's revenue comes from Intel, which makes Intel TSMC'S 6th biggest client, only marginally behind AMD (9.2%)

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4414346-samsung-won-t-soon-...

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

#284

Post by fundatus »

nbevans wrote: post #269
rsynnott wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As mentioned elsewhere, the tariff aren't the issue for most industries; non-tariff barriers are. I would think the UK's plan for a sort of parallel REACH regulation (REACH is the EU's chemical regulation) after the transition period ends would be particularly burdensome for the semiconductor industry.

Two questions: Why would copy-pasted (from EU REACH) "UK REACH" regulations present more of a burden to the semiconductor industry than EU REACH? What NTBs exist that are known to affect the semiconductor industry?

Because it's now two things to care of. Which will diverge eventually, even if only ever so slightly. If not, what's the point of the whole exercise?

It just adds additional friction. Whereas when you set out your supply chains within the EU single market you don't have to deal with that.

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

#285

Post by paulmd »

odiroot wrote: post #22
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.

I wouldn't be as harsh, but indeed that decision is a bit weird. They cannot really count on cheap labour, or "friendly" economic incentives. And seeing the case of Tesla factory, it's not so easy and fast. One great thing about Germany is the central location within EU with good logistics overall. Not sure it matters for semiconductor manufacturing.

Taiwan as a country was not allowed to buy vaccines (since China views them as an administrative sub-unit, Taiwan should not be engaging in international relationships from their perspective) and are still getting hit hard by COVID. At one point recently TSMC itself was negotiating with an EU pharma company for vaccines (to be purchased through a Chinese intermediary) as a proxy for the national government (due to the aforementioned "china says we're not a country" politics) and I wonder if these two things aren't linked. Give us a fab so we aren't wholly dependent on Taiwan for supply flunctuations in our automotive industry, and we'll grease the skids with China and make sure you get your vaccines.

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3140662/tsmc...

I guess arguing against that idea is the fact that Japan also got a 28nm fab recently and I dunno if they've done anything particularly special for Taiwan lately in return.

But up until recently TSMC was very much "negotiating via the press", protesting that Germany was not a good location due to lack of supply chain, etc (despite GloFo having the Dresden fabs nearby and all - certainly not cutting-edge anymore but they are 14nm/12nm fabs, they aren't chopped liver either).

There clearly has been a sea change lately though with TSMC and their policy regarding fabs outside of taiwan. The US got a 20k wafer/month fab (later upgraded to a 100k wf/mo "gigafab") based on the cutting-edge 5nm node, which would have been unthinkable even a year ago. Japan got a 28nm fab for their automotive industry as well. Clearly the chips shortage has been a factor in all this but particularly the change in position on the 5nm fab is pretty stunning - the exclusivity of TSMC's cutting-edge nodes in China is effectively part of their national-defense strategy and there must have been some pretty good trades made in order to get that fab in the US. That is not an automotive fab and it's completely contrary to the well-established policy of TSMC never to let their cutting-edge nodes outside Taiwan to use the potential damage to the world economy as a suicide bomb should china try to invade.

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

#286

Post by samus »

bildung wrote: post #50
sichtlinkair wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genuinely curious why Germany's position is excellent for chip production?

There are already quite a few plants (Globalfoundries, Bosch, Infineon, TI, Osram, ...) so the qualified work force is there. Germany is also pretty heavy on high tech production, so there's a big existing supplier network. Key suppliers like ASML are nearby (Both the Netherlands and Germany are part of the Schengen Agreement, so logistics-wise almost as open as cross-state transports within the US).

Minor nitpick: Schengen does not matter, membership in the customs union does. For shipping, availability and quality of infrastructure is more important.

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

#287

Post by ishjoh »

steffen84 wrote: post #206
nicbou wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You are right except the german pensions they are a ponzi scheme and will fail in the future.

I hear this a lot about social security in the US as well, that it will fail. I would characterize it as degrading instead of failing. If the workforce declines there will be fewer payers into social security or pensions, then folks paying into social security will have to pay more, recipients will get fewer benefits, or the government will print money

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

#288

Post by xadhominemx »

NicoJuicy wrote: post #241
xadhominemx wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would the locations of those research organizations matter?

Because while TSMC is production, the innovation happens mostly with those companies.

Ya but why does it matter that those organizations are in Europe? The distance does not matter and in any event TSMC is not contemplating building a leading edge plant in Europe

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

#289

Post by rsynnott »

jonp888 wrote: post #210
rsynnott wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The UK isn't even manning its customs posts for imports from the EU at present. I mean, largely true, but entirely irrelevant to someone planning a factory. That's a temporary situation that cannot realistically continue.

> That's a temporary situation that cannot realistically continue. It might not be realistic, but it is UK government policy: https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/uk-asks-for-brexit-standst...

Plenty of things that aren't realistic are UK government policy, especially these days. It's not plausible that it'll stay as it is indefinitely.

That's a separate though related issue, btw; that's the border between GB and NI, not the border between GB and Europe proper. The difference there is that the UK controls both sides of the border, so their failure to enforce is seen as more urgent.

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