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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

#291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

This applies to all public pension systems, not only the German one.

I'm not sure that any public pension systems in any way satisfy the definition of a Ponzi scheme. While public pension systems may be flawed, in no way are they fraudulent or otherwise non-transparent at the very least in democratic regimes.

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

#292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

@detritus To quote Matt Hancock directly: "I wasn't going to settle for a contract that allowed the Oxford vaccine to be delivered to others around the world before us. I was insisting we could keep all of the British public safe as my primary responsibility as the Health Secretary."

So, not an Export Ban. Gotcha. Thanks.

I mean, if you're being _very_ pedantic, it's not an export ban. It's just a non-export ban measure which has exactly the same effect as an export ban. If you think that's a useful distinction, well, okay, I suppose, but for practical purposes it was an export ban.

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

#293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's your take. Business' take is that they are more than willing to invest the time to find nuanced subtle differences between countries regulatory environments so that they can exploit them for monetary gain. The UK REACH and EU REACH regulations apply to production process - not to the finished exportable product. Hence TSMC in this case would only need to implement REACH within the country it has chosen as its production base. Between the choice of the UK or EU - this would mean it is still only "one thing" to take care of. Unless it ever intended to open production bases in both territories - in which case the territory with the "older" version of REACH would almost certainly win any "ease of doing business" test - so probably the UK at some future date once EU REACH Version 2 materialises (and assuming the UK doesn't blindly copy-paste it again).

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

#294
post #3

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.

Why not? From my POV Germany seems good at manufacturing. E.g. Siemens. And cars.

Siemens was good 30 years ago. More recently, they seem a little bit too tied up with politics, hiring ex politicians, getting caught bribing (e.g. in Greece). It's not a pretty sight IMO and I wouldn't want to work there.

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

#295
post #268

If you consider GlobalFoundries to be a valid competitor, then that move would make a lot of sense. Infineon and AMD used to do a lot of research and production in Dresden. The AMD fab has since become a part of GlobalFoundries. But there's still a healthy ecosystem of university research and medium-sized software companies. Or at least there was, when I visited GlobalFoundries in 2014. Also, there has been a growing…

We don't have enough water anymore in Dresden

Didn't stop Intel or TSMC from building in Phoenix...where there is literally no water and they are having one of the worst droughts ever.

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

#296
post #55

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.

It's not like it's very different in the rest of western Europe, and eastern Europe probably doesn't have the know-how to do it. If you want to be in the EU, Germany is far from the worst place.

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

#297
post #148
post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anything that's not just wild speculation of what people could be doing, although to no apparent effect?

Since it is about corruption, of course there is only wild speculation. Maybe in 20 years someone will confess in their posthumous memoirs or something. Until then, there is only speculation, inference and the recognition of parallels to cases in the past.

I mean, if the options are (a) a grand corrupt conspiracy or (b) Tesla turns out to be bad at doing a thing, I think Occam's razor would suggest (b), especially given that it's _Tesla_. This would not be their first rodeo with screwing things up.

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

#298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's your take. Business' take is that they are more than willing to invest the time to find nuanced subtle differences between countries regulatory environments so that they can exploit them for monetary gain. The UK REACH and EU REACH regulations apply to production process - not to the finished exportable product. Hence TSMC in this case would only need to implement REACH within the country it has chosen as its…

Given that the UK decided not to make itself subject to REACH, that presumably means it wants to diverge, which introduces uncertainty. Now, it's _possible_ that having its own copy of REACH was just political posturing (if you're taking the cynical approach, you might assume that this is even likely), but I can't imagine anyone would want to depend on that.

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

#299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adding to that, is there any general reason for a German, besides money, to go to the US? So if the ones that go mostly do it for the money, they'll most likely stay gone.

Personal development. Working with people that are much smarter than you generally makes you better at your work. So from that point of view, going to the places where the concentration of super smart people is the "highest" makes sense.

There are plenty of smart people and high tech companies in Europe though, so there's no reason to take the job insecurity and parental leave hit for that alone.

You'd have to be in a niche where there's only a few teams world wide that are any good, and the US one is the one that's hiring.

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

#300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's funny because a lot of experienced engineers move to Germany from France, Spain, Italy, the UK, etc to get better salaries. Engineering salaries in Germany are high compared to most of western Europe.

Is that true even if sum up higher taxes and cost of living in Germany? At least in Eastern Europe(specifically Russia, Belarus and Ukraine), average salary for mediocre software engineer is about 3k$ per month after taxes which is already comparable with German average SE salary. But cost of living in EE is a lot cheaper, apartments in Moscow are 3 times cheaper than in major German cities. Food, on average 2 times…

This. Quality and extended costs of life are definitely vague but important aspects when considering a move to Germany. There is no perfect lunch let alone free lunch.
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