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TSMC eyes Germany as possible location for first Europe chip plant

asia.nikkei.com

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

#341

Post by rossdavidh »

polskibus wrote: post #196

Just recently we've discussed "faltering" talks in Europe https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27161217 and "eyeing" Japan https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Tech/Semiconductors/TSMC-ey... I wonder if this media noise is more to do with negotiation tactics than with real intentions.

I think that they are, in fact, intending to open new fabs in both Japan and Europe. Given the presence of GlobalFoundries and others in Germany, that would make sense for a European base.

This doesn't mean that it's not _also_ intended to help with negotiations, of course. It can be both true, and stated out loud for the purpose of seeing what other offers come up.

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

#342

Post by suction »

pkaye wrote: post #317
oezi wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since insurance is capped at around 5k salary you will at most pay 15% of that (750 EUR) for health insurance per month in the universal insurance system. If you make higher salaries then you won't be affected.

> Since insurance is capped at around 5k salary you will at most pay 15% of that (750 EUR) for health insurance per month in the universal insurance system. Does the employer pay any of that? Is that the total for the entire family?

Yes, it includes your spouse and any number of children up to the age of 26 I think. So the classical family model with a stay-home spouse and children will be covered by the breadwinner's health insurance.

If any family member works full-time, then they have to cover their own health insurance. Exceptions apply.

If you make more than 40.000 EUR / year you have the option to get a private insurance policy with more "benefits". Then, the employer will pay out the amount that went to the public health system and you will use it (and whatever you can afford on top) to your private health insurance.

When you go private, you're in the wild west, meaning you'll need to be extremely cautious of what contracts you sign. Or you'll end up with a 3000 EUR per month plan at old age, with no way back into the public system.

Many people end up poor after retirement because their whole 401k and savings go towards the health insurance which is way to luxurious for their needs and isn't capped.

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

#343

Post by helloguillecl »

bpodgursky wrote: post #305
nicbou wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Money isn't everything to many. Life in Germany is good enough, and there's no guarantee that it would be betted in the US. Sure, more money is nice, but the pay in Germany is still decent, and the perks are considerable: 22% fewer work hours, for instance.

It's not, and that's perfectly fine from a societal standpoint, but people who are worried about working 22% fewer hours and are fine getting a "decent" salary are not the engineers you want to hire when trying to bootstrap a new enterprise. They can run your company steady-state, but they are not going to build anything internationally competitive.

This is simply not true, as German tech companies have built more than just a few success examples.

Why do you think you need people who don't care about having a life outside the workplace to build something competitive?

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

#344

Post by nosianu »

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.

It is not a "Ponzi scheme" at all, rubbish. The pension system is not an investment theme. Currently working people provide for current pensioners. No "investing" involved. That, in the light of a shift in age distribution, this works better when the economy and productivity grow is orthogonal, the pension system payments are not for economic growth but directly for current pensioners.

Unless you find aliens or a time machine to shift goods and also services through time, always and everywhere the currently working take care of the current pensioners. There is nothing "Ponzi" about it, that is the universe.

People who pay now do not pay for their future pension, they pay for the current pensioners. What is transmitted to the future - when they become pensioners - is not what they pay now, it is merely information. That information is then taken into account when the then living and working working people pay the pensions of the then pensioners. The information about how much somebody contributed in the past is taken into consideration to see how much a share of the overall pie everyone gets, but the pie itself always is created in the present by whoever works now.

Which also makes the headlines a little silly that claim that because in the future there will be more of an imbalance between nr. of people working and those getting a pension something needs to be changed now. It makes no sense: The current payments into the system immediately go to the current pensioners. If there are less paying and/or more receiving the funds that can and is always balanced at whatever the current time is. There is no need to do anything now when the current payments are enough to pay the current pensioners. If next year there is an imbalance they adjust what the payments (in and out) are at that time. It makes no sense to change payments now when the problem is not right now.

Any finance-based scheme cannot undo the universe (except, aliens helping out or time machine). "Private" funds change nothing of the underlaying truth that current pensioners live from what current workers produce in both goods an services. It only changes who is responsible: More winners and losers (and then "it's your own fault, why did you not buy stocks - the right stocks too of course") with the finance based system, with one huge winner the financial industry.

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

#346

Post by rattray »

TMWNN wrote: post #333
rattray wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that 750 EUR for an individual or a family? Sounds like a lot. For comparison in California, a 35-year-old SF resident earning $250k/yr living alone purchasing insurance through the public marketplace can get a Platinum-level Kaiser Permanente HMO plan for around $650/mo (but over $2000/mo for a family of four). YMMV but I've found KP's service quality to be extremely high, and that plan comes with $0 annual deduc…

>YMMV but I've found KP's service quality to be extremely high Multiple studies have shown that Kaiser is more efficient and effective than the UK NHS for about the same cost. Examples: * https://www.bmj.com/content/324/7330/135 * https://www.bmj.com/content/327/7426/1257

Fascinating! Thank you for sharing those 2002/2003 articles. For completeness, it looks like a 2004 rebuttal claims that this is due to a healthier population: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1266198/ but frankly that does confirm that relatively healthy, employed populations would prefer Kaiser to the NHS.

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

#347

Post by bpodgursky »

helloguillecl wrote: post #343
bpodgursky wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not, and that's perfectly fine from a societal standpoint, but people who are worried about working 22% fewer hours and are fine getting a "decent" salary are not the engineers you want to hire when trying to bootstrap a new enterprise. They can run your company steady-state, but they are not going to build anything internationally competitive.

This is simply not true, as German tech companies have built more than just a few success examples. Why do you think you need people who don't care about having a life outside the workplace to build something competitive?

Germany has 80 million people. The US has 330 million.

Can you really tell me with a straight face that Germany has 25% of the success examples that the US tech industry has?

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

#348

Post by rattray »

domsom wrote: post #339
rattray wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that 750 EUR for an individual or a family? Sounds like a lot. For comparison in California, a 35-year-old SF resident earning $250k/yr living alone purchasing insurance through the public marketplace can get a Platinum-level Kaiser Permanente HMO plan for around $650/mo (but over $2000/mo for a family of four). YMMV but I've found KP's service quality to be extremely high, and that plan comes with $0 annual deduc…

It's 14.6 % of the gross income, capped around 58k income / year. Half of that (7.3 %) is paid by the employer, the other half by the employee (deducted from monthly wage payments). For that, kids (no matter how many) are covered unless the other parent has a private insurance. Spouses are covered if they don't have their own insurance. Based in Germany, I'd say the best part of it is that it's truly social: The heal…

Ah, so more like 350€/yr, including all dependents, for an employed person. That is a much better deal than (self-employed) KP, assuming the quality is good!

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

#349

Post by Panoramix »

fxtentacle wrote: post #45

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…

I don't see GlobalFoundries as a realistic competitor to TSMC. Also CERN's needs cannot be compared to the needs of Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook and the likes. That right there is a huge chunk of the world's economy and they all rely on TSMC directly or indirectly.

My guess would be this is more about diversifying. I think it makes a lot of sense to have factories in the US, Europe and Asia, especially given China's stance on Taiwan.

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

#350

Post by thrwyoilarticle »

ng55QPSK wrote: post #152
thrwyoilarticle wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

German engineering gave us BER

The lead of construction for BER was a dutch company

Imtech? It was their German branch. Regardless, at least they could rely on Siemens and Bosch to nail the fire system, PG BBI to do the planning, and GMP for the architecture.
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