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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

#381

Post by Animats »

baybal2 wrote: post #378
Animats wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody has yet come up with a better approach to generating focused soft X-rays than that tin plasma nightmare. The "light source" today is the size of a 3-story house to get 250W on target. One of the main reasons wafer fabs now cost so much. There must be a better way.

> The "light source" today is the size of a 3-story house to get 250W on target. One of the main reasons wafer fabs now cost so much. Yes, EUV machines are said to increase fab electricity consumption few times over, over regular UV steppers. > There must be a better way. The better way may well be worse. The alternative proposal is to build the whole fab around a synchrotron.

There are several "tabletop synchrotron" projects, but as yet none with the right output for an IC fab. Hopefully someone will solve this problem.

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

#382

Post by baybal2 »

Animats wrote: post #381
baybal2 wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The "light source" today is the size of a 3-story house to get 250W on target. One of the main reasons wafer fabs now cost so much. Yes, EUV machines are said to increase fab electricity consumption few times over, over regular UV steppers. > There must be a better way. The better way may well be worse. The alternative proposal is to build the whole fab around a synchrotron.

There are several "tabletop synchrotron" projects, but as yet none with the right output for an IC fab. Hopefully someone will solve this problem.

Synchrotrons would not be better by much. Efficiencies will still be just above single digits, which still means multimegawatt light sources.

That's still better than tens of megawatt light sources.

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

#384

Post by LatteLazy »

blibble wrote: post #332
LatteLazy wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The uk is horrible political mess at the moment. God knows if we'll be able to import or export anything or keep the lights on next week. Not a great place to put a billion dollar global supply investment.

do you even live in the UK? the political deadlock was completely resolved after the 2019 election... now the government has a huge majority and is rock solid politically (as is normally the case) other than some toilet roll shortages in March last year, there have been no visible issues whatsoever

https://www.thenational.scot/news/19450687.brexit-scottish-c...

Plus lorry drivers. And hospitality jobs. And god knows what else.

And we're in the middle of pulling out of the deal we signed, because no one read the Northern Ireland section. Or they did and lied and now they're pretending otherwise.

We can have all the elections we want, and you're right that Bojo has a solid majority. But that majority does nothing for our relationship with the EU. And it falls apart when the "have your cake" part notices the "eat your cake" part are eating all the cake. And that's without getting into the reliability of anyone in the current government (except maybe Sunak, he's doing rather well...).

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

#385

Post by wasmitnetzen »

bpodgursky wrote: post #347
helloguillecl wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Not in IT, but Germany has quite a few market leaders in "old tech": Cars, logistics (DHL, Schenker), retail (Aldi, Lidl), and a whole lot of B2B niche products.

IT isn't a fair comparison, no country in the world can compete with FAANG right now, that's hardly Germany's fault. And still, there's SAP and Deutsche Telekom. Telekom has 50% of Google's revenue. Sure, the market cap is another story, but still.

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

#386

Post by bpodgursky »

wasmitnetzen wrote: post #385
bpodgursky wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Not in IT, but Germany has quite a few market leaders in "old tech": Cars, logistics (DHL, Schenker), retail (Aldi, Lidl), and a whole lot of B2B niche products. IT isn't a fair comparison, no country in the world can compete with FAANG right now, that's hardly Germany's fault. And still, there's SAP and Deutsche Telekom. Telekom has 50% of Google's revenue. Sure, the market cap is another story, but still.

China is 100% competing with FAANG. India has a lot of close-second competition.

Most of the companies you listed were founded before 1950. That's not at odds with my thesis -- these engineers can continue to drive an already-successful business but will not be able to start something genuinely new.

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

#387

Post by nickik »

yorwba wrote: post #204
nickik wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What problem? What could they have avoid if they had asked experts? I have been following the process in a lot of detail, as I speak German. I have no idea what you are referring to.

One issue is that the factory is located within the boundaries of the Wasserschutzgebiet Erkner/Neu Zittau, which means they have extra strict environmental safety requirements to avoid contaminating the water. That seems like it could've been avoided, since Brandenburg doesn't have that many Wasserschutzgebiete: https://maps.brandenburg.de/apps/Wasserschutzgebiete/ (The WSG Erkner/Neu Zittau is the big blob south of…

Telsa knew very well about the Wasserschutzgebiet. The additional measures you have to take is not actually that relevant or expensive.

The location they ended up with, was suggested by the government of Brandenburg. It was one of a few locations.

And selecting a location has many, many, many factors. Tesla simply decided that the extra cost for that environment was less important then the other factors. Such as transportation infrastructure and likely many others.

Simply suggesting that they didn't know what they were doing because of the location they picked is not really defensible.

We also have no indication that the regulatory approval is delayed because of that specific issue.

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

#389

Post by rattray »

rattray wrote: post #348
domsom wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

350€/mo*

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

#390

Post by datameta »

dylan604 wrote: post #275
openandshut wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's a machine doing the grinding, what is the source of randomness?

function setPostion(float x=random(), float y=random()){}

I imagine the PRNG they use for this is a rather thorough implementation. Unless perhaps it is even necessary to used a cryptographic chip to generate true randomness.
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