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Intel breaks ground on $20B Arizona plants as U.S. chip factory race heats up

reuters.com

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Re: Intel breaks ground on $20B Arizona plants as U.S. chip factory race heats up

#291

Post by CamperBob2 »

wibagusto wrote: post #45
ZetaZero wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "average" chip fab uses about as much water as 3 "average" irrigated center pivot farms. If the fab land was previously irrigated farm land, this will be a net savings of water. Math: 130 acres at 0.25 inches of water = 10 million gallons of water. Done once per week for 3 farms = 4.3m gallons per day. Average chip fab uses 2-4 million gallons per day

2-4 million gallons per day is a lot of water to piss away for some chips that go out of fashion in 5 years.

And you posted that brilliant insight using what...?

Re: Intel breaks ground on $20B Arizona plants as U.S. chip factory race heats up

#292

Post by worrycue »

Dah00n wrote: post #257
josephcsible wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do think we would win in the end, but even if we didn't, I'd rather go down fighting than graciously accept our new CCP overlords.

The US is looking more and more like ancient Rome. In 10-15 years it likely neither can win a war against China but it will also likely not have many allies on its side if it tries.

China doesn’t have many allies either. They have managed to piss of just about everyone. There are few countries in Asia that wouldn’t be happy to see China taken down a peg or a dozen - and probably wouldn’t mind discreetly giving the US a hand.

Re: Intel breaks ground on $20B Arizona plants as U.S. chip factory race heats up

#293

Post by worrycue »

Dah00n wrote: post #256
dsq wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crossing a wide span of water (wider than the English Channel) against a determined defender is really hard. Taiwan is bristling with anti ship missiles and are very much against being taken over by the PRC.

That doesn't change that fact that Taiwan doesn't stand a snowballs chance in hell. At most it adds a few days from start to end. It is extremely unrealistic to have Taiwan not become part of PRC if war breaks out. The US only have one way to win and that's all-out invasion after nuking mainland China - but then no-one wins.

In the worst case I can see a Taiwan getting nukes. Nukes are pretty old tech, if North Korea can get them I’m sure Taiwan who is vastly more wealthy can too.

Re: Intel breaks ground on $20B Arizona plants as U.S. chip factory race heats up

#294

Post by downrightmike »

kd913 wrote: post #5

Doesn't chip making a lot of water, most of it in Arizona is fed by Lake Mead? The same reservoir that is at 30% capacity, with acute water shortages and with 4 years of increased precipitation necessary for an adequate refill. We are adding a chip making facility which needs a lot of water here? This sounds like a recipe for disaster whenever there is a period of water stress which appears to be occurring in that re…

These fabs will likely be water neutral because requirements that they treat the water before giving it back to the city basically make it clean enough to use again.

Re: Intel breaks ground on $20B Arizona plants as U.S. chip factory race heats up

#295

Post by fidesomnes »

rayiner wrote: post #270
j_walter wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this case I can't compare it to agriculture. I don't think growing food in a desert is a good idea either. The Intel site in Portland, OR uses ~2 Billion gallons of water per year. They claim they are bringing enough recycle capacity to save about half that. https://www.oregonlive.com/silicon-forest/2017/08/intel_wate...

That’s not much. The average family of 4 in Arizona uses about 325,000 gallons a year. So a billion gallons is equivalent to 3,000 families, or a very small town.

Imagine how embarrassing you must be to repeat nonsense like this.

Re: Intel breaks ground on $20B Arizona plants as U.S. chip factory race heats up

#296

Post by after_care »

Aperocky wrote: post #275
rayiner wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not much. The average family of 4 in Arizona uses about 325,000 gallons a year. So a billion gallons is equivalent to 3,000 families, or a very small town.

Doesn't smell right, you're saying a family of 4 in Arizona uses ~900 gallons a day? That's 3500L or 3.5 tons of water every day. I mean you can flush the toilet every minute for the whole day and only use about that much water, and that's assume the toilet fills up as fast (it doesn't).

It probably includes yard irrigation.

Re: Intel breaks ground on $20B Arizona plants as U.S. chip factory race heats up

#297

Post by thehappypm »

Jarwain wrote: post #284
cma wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Semiconductor manufacturing needs constant power aside from AC though, it presumably doesn't stop at night due to high automation and the capital involved.

Ideally you'd overprovision with solar and use batteries to store the excess energy, to be used at night

Arizona is literally one of the best places in the world for solar & storage, they have an unbelievably reliable number of sunny days.

Re: Intel breaks ground on $20B Arizona plants as U.S. chip factory race heats up

#298

Post by philliphaydon »

j_walter wrote: post #191
hosh wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Phoenix and have heard some of the local discourse about this. Fabs need a lot of water, like a swimming pool. Once you fill it up, then you need comparatively less to stay operational. Intel has invested in both recycling water as well as partnering with organizations on water conservation and ecology projects. Arizona does draw water from the Colorado River, but among the four states, Arizona is at the bo…

>Fabs need a lot of water, like a swimming pool. Once you fill it up, then you need comparatively less to stay operational. This is just not true. The amount of cooling required for fabs is extremely significant and without major evaporative cooling you can't get it. With evaporative cooling comes water loss...and not a small amount of it, especially in the desert. You can do a lot to recycle water that is used in th…

Taiwan went through a major drought due to going an entire year without a typhoon. TSMC is investing in recycling and water management.

https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4292388

So I would assume Intel is also doing similar.

Re: Intel breaks ground on $20B Arizona plants as U.S. chip factory race heats up

#299

Post by dghlsakjg »

j_walter wrote: post #267
dghlsakjg wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is super interesting. Since you seem to have inside knowledge can you compare it to agriculture? For example: the google machine tells me that cotton production in AZ uses somewhere in the neighborhood of 2.5-3.5 acre ft. water per acre. Would a large fab consume a comparable amount of water? 1 acre = 43.5k sq ft 1 acre foot = 325k gallons

In this case I can't compare it to agriculture. I don't think growing food in a desert is a good idea either. The Intel site in Portland, OR uses ~2 Billion gallons of water per year. They claim they are bringing enough recycle capacity to save about half that. https://www.oregonlive.com/silicon-forest/2017/08/intel_wate...

Wow! I had no idea. Thanks for the thoughtful reply

Re: Intel breaks ground on $20B Arizona plants as U.S. chip factory race heats up

#300

Post by j_walter »

tw04 wrote: post #289
paulmd wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the west coast also has a pretty low incidence of natural disasters. The east coast regularly gets bad hurricanes, the northeast and midwest get really bad snowstorms, plains states regularly get tornadoes, etc, but on the west coast if you pick a region that's not geologically active then there aren't really a ton of huge natural disasters that occur regularly. of course I guess there's wildfires now too, but that's…

> the northeast and midwest get really bad snowstorms I’m curious what the supposed issues around snowstorms are. In the Midwest at least you typically lose a day of “work” (not going into the office) a couple times per winter and that’s only because of school closures. The roads are rarely an issue for more than a couple hours unless it’s REALLY bad storm. I don’t see why you couldn’t keep running the fabs through t…

Power bumps are a major issue and even with redundant power you get them. Even a bump that loses 15-20% of voltage on a single phase for 3-6 cycles (of 60Hz, so like 0.05-0.1s) is a huge impact to fab production tools.

I've seen impacts from cars hitting telephone poles 20 miles away that have been enough to impact the fab, let alone tree branches snapping from snow and ice.

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