Tech giants seem to have fire problems in Germany lately
ASML reports fire at its Berlin factory
21–30 of 319 posts
Re: ASML reports fire at its Berlin factory
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Is impacting the semi supply chain the hot, new weapon of the US-China tech cold war? If it is, at best only temporarily. The US is perfectly capable of setting up its own complete supply chain if there were the political motivation and do so in a relatively short time frame. China is perfectly aware of this so it will never become a serious issue, they would just be shooting themselves in the foot and cutting thems…
The US is capable of many things, in theory. In practise, not a lot of new capabilities have materialised so far. Not even a single new Foxconn plant or a domestic contender (if any). That's not to say that is impossible, but without good examples we can all say a bunch of stuff and it won't mean anything.
There's a difference between what happens for economic reasons and what would happen for an actual security / supply chain threat.
Re: ASML reports fire at its Berlin factory
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
The US is capable of many things, in theory. In practise, not a lot of new capabilities have materialised so far. Not even a single new Foxconn plant or a domestic contender (if any). That's not to say that is impossible, but without good examples we can all say a bunch of stuff and it won't mean anything.
There's a difference between what happens for economic reasons and what would happen for an actual security / supply chain threat.
> That's not to say that is impossible, but without good examples we can all say a bunch of stuff and it won't mean anything.
Re: ASML reports fire at its Berlin factory
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hurting ASML serves neither side - and that's true for most third parties who want nothing to do with that stupidity. But since it is stupidity and given the track record of the countries involved, I wouldn't completely rule out that someone might pull a stunt like this.
China has been pouring high order of millions into domestic lithography. Eventually the market will shift. We're still a bit far away. Edit: funny that people here think that this is statement is somehow something that could be considered a contentious topic. semiengineering has a startup section with investments for people that are more interested in facts than emotions: https://semiengineering.com/startup-corner/
Well EUV alone cost many billions of dollars to develop. It's also not clear that China is particularly good at leading high tech innovation. If you just look at the dollars and cents, they should be inventing new technology at a similar rate as the US. Doesn't seem like they're pulling their weight.
Re: ASML reports fire at its Berlin factory
#25As a single source supplier for the global semiconductor supply chain this is concerning. Is impacting the semi supply chain the hot, new weapon of the US-China tech cold war?
>Is impacting the semi supply chain the hot, new weapon of the US-China tech cold war? If it is, at best only temporarily. The US is perfectly capable of setting up its own complete supply chain if there were the political motivation and do so in a relatively short time frame. China is perfectly aware of this so it will never become a serious issue, they would just be shooting themselves in the foot and cutting thems…
There is absolutely no capacity to replace ASML on any sort of short timeframe.
EUV step and scan systems are roughly the size of a bus, fractal system complexity and sophistication that rivals the LHC, and mirrors with a roughness two orders of magnitude finer than what the JWST space telescope has to work with (namely .2nm compared to 20nm).
Please do not underestimate the difficulty of manufacturing EUV systems, ASML only manages to build a few dozen a year for a reason :)
Re: ASML reports fire at its Berlin factory
#26I think we might not be good at building resilient systems.
Re: ASML reports fire at its Berlin factory
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's a difference between what happens for economic reasons and what would happen for an actual security / supply chain threat.
> That's not to say that is impossible, but without good examples we can all say a bunch of stuff and it won't mean anything.
Ok, in WWII a big part of Allied victory was the US mobilizing a vertically integrated industrial base to build war materiel.
You can look at the history of the Defense Production Act (1950) to see it in action several times building up local industries with lots of cheap money.
Re: ASML reports fire at its Berlin factory
#28As a single source supplier for the global semiconductor supply chain this is concerning. Is impacting the semi supply chain the hot, new weapon of the US-China tech cold war?
Hurting ASML serves neither side - and that's true for most third parties who want nothing to do with that stupidity. But since it is stupidity and given the track record of the countries involved, I wouldn't completely rule out that someone might pull a stunt like this.
Assuming rationality or optimal play is not good way to think of real world actions. You only need three things for something like this to happen.
1. One side thinks[1] that it will hurt the other side more than it does to itself.
2. Politically it can handle/sell the cost of such an action.
3. There is a leader who is ready to execute it as his agenda.
[1] Only have to think so, it doesn't have to even be true.
Re: ASML reports fire at its Berlin factory
#29I think we might not be good at building resilient systems.
Normal Accidents is a terrific book on inevitable failures of complex systems — it was written before Chernobyl which makes it prophetic as well.
Re: ASML reports fire at its Berlin factory
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hurting ASML serves neither side - and that's true for most third parties who want nothing to do with that stupidity. But since it is stupidity and given the track record of the countries involved, I wouldn't completely rule out that someone might pull a stunt like this.
China has been pouring high order of millions into domestic lithography. Eventually the market will shift. We're still a bit far away. Edit: funny that people here think that this is statement is somehow something that could be considered a contentious topic. semiengineering has a startup section with investments for people that are more interested in facts than emotions: https://semiengineering.com/startup-corner/
> pouring high order of millions
All I can think of is dr. Evil saying "one MILLION dollars".