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ASML reports fire at its Berlin factory

reuters.com

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Re: ASML reports fire at its Berlin factory

#91

Post by jazzyjackson »

chx wrote: post #79
kragen wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This smear could not be further from the truth. China has singlehandedly (to the extent that a billion people can be considered a "single hand") dropped the cost of solar energy from five times as expensive as fossil fuels to half as expensive as fossil fuels in only ten years, an innovation that will probably stop global warming and usher in an unprecedented age of energy abundance starting about eight years from no…

Quoted post unavailable.

(not the OP) Do you want to point to anything that is only half true? I similarly choose to defend China against lazy characterizations that they can only steal what westerners design for them, and it's not because I want the communist party to succeed, I don't. Why are you so sure what you've read about China reflects the situation better? I have visited factories in Shenzhen and Shanghai, I am impressed by what they have accomplished, and I believe the people in this thread do themselves a disservice by having such a tainted picture of their fellow human beings.

Re: ASML reports fire at its Berlin factory

#92

Post by jazzyjackson »

dragonwriter wrote: post #89
jazzyjackson wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry to see you downvoted, it is extremely irksome to me that China is so often characterized as "copying others homework" -- if we could do what China does, why do we go to China every time we need something done? It is not westerners exploiting cheap labor, tho it may have started that way. It is really the scale of their talent pool, the number of engineers that graduate every year is nearly 10x what the US gets…

> if we could do what China does, why do we go to China every time we need something done? Ricardian comparative advantage, which doesn't require the party you go to to be better at the thing you are going to them to do than you are, only that you are enough better at something else that doing the thing you are outsourcing would require giving up more of the other thing. It's about opportunity cost, not absolute prof…

While I've taken an intro to economics class, I've also taken Chinese bullet trains across the country, something I sadly cannot say for America. There are few metrics where they are somehow behind us in proficiency.

Re: ASML reports fire at its Berlin factory

#93

Post by hda2 »

onionisafruit wrote: post #85
vharuck wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One option is government subsidies, like what's done for farms and military hardware. Just keep buying it up, even if it rots or rusts. The goal is to make sure those industries remain healthy and don't slip back in expertise.

Most governments can’t afford to do that.

I'm pretty sure the majority of countries can. We're talking 90s-era infrastructure that costs less than a single modern passenger airplane to build and run.

Governments can subsidize their use in local industries or even build the infrastructure themselves doing what many governments already do with power, telecommunications, and transport.

Re: ASML reports fire at its Berlin factory

#94

Post by skybrian »

chongli wrote: post #72
hda2 wrote: post #62

Like water, food, and electricity, electronics have become an integral part of life. Every single country that can afford to bootstrap their own semiconductor manufacturing infrastructure should be scrambling to do so. This infrastructure doesn't have to be cutting edge. Even 90s-era tech should be enough to cover a country's basic needs in case of a global collapse or shortage. It's insane for humanity to continue p…

The hard part is what to do with 90s-era tech when times are good? Nobody’s buying that old stuff (hobbyists aside). So then you just run these plants at a loss? I’d hate to be an engineer at one of those places. Seems like very soul-crushing work.

Embedded chips are in everything and they are often older tech. (Maybe not that old, but far from the latest.)

Re: ASML reports fire at its Berlin factory

#95

Post by ajmurmann »

kurthr wrote: post #88
xadhominemx wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China will not have a domestically sourced EUV scanner with commercially viable throughput within 20 years, if not longer. They are lacking precursor technologies to the precursor technologies, supply chains, talent, etc for both light source and optics, and unlike the rear of the semiconductor industry, those ecosystems are today found within the US and Europe, not Asia.

Yeah, I mostly agree, but do you consider Taiwan part of China? They do. Japan and Korea also have pretty big talent in related areas. I believe that Intellectual Property often wears shoes, but a lot of SW, methods, specs, etc can be appropriated more quickly.

In practice, for where the money goes and what the CCP can block Taiwan right now isn't part of China. That seems like a situation that could change in the near future and the West should plan for.

Re: ASML reports fire at its Berlin factory

#96

Post by nieve »

kurthr wrote: post #88
xadhominemx wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China will not have a domestically sourced EUV scanner with commercially viable throughput within 20 years, if not longer. They are lacking precursor technologies to the precursor technologies, supply chains, talent, etc for both light source and optics, and unlike the rear of the semiconductor industry, those ecosystems are today found within the US and Europe, not Asia.

Yeah, I mostly agree, but do you consider Taiwan part of China? They do. Japan and Korea also have pretty big talent in related areas. I believe that Intellectual Property often wears shoes, but a lot of SW, methods, specs, etc can be appropriated more quickly.

Isn't Tiawan an EUV equipment customer, not supplier?

Re: ASML reports fire at its Berlin factory

#97

Post by dragonwriter »

jazzyjackson wrote: post #92
dragonwriter wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if we could do what China does, why do we go to China every time we need something done? Ricardian comparative advantage, which doesn't require the party you go to to be better at the thing you are going to them to do than you are, only that you are enough better at something else that doing the thing you are outsourcing would require giving up more of the other thing. It's about opportunity cost, not absolute prof…

While I've taken an intro to economics class, I've also taken Chinese bullet trains across the country, something I sadly cannot say for America. There are few metrics where they are somehow behind us in proficiency.

> I've also taken Chinese bullet trains across the country, something I sadly cannot say for America

But exercising centralized control while eliminating internal dissent through propaganda or ignoring it because dissenters are effectively disenfranchised, as much as it's a thing many people in the US would love to do, isn't one of the things we outsource to China (neither, viewing the same claim through a different lens, is physical Infrastructure in the US.) So, to the extent that that story reflects something they genuinely have absolute advantage in, it's not really relevant to the “why do we go to them for the things we go to them” for. Heck, a lot of the things we have gone to them for, like low-cost manufacturing of a variety of goods, are moving out from China to other places as they develop just as they moved out of more developed places to China, because with more development comes higher proficiency in areas that less developed states can't substitute for at all, so comparative advantage leads to them getting more of the things they can do, even if they aren't great at them on an absolute scale.

Re: ASML reports fire at its Berlin factory

#99

Post by heavyset_go »

chongli wrote: post #72
hda2 wrote: post #62

Like water, food, and electricity, electronics have become an integral part of life. Every single country that can afford to bootstrap their own semiconductor manufacturing infrastructure should be scrambling to do so. This infrastructure doesn't have to be cutting edge. Even 90s-era tech should be enough to cover a country's basic needs in case of a global collapse or shortage. It's insane for humanity to continue p…

The hard part is what to do with 90s-era tech when times are good? Nobody’s buying that old stuff (hobbyists aside). So then you just run these plants at a loss? I’d hate to be an engineer at one of those places. Seems like very soul-crushing work.

There are plenty of products and industries that don't require chips built with the latest tech on the market. You might not put those chips in the newest computers or phones, but that doesn't mean they can't power other products. Plenty of scientific and industrial products and processes are suited well by "old" tech. Same thing with many consumer products. My car and blender don't need CPUs manufactured on 3nm nodes.

Re: ASML reports fire at its Berlin factory

#100

Post by celtain »

chongli wrote: post #72
hda2 wrote: post #62

Like water, food, and electricity, electronics have become an integral part of life. Every single country that can afford to bootstrap their own semiconductor manufacturing infrastructure should be scrambling to do so. This infrastructure doesn't have to be cutting edge. Even 90s-era tech should be enough to cover a country's basic needs in case of a global collapse or shortage. It's insane for humanity to continue p…

The hard part is what to do with 90s-era tech when times are good? Nobody’s buying that old stuff (hobbyists aside). So then you just run these plants at a loss? I’d hate to be an engineer at one of those places. Seems like very soul-crushing work.

Perhaps students could use or even operate them. Undergraduate level electrical engineers would love to have access to a fab, even one a couple decades behind cutting edge.
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