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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

#111

Post by MathCodeLove »

unethical_ban wrote: post #105
whatshisface wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're leaving a few things off the list. Gasoline, steel, machine shops, chemical plants... by the time you added everything that could lead to crisis if it ran out or stopped working you'd be a proponent of the Juche Idea. ;)

Earlier today I was thinking about this positively. None of my ideas are original, but some anti-corporatism thought struck a chord today. Why do we rely on dictatorships and unstable countries for critical infrastructure? Why do we rely on slave labor overseas for such basics as textiles when we could make it here? It isn't "markets" that are wrong altogether, but there is something destabilizing and unethical about…

You can choose to buy from companies who only operate domestically

Why don't you? Why is it unethical to save a penny for a stockholder yet it isn't unethical for you to save a penny by buying foreign produced goods? Sure, there are many specific brands unavailable domestically, but you can find some variation of everything you need locally.

Even if there are exceptions to that, I would bet you rarely choose to purchase domestic goods because they're too expensive. Supply chains operate at the maximum possible efficiency to save you as much money as possible. If you're willing to spend more to uphold your ideals, then do it. You already have the option.

Re: ASML reports fire at its Berlin factory

#112

Post by lotsofpulp »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #60
lotsofpulp wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a reason to assume the ability to ramp up in WW2 has any bearing on the ability to ramp up an operation like ASML today? You cannot just throw any bodies at a problem like creating ASML. You have to throw very specific bodies with each one having at least a decade or more of very specific expertise (it seems like, based on the comments and articles I have read). That is just ASML, not even getting into the d…

Manhattan Project? That wasn't a "just throw bodies at it" either...

I do not know for sure, but I suspect blowing things up might be less difficult than creating and maintaining all the stable reactions needed to create a long lasting microchip. Nevertheless, even the Manhattan project took 5 or 6 years.

Re: ASML reports fire at its Berlin factory

#113

Post by throwawaylinux »

Sevaris wrote: post #36
throwawaylinux wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It takes time to catch up. There's no reason they won't be able to though given enough time and money though.

There are reasons they might not, and that is that the rest of the world also has time and money. China is not infinite.

Catching up is definitely a lot easier and yes it does take time, but it's not a given. They've been trying to catch up with jet engines for almost as long as the west or Russia have been working on them, certainly would have out-spent the Russians by a wide margin on the effort. So far unable to match western or even Russian designs. Although maybe in just the past few months they might have finally got something which is at least good enough, just spending a lot of money for a long time doesn't guarantee results.

Re: ASML reports fire at its Berlin factory

#114

Post by SV_BubbleTime »

jazzyjackson wrote: post #83
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…

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…

> Sorry to see you downvoted, it is extremely irksome to me that China is so often characterized as "copying others homework"

A product I designed and make was ripped off in China. I’m pretty sure it isn’t all handwringing and negative emotions.

Re: ASML reports fire at its Berlin factory

#115

Post by chongli »

Pietertje wrote: post #103
chongli wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well, that tech is still being used heavily for a lot of chips. Companies like NXP still have fabs of 90s tech running smoothly. Only the high-end chips need new tech. Also, equipment from that era is still in high demand on the second hand market (especially now...).

But isn’t a new fab company going to have to compete with NXP in those markets? That seems very difficult for a brand new company to do, given no technological advantage.

Re: ASML reports fire at its Berlin factory

#116

Post by aaronblohowiak »

unethical_ban wrote: post #105
whatshisface wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're leaving a few things off the list. Gasoline, steel, machine shops, chemical plants... by the time you added everything that could lead to crisis if it ran out or stopped working you'd be a proponent of the Juche Idea. ;)

Earlier today I was thinking about this positively. None of my ideas are original, but some anti-corporatism thought struck a chord today. Why do we rely on dictatorships and unstable countries for critical infrastructure? Why do we rely on slave labor overseas for such basics as textiles when we could make it here? It isn't "markets" that are wrong altogether, but there is something destabilizing and unethical about…

We should have free trade with people who play by the same rules.

Re: ASML reports fire at its Berlin factory

#117

Post by bobthepanda »

scarab92 wrote: post #82
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.

Things move pretty fast in China, so even though they are slow to innovate they can quickly copy designs where enough detailed information exists in public. EUV took decades and billions of dollars in trial and error before the current techniques were figured out. Due to the West's tendency to publish successful techniques, China won't have to repeat these steps.

YMMV, depending on the technology.

As an example where this hasn't worked so well, COMAC's aircraft production has not been doing too hot.

Re: ASML reports fire at its Berlin factory

#118

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: ASML reports fire at its Berlin factory

#120

Post by jazzyjackson »

dragonwriter wrote: post #97
jazzyjackson wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I have a very different opinion on China's totalitarianism (which I am very unimpressed by); I only meant to argue that China possesses expertise that we do not, yes, because of our own Ricardian motivations, but that leaves us in a position where we cannot build our own bridges, trains, nor even computer chips even if we wanted to. You can say we are no longer burdened with manufacturing our own goods, and have moved onto more productive, intellectual pastures, but I'm not so sure. It seems like we spent our capital building up off-shore talent and have enjoyed the largess of lower cost of living, leaving a lot of infrastructure unmaintained. I could go on with my cynicism, but it's not especially productive ;)
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