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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

#231

Post by KirillPanov »

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.

Every government can afford that: simply tariff the imports that threaten to displace this capability.

If that makes goods too expensive for the population (it won't) they couldn't afford them anyways. They were simply paying for the goods by mortgaging their future.

Re: ASML reports fire at its Berlin factory

#232

Post by jes »

unethical_ban wrote: post #106
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.

In America, we have a gigantic public works program known as the US Military, with guaranteed work, free college, public health insurance and a pension if you stay in long enough. Why not do it for just about every critical part of life? Why only do it for the "being ready to kill adversaries" subset?

Doesn’t every (US) government job provide most of that, except maybe free college?

If you work for the IRS or the USPS, don’t you get guaranteed work, public health insurance and a pension after some number of decades of service?

Re: ASML reports fire at its Berlin factory

#233

Post by traceroute66 »

varispeed wrote: post #227
CookiesNCream23 wrote: post #180

I work in the industry and have worked in a fab. Here is some insight. We are taught that fabs are not treated as factories but as hazardous chemical storage plants. On top of that, we work with high pressure and high power systems. Fires have accounted for the most damage to fabs over the years; however, this situation is different. The site is not a fab, it is a ASML manufacturing plant. This plant does not produce…

After working at ASML would you get enough knowledge to start competing company? Or is the job so protected with NDAs that basically you wouldn't be able to translate or use the gained knowledge anywhere else? I am thinking, for example, when you realise the working conditions are not great or you are paid not enough, do you have any leverage? If ASML has no competition, then do you have any negotiating power?

> After working at ASML would you get enough knowledge to start competing company? Or is the job so protected with NDAs that basically you wouldn't be able to translate or use the gained knowledge anywhere else?

Bit of a strange question ?

Competing with ASML in any sort of serious form would need more than just stealing some IP, it would need $$$ measured in the many billions.

ASML does have competitors, Canon and Nikon being the obvious two. But ASML has better technology than them, which is why continues to dominate the market.

ASML's model is not dissimilar to Apple's. Throw money at R&D like nobody's business, make some quality company acquisitions along the way, reap the rewards.

ASML basically have a 100% market share in EUV, 95% market share in ArF tools, 20% in Dry tools.

My limited understanding of the market is that basically ASML will be untouchable until at least the 2030's.

Re: ASML reports fire at its Berlin factory

#234

Post by nine_k »

varispeed wrote: post #227
CookiesNCream23 wrote: post #180

I work in the industry and have worked in a fab. Here is some insight. We are taught that fabs are not treated as factories but as hazardous chemical storage plants. On top of that, we work with high pressure and high power systems. Fires have accounted for the most damage to fabs over the years; however, this situation is different. The site is not a fab, it is a ASML manufacturing plant. This plant does not produce…

After working at ASML would you get enough knowledge to start competing company? Or is the job so protected with NDAs that basically you wouldn't be able to translate or use the gained knowledge anywhere else? I am thinking, for example, when you realise the working conditions are not great or you are paid not enough, do you have any leverage? If ASML has no competition, then do you have any negotiating power?

To start a competing company, you'll need billions, and an idea of a market niche.

There are about two companies like ASML in the whole world, and there are maybe a dozen consumers of their machines, companies like TSMC or Samsung. ASML is in an effective monopoly position.

It's much like asking if you can open a competing company to build nuclear submarines. Technically you likely can.

Re: ASML reports fire at its Berlin factory

#235

Post by Snafu77 »

It's peculiar how many fires and major incidents there have been in European factories, plants, and buildings owned and operated by large European companies the last couple of years.

ASML manufacturing, OVH data center, and even Astra Zeneca's largest vaccine manufacturing site, which is perhaps one of the largest in the world, costing them enormous sums in lost contracts in the early stages of the COVID vaccination effort.

The best question to ask is, who benefits? It seems that more often than not it is a large American company or conglomerate.

Re: ASML reports fire at its Berlin factory

#236

Post by jokteur »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #226
jokteur wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am currently beginning a PhD in physics (mathematical modeling, simulation on HPC) in Switzerland, and I am afraid that after my PhD, I won't find a job that really pleases me. These last years, I came under the impression that you currently can only find ML driven software engineering jobs (I am exagerating of course), and having done quite a bit of ML and software engineering, I now know that I don't want my futu…

>Do you know by chance if there are similar companies (complex engineering, with physics, maths, chemistry, computer science, ...) that are located in Switzerland ? AFAIK, Switzerland is full of such companies. Especially since CERN and many top universities and research institutes are there.

Well, I am already beginning my PhD at a top university. I would be more interested to hear about what kind of jobs are in the industry in Switzerland.

Re: ASML reports fire at its Berlin factory

#237

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

jokteur wrote: post #236
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Do you know by chance if there are similar companies (complex engineering, with physics, maths, chemistry, computer science, ...) that are located in Switzerland ? AFAIK, Switzerland is full of such companies. Especially since CERN and many top universities and research institutes are there.

Well, I am already beginning my PhD at a top university. I would be more interested to hear about what kind of jobs are in the industry in Switzerland.

Sorry, I don't remember exactly which companies by name, otherwise I would have spelled them out for you, since I did this research 10 years ago when I was considering moving to study in Switzerland, so, I hope I cause you no offense, but I feel researching the job market is what you should have also done your due diligence on, before starting your PhD/studies ("I wanna study X, but where can I work later and use X?")

Re: ASML reports fire at its Berlin factory

#238

Post by Youden »

jokteur wrote: post #220
CookiesNCream23 wrote: post #180

I work in the industry and have worked in a fab. Here is some insight. We are taught that fabs are not treated as factories but as hazardous chemical storage plants. On top of that, we work with high pressure and high power systems. Fires have accounted for the most damage to fabs over the years; however, this situation is different. The site is not a fab, it is a ASML manufacturing plant. This plant does not produce…

I am currently beginning a PhD in physics (mathematical modeling, simulation on HPC) in Switzerland, and I am afraid that after my PhD, I won't find a job that really pleases me. These last years, I came under the impression that you currently can only find ML driven software engineering jobs (I am exagerating of course), and having done quite a bit of ML and software engineering, I now know that I don't want my futu…

> Do you know by chance if there are similar companies (complex engineering, with physics, maths, chemistry, computer science, ...) that are located in Switzerland?

I've only worked with their products and not a whole lot with the people but Sensirion [0] is very close to Zürich and is ranked one of the best employers in Switzerland while seemingly being at the intersection of the things it seems you're interested in.

Switzerland is also full of manufacturing equipment suppliers (e.g. Schaublin and GF Machining Solutions, the entire "Watch Valley") and manufacturing is full of intersections between physics/maths/chemistry/software engineering.

Plus there's the pharmaceutical companies.

For a small country, I think Switzerland is about the best place for you to be.

[0] https://www.sensirion.com/en/

Re: ASML reports fire at its Berlin factory

#239

Post by Someone »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #221
zogomoox wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Morale also suffered because of the push to implement Scaled Agile (SAFe) in the software teams.

Yea, Agile in semi/HW industry is pure cancer. Innovations in this industry come as you let your engineers take their time to try out a million things that don't work in order to eventually, after months or even years, get to that one thing that does work, not by shoving them in the Agile meat grinder of daily standups, sprints, TPS reports, velocity charts, grooming meetings, etc. Agile in HW only "works" when your…

agile with lowercase ‘a’ was defined for software development (https://agilemanifesto.org/), so you cannot blame it for not applying fully to hardware development.

The manifesto is extremely flexible, though (it doesn’t mention standup or fixed-length sprints, for example), so I think it can work for hardware, too, but you likely have to make the sprints longer and be more flexible in lengthening or shortening them to match reality, maybe do more documentation, etc.

I think ”half year sprints” loosely is how the Apollo program was run (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Apollo_missions), certainly after Apollo 1, when they realized the schedule wasn’t the most important thing in the world.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_1#Program_recovery: “We were too 'gung-ho' about the schedule and we blocked out all of the problems we saw each day in our work. Every element of the program was in trouble and so were we.”

The dogma of Agile with a capital “A”, on the other hand, IMO, doesn’t work for anything, be it software or hardware.

Re: ASML reports fire at its Berlin factory

#240

Post by Cthulhu_ »

nine_k wrote: post #234
varispeed wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After working at ASML would you get enough knowledge to start competing company? Or is the job so protected with NDAs that basically you wouldn't be able to translate or use the gained knowledge anywhere else? I am thinking, for example, when you realise the working conditions are not great or you are paid not enough, do you have any leverage? If ASML has no competition, then do you have any negotiating power?

To start a competing company, you'll need billions, and an idea of a market niche. There are about two companies like ASML in the whole world, and there are maybe a dozen consumers of their machines, companies like TSMC or Samsung. ASML is in an effective monopoly position. It's much like asking if you can open a competing company to build nuclear submarines. Technically you likely can.

And the accumulated knowledge of decades of lithography from hundreds, if not thousands of people.

That said, it's not impossible; SpaceX came out of left field and within a decade became one of the most prominent space rocket companies, they managed to find rocket scientists and engineers.

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