How do the economics work here? Intel's market cap is $215B.
Lots of long term debt, like any other capital project. The $100B number is purely speculative, if the project grows over 50 years; they can build the first functional fab for $10B.
Intel's $20B Ohio factory could become world's largest chip plant
21–30 of 647 posts
Re: Intel's $20B Ohio factory could become world's largest chip plant
#22Good luck to them! Always nice to get as much semiconducter talent in-country as possible, fabs are a pretty crucial supply line after all. I'd imagine most people would want a pretty significant pay raise to move to somewhere like Ohio, but they are nearby Ohio State University, so maybe they'll get local talent.
Any salary in semi space in US is better than $34k-$40k per year for a physics/engineering PhD level worker of moderate experience in Taiwan. The bigger question is why none of these $34k a year PhDs did move to USA before. I bet, even a floor sweeper at an Intel fab gets more.
> I bet, even a floor sweeper at an Intel fab gets more.
A floor sweeper delivering max 1 particle per m^2.
Re: Intel's $20B Ohio factory could become world's largest chip plant
#23Good luck to them! Always nice to get as much semiconducter talent in-country as possible, fabs are a pretty crucial supply line after all. I'd imagine most people would want a pretty significant pay raise to move to somewhere like Ohio, but they are nearby Ohio State University, so maybe they'll get local talent.
Columbus is pretty nice tbh.
Re: Intel's $20B Ohio factory could become world's largest chip plant
#24Good luck to them! Always nice to get as much semiconducter talent in-country as possible, fabs are a pretty crucial supply line after all. I'd imagine most people would want a pretty significant pay raise to move to somewhere like Ohio, but they are nearby Ohio State University, so maybe they'll get local talent.
> I'd imagine most people would want a pretty significant pay raise to move to somewhere like Ohio
Cost of living is low relative to the west coast and high relative to a lot of places in Asia, so it really depends on who you're talking about.
Re: Intel's $20B Ohio factory could become world's largest chip plant
#25How do the economics work here? Intel's market cap is $215B.
Gratuitous subsidies from the US government. Also this is a great move in my eyes. Intel's HQ is on the West Coast and I imagine that they lose out on at least some portion of East Coast talent as a result. Hopefully this allows them to have the best of both worlds.
Design work doesn't need to be done close to the fab. Intel seems to be effectively splitting into two companies -- a fab company and a design company.
I don't think there are two worlds, either, unless you think that LA, SF and Seattle also constitute worlds unto themselves.
Re: Intel's $20B Ohio factory could become world's largest chip plant
#26Couldn't find much info on the process size in the Reuters article, but the Intel press release[0] says this: " “The Ohio factories are designed for the ‘Angstrom era,’ with support for Intel’s most advanced process technologies, including Intel 18A." This[1] doesn't give a transistor density for 18A, but the 20A transistor density is greater than the TMSC 3nm, fwiw. [0] https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/newsro…
18A is consider as 1.8nm in TSMC terms.
Re: Intel's $20B Ohio factory could become world's largest chip plant
#27Intel said the same thing for Arizona as well. Initial $20B investment which could expand to $100B. So they are building it in two places. I wonder why they dont keep it all in Arizona? ( May be Tax Break, but I have no idea how Tax Break works in US ) And if you include their (expected) expansion in EUR, Intel is layering the foundation for Foundry Services. Compared to its half assed Custom Foundry in 2012/2013 wit…
> why not all AZ?
Game theory between US states playing to get the most gov’t assistance?
Finite pool of talent? Our plants are in rural areas and everyone is struggling to hire, from auto to bakeries.
Re: Intel's $20B Ohio factory could become world's largest chip plant
#28Intel said the same thing for Arizona as well. Initial $20B investment which could expand to $100B. So they are building it in two places. I wonder why they dont keep it all in Arizona? ( May be Tax Break, but I have no idea how Tax Break works in US ) And if you include their (expected) expansion in EUR, Intel is layering the foundation for Foundry Services. Compared to its half assed Custom Foundry in 2012/2013 wit…
> why not all AZ? Game theory between US states playing to get the most gov’t assistance? Finite pool of talent? Our plants are in rural areas and everyone is struggling to hire, from auto to bakeries.
Ohio is situated on the great lakes and therefore has a lot of cheaply available water, while Arizona does not. Chip production is water intensive. Not to mention the vast expanses of cheap land, and their electricity costs are pretty low as well.
These could be reasons.
Re: Intel's $20B Ohio factory could become world's largest chip plant
#29How do the economics work here? Intel's market cap is $215B.
Gratuitous subsidies from the US government. Also this is a great move in my eyes. Intel's HQ is on the West Coast and I imagine that they lose out on at least some portion of East Coast talent as a result. Hopefully this allows them to have the best of both worlds.
The US gov is seriously under investing compared to it's peers. South Korea is spending nearly 9 times more with their $450Bn pledged gov investment into Semiconductors[0] compared to America's investment of $52Bn with the CHIPS Act[1]
[0]: https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Tech/Semiconductors/South-K... [1]: https://www.dispatch.com/story/news/2022/01/14/heres-what-yo...
Re: Intel's $20B Ohio factory could become world's largest chip plant
#30No post body was provided.