I’m for global competition as a force as much as the next thinking person, but as an American who grew up on Intel chips it sure would be nice to not get our asses kicked all over the field for a change. The ASML stuff seems to indicate they might mean it this time.
Intel's $20B Ohio factory could become world's largest chip plant
51–60 of 647 posts
Re: Intel's $20B Ohio factory could become world's largest chip plant
#52"largest investment in Ohio's history" "the largest semiconductor manufacturing location on the planet" What is it that makes Ohio such a key and ideal place for such a massive investment? I assume there must be an abundance of energy + work force + land available that makes this possible, as well as a foundation built up by the Rust Belt. Could the Rust Belt go Silicon?
Tax breaks + cheap land + low cost local labor + business friendly local government + good PR. Geographically it's reasonably centrally located from a transportation standpoint to the rest of the U.S. and has access to lots of water.
Re: Intel's $20B Ohio factory could become world's largest chip plant
#53Quoted post unavailable.
I don't know where you get the idea "anyone in tech desperately tries to leave." I'm on the East Coast currently, but I'd love to move to Ohio. Cost of Living / Work-Life Integration is pretty compelling from several friends I've had who have moved to the Columbus area from Cali in the past 3-4 years for senior tech positions.
When 150k achieves a 400k lifestyle from Cali...and you start having a family..it's hard to not to at least pronder the idea.
This will be good for the midwest, for intel, and for the United States.
Re: Intel's $20B Ohio factory could become world's largest chip plant
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
All this sounds irrelevant when an ASML machine costs $100 million a pop.
Re: Intel's $20B Ohio factory could become world's largest chip plant
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
18A is consider as 1.8nm in TSMC terms.
1 Å = 0.1 nm, which is roughly the diameter of a hydrogen atom.
This mandatory comment is your threadly reminder that node names are entirely unrelated to any physical dimensions, as has been the case for many years now.
You should not interpret node names as meaning anything more than a point on the semiconductor roadmap. Nodes that share the same names across foundries will not have the same performance characteristics, but are usually roughly comparable (especially since Intel's new naming scheme).
Re: Intel's $20B Ohio factory could become world's largest chip plant
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was thinking that. Im a former Ohioan and most of my family is still here. I have much more faith in Intel than in Foxconn. My understanding is that Foxconn had a shoddy track record of building out locations outside of their home country.
Foxconn is hard, repetitive manual labor. chip fab isn’t nearly as bad of work. Americans don’t want crappy jobs which is why foxcon had issues.
"TSMC’s Arizona Culture Clash" - https://www.eetimes.com/tsmcs-arizona-culture-clash/
> Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) faces challenges managing employees at its new fab in Arizona who are unaccustomed to the long work hours and management culture that in Taiwan have helped make the company the world’s largest chip foundry.
Re: Intel's $20B Ohio factory could become world's largest chip plant
#57Good 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.
The US could issue special visas for workers in chip fabrication fields, but that'll probably anger our ally Taiwan. There's also top workers in South Korea and Japan, other US allies.
Re: Intel's $20B Ohio factory could become world's largest chip plant
#58When it comes to proximity research institutions, the choice of location is strange to me. Somewhere in the northern Indiana/Illinois/Michigan (i.e. "Greater Michiana") would have made a lot more sense. That way, you would be close to,
UIUC, Northwestern, UChicago, UMichigan, Purdue, Notre Dame, UIndiana, Argonne National Lab, etc.
Re: Intel's $20B Ohio factory could become world's largest chip plant
#59"largest investment in Ohio's history" "the largest semiconductor manufacturing location on the planet" What is it that makes Ohio such a key and ideal place for such a massive investment? I assume there must be an abundance of energy + work force + land available that makes this possible, as well as a foundation built up by the Rust Belt. Could the Rust Belt go Silicon?
New Albany seems situated nicely for domestic distribution, and also European distribution as it's about 150 miles from Cleaveland. Maybe there's another port it's closer to, I don't know much about Ohio. But if Intel can get chips to Europe more quickly than its Asian rivals, I can see that being a boon for them.
The site where they are building is half an hour away from an international airport, Columbus is a shipping hub, and it's tied in well with the interstate highway system. With all due respect to the Port of Cleveland, which is mostly focused on raw materials and heavy machinery as far as I can tell, that stuff is probably more of a factor.
Re: Intel's $20B Ohio factory could become world's largest chip plant
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was thinking that. Im a former Ohioan and most of my family is still here. I have much more faith in Intel than in Foxconn. My understanding is that Foxconn had a shoddy track record of building out locations outside of their home country.
Foxconn is hard, repetitive manual labor. chip fab isn’t nearly as bad of work. Americans don’t want crappy jobs which is why foxcon had issues.
There are plenty of Americans who are okay with 60-80 hours of even repetitive manual labor. I know a few who work for shipping companies.
What Americans don't want are jobs that pay less and don't offer 1.5x overtime. Unlike shipping, foxconn jobs can be done in a place with a cheaper cost of living. America isn't competitive in low margin businesses because poor people need to pay rent which is just higher in the US.