Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Intel's $20B Ohio factory could become world's largest chip plant

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

401–410 of 647 posts

Re: Intel's $20B Ohio factory could become world's largest chip plant

#401

Post by gonehome »

asdff wrote: post #396
908B64B197 wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get why cost of living is factored at all. The biggest expense is typically housing. And if you bought the house, it means the biggest expense is... building equity into an asset you can sell afterward. Keep in mind the engineer who purchased a 2 million house in Palo Alto can sell it for two million, and then move to Ohio to a much cheaper house purchased in cash. The reverse isn't true.

You also pay taxes. But you are right that for the first movers it will be an easy transition into living opulantly in Ohio. The same can't be said for the next generation of workers, who graduate and have no capital accrued from working at bay area rates, and start their careers working for these Ohio based employers at Ohio based salary rates, and since Columbus is experiencing the same lack of supply issue everywh…

As long as the market is allowed to build housing to meet demand it's not too bad.

Main issue in Palo Alto (and to a large extent the rest of the bay area) is that there's massive population growth in the bay area, but very little housing is allowed to be built. This creates artificial scarcity and the people that bought houses 30yrs ago accrue massive wealth because of it at the expense of new people (and the new people that manage to buy at exorbitant rates also end up paying the majority share of taxes too).

This is the natural incentive made worse by things like locked property taxes and rent control. You really need legislation that allows the market to build (easier said than done).

Re: Intel's $20B Ohio factory could become world's largest chip plant

#402

Post by s1artibartfast »

smaddox wrote: post #377
quocanh wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I understand, a chip plant's workers have PhDs because when problems arise on the line, they require a lot of knowledge to fix.

The R&D fab(s) definitely have a high number of PhDs. I don't know about the production fabs. PhDs will definitely visit when starting up a new fab or process or when issues need to be addressed.

If it is anything like BioTech, they will. I was shocked when I joined a large firm and realized that the person spending most of their day breaking down boxes and checking log books has a masters from Berkeley. Most of the techs running equipment have masters/Phds.

As I have come to realize, when a mistake or delay costs $XX million, it often makes sense to hire with high educational background. I have also come to realize that your bog standard MS or Phd isn't as talented as you might think.

Re: Intel's $20B Ohio factory could become world's largest chip plant

#403

Post by ericmay »

Really disappointed in many of the negative and insecure comments coming from members of this community saying “Ohio sucks” or “Ohio State University sucks because it’s not Stanford” or “how many startups does Ohio have”. It really reflects poorly on those making these comments and I can’t help but think seeing a state not on the east or west coast being selected is causing fear and uncertainty in the lives of those who wrap up their personality in being in California or something.

People in Ohio are excited about this and all of the negativity, frankly, is just unwelcome.

Think the Midwest and Ohio suck because there aren’t mountains or an ocean? What good is any of that from behind your keyboard with the A/C on or sitting on your couch watching the same Netflix special as everyone else? Meanwhile in 5 hours I can be on your beach and enjoying all the best parts of where you live with 0 downside.

Think Ohio State sucks? Right because Stanford has always been a top 5 university from day one and everything is static forever.

Intel employs “low skill people and they’re not startup software engineering jobs” ok? What actual value does your privacy-evading ad tech addiction company add over honest people who just want a job making actual things? I guess Tesla employs low skill people in Austin at the Gigafactory too?

Don’t like Ohio? Good we don’t care. You don’t have to live here and we have never needed to care about your opinion. You don’t have a monopoly on talent or anything else except maybe people who think that because their license plate says something different that somehow they’re better than us. Seriously grow up.

-edit-

It’s not just comments here. Here’s one out in the wild: https://twitter.com/terronk/status/1484599015828176898?s=21

Piss off.

And you know what? For all those comments “blah blah there’s only family to move there for” like yea. Exactly. Maybe you should too. I don’t have to get my social life from doomscrolling on Facebook and making myself depressed. I actually have friends and family that I see everyday and can count on. We cook meals together and help each other. We play board games, celebrate birthdays, and like being near each other. These social media apps are filling a void that you created for yourself. I like visiting California and can live there if I want to. I choose my family and friends. Maybe you should too and get off your holier-than-thou attitude.

Re: Intel's $20B Ohio factory could become world's largest chip plant

#404

Post by Melatonic »

mNovak wrote: post #255
mrfusion wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Low geopolitical risk is probably one of the best factors.

Fun fact, Ohio was supposedly high on the Soviet nuke target list, because of Wright Patterson AFB, which houses the Air Force Research Lab (and aliens). I have an old Soviet invasion map of central Ohio, marking all potential airfields etc.

I have a book that is all those old soviet maps - amazing how detailed they were. All hand drawn and they had detail down to individual houses and streets. Many time those maps were more detailed than the ones the US was making about itself!

Re: Intel's $20B Ohio factory could become world's largest chip plant

#405

Post by Melatonic »

inglor_cz wrote: post #283
mNovak wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fun fact, Ohio was supposedly high on the Soviet nuke target list, because of Wright Patterson AFB, which houses the Air Force Research Lab (and aliens). I have an old Soviet invasion map of central Ohio, marking all potential airfields etc.

"old Soviet invasion map" Soviets had a concrete plan to invade Ohio? Wow. How were the troops supposed to cross the ocean?

They had more detailed maps of most of the US than the US had at the time.

https://www.wired.com/2015/07/secret-cold-war-maps/

Re: Intel's $20B Ohio factory could become world's largest chip plant

#406

Post by renewedrebecca »

danielvaughn wrote: post #338
jnorthrop wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention low probability of natural disasters: Earthquakes, tornados, wild fire, hurricanes, etc.

The first thing I thought about was tornados, actually. That Amazon facility in Missouri was just totally flattened back in December. Given the cost of manufacturing chips, it seems like it would be a huge loss if it was hit.

Columbus doesn't typically get strong tornadoes, although with climate change, anything is possible.

Re: Intel's $20B Ohio factory could become world's largest chip plant

#407

Post by alfalfasprout »

ericmay wrote: post #403

Really disappointed in many of the negative and insecure comments coming from members of this community saying “Ohio sucks” or “Ohio State University sucks because it’s not Stanford” or “how many startups does Ohio have”. It really reflects poorly on those making these comments and I can’t help but think seeing a state not on the east or west coast being selected is causing fear and uncertainty in the lives of those…

Honestly this is one of the things I couldn't stand about the bay area. Tons of people that think they're hot stuff and the rest of the country is a dump pile. It reflects in HN comments all the time.

The reality is Ohio State is actually a good university and there's really solid talent out there too. You also have Chicago not all that far away that's a big talent hub.

Re: Intel's $20B Ohio factory could become world's largest chip plant

#408

Post by Melatonic »

llbeansandrice wrote: post #267
hguant wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want to say so, but...so? At Intel scale, they're able to buy carbon offsets or - gasp! - install their own solar/wind in their properties. The municipal and state governments are I'm sure bending over backwards to get the plants and infrastructure investment, a permit to run whatever solar/wind/renewable they want is probably chump change for them.

I'll eat a sock if they bother with solar in Ohio. I guess it's better than nothing but large parts of Ohio just don't get that much sun. Wind is much more likely.

Germany has TONS of solar and I would bet Ohio gets more sun

Re: Intel's $20B Ohio factory could become world's largest chip plant

#409

Post by axxl »

kesslern wrote: post #364
asdff wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cost of living in Columbus is low if you are looking at it with Coastal city eyes. That being said, its still the most expensive city in Ohio. Houses in the hot neighborhoods people write articles about were hitting 700k 6 years ago. Rents in new apartments are like $1300 for a 1 bedroom.

> That being said, its still the most expensive city in Ohio. Yes, because it's the only major city that's growing. Cleveland, Cincinatti, Toledo, and Dayton are all losing population year-over-year while Columbus's grows.

Cincinnati (double n, single t) is actually growing in population: https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2021/08/12/census-2020...

Re: Intel's $20B Ohio factory could become world's largest chip plant

#410

Post by Melatonic »

55873445216111 wrote: post #299
rotten wrote: post #187

This same street has a Facebook data center, an AWS data center, and a Google data center (within a couple of miles). There is a biotech research campus, Bath & Bodyworks main research lab, and the main operations center for AEP (a midwest electric company). If you travel about 2-3 miles orthogonal to that street we have a big data center for Nationwide Insurance, a campus for Discover (credit cards), and a State Far…

Silicon fabs do not make server boards. They just produce the silicon wafer i.e. "die" of a semiconductor device. Most die must be assembled into a package before they can be used. The die packaging aka "backend" is almost never done at the same place as the fab. Most backend is in Taiwan or Malaysia or China. Even after the die is packaged, it needs to be mounted on a complete PCB with all the other components. Inte…

All those datacenters are gonna want a lot of customized CPU SKU's though

The used market for CPU's is already amazing every time AWS dumps a ton due to a hardware refresh cycle - in a few years it is gonna be amazing!

Post reply on HN