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Germany paying $5.5B for Intel fab

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Re: Germany paying $5.5B for Intel fab

#401

Post by riedel »

kken wrote: post #261
riedel wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany used to have a semiconductor industry like Intermetall (acquired by micronas acquired by TDK). The problem is that IMHO German automotive industry is not willing to pay a cent more than necessary. They do only care about short term profit. They triggered the chip crisis in Germany by stopping there orders and then restocking. I am not sure if any government can fix this.

>Germany used to have a semiconductor industry like Intermetall (acquired by micronas acquired by TDK). The problem is that IMHO German automotive industry is not willing to pay a cent more than necessary. How about the three fabs that Bosch has in Germany? Or Infineon, X-Fab, Globalfoundries, TI, Prema, Elmos (now Siltech), Vishay, Nexperia?

Sorry for being imprecise: I ment a much larger specialized semiconductor industry, that did not survive the market pressure. True that Bosch, Osram and Siemens (now Infineon) have survived. But I think things like RAM production moved out of Germany. Global foundries (formally th AMD fab) is an example of a non-European company, although certainly there fabs and are no clones of US fabs. However, afaik the industry used to be much more diversified and innovative at a time. Actually there is still some interesting exception in the list: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_semiconductor_fabric...

Re: Germany paying $5.5B for Intel fab

#402

Post by phkahler »

AlotOfReading wrote: post #211
gpvos wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, so still: what is the company making the next-best chip making machines, using the next-best technology after EUV?

Nikon and Canon, in that order. Neither has managed to produce EUV machines, but they were somewhat competitive at higher nodes.

That's really interesting, I had not heard those names in this space before. I would have expected Applied Materials. Maybe Nikon and Canon are suppliers of optics to the more industry specific companies?

Re: Germany paying $5.5B for Intel fab

#403

Post by onepointsixC »

verisimi wrote: post #224

Wow. These deals amaze me. Imagine you got given subsidies to live somewhere. I'm not talking about your wages - I'm talking about something extra. Well that is a direct equivalent here. How any governance structure can think this is ok boggles the mind. Is it not clear how we already live in a fascist state - where government + corporations are working together at the people's expense? $5.5 billion.

So what's your plan when China makes good on their promise of trying to take Taiwan and either seize or inadvertently destroy TSMC's 54% share of global chip market[1]? German automotive industry would grind to a halt as they run out of chips. Better yet, if America comes to the aid of Taiwan, China would likely strike US bases in Japan and Korea, threatening even more of the global chip supply.

[1]:https://www.techspot.com/news/94856-economist-china-must-sei...

Re: Germany paying $5.5B for Intel fab

#404

Post by mike_hock »

wazoox wrote: post #270
ISL wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is very important for national stability. A highly-interconnected global economy is arguably better at securing international stability.

That was the main argument for global trade already in 1914. France was Germany's most important commercial partner, and vice-versa. All German rifles had stocks made from French walnut wood! All French locomotives had German-made tubing! This stupid mantra was repeated ad nauseam after 1991, too, with silly op-eds from Friedman and friends about how two countries with McDonald joints in both can't be at war and simi…

See, that's the problem with franchises. If every McDonald's was run directly by McDonald's HQ, then surely McDonald's would have pressured Putin not to attack Ukrainian cities with McDonald's restaurants in them.

Re: Germany paying $5.5B for Intel fab

#405

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

audunw wrote: post #274
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #10

Once again EU taxpayer money bankrolling US tech dominance. When will we ever learn to build up our domestic tech industry? And before the chip hipsters crawl all over my back to prove we ackshually have a powerful domestic semi industry, please name me another EU company, other than ASML (a company 90% of people here never heard of before the chip shortage), that has the same margins, dominance and ability to shape…

If you want Europe to be as attractive as headquarter location of mega-companies as USA is, you may have to compete with USA on a lot of policies (taxes, labor laws, etc) that would turn Europe into a different kind of society. Do we really want that? Many of these mega-companies are publicly listed. Norway alone owns a significant amount of stock in some of these companies. I'm not sure we have a problem. But I'm no…

>If you want Europe to be as attractive as headquarter location of mega-companies as USA is, you may have to compete with USA on a lot of policies (taxes, labor laws, etc) that would turn Europe into a different kind of society. Do we really want that?

No, but do you really have a choice? When you're selling tech products, you're competing on the international market, against everyone, including USA and China. If you work 35h/week and you get outmatched by a team who worked 60h/week, the end user will not care, they go for the best one, and the others loose. That's how international competition works.

And if they can deliver a better product at a cheaper price, they get the customers. The customers don't care if the devs who worked on that product are from US, China, or Europe and if they worked 35h/week or 60+.

That's why Europe is so underrepresented in big-tech internationally and the biggest wealthiest European companies are fashion related(LVMH) where the selling point is the name brand without any substance. That's why EU has not developed the iPhone and why Nokia, Ericsson, Sagem, Alcatel are gone from the mobile space.

Re: Germany paying $5.5B for Intel fab

#406

Post by hypertele-Xii »

ezsmi wrote: post #271
ISL wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is very important for national stability. A highly-interconnected global economy is arguably better at securing international stability.

This argument has been made before. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Illusion Unfortunately, it didn't work out. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I

Economics is relative. If you go to war and win, you are wealthier than the enemy who lost. If you are confident of victory, the "cost of war" thus matters less, because you get on top anyway.

Of course this only applies in a vaccuum. If there are any nations you don't attack and win, they can just build up their economy while you tank yours fighting and then swoop in to defeat you on the cusp of your victory.

Basic strategy in the game of Civilization. The rest of the world gangs up against a warmonger and unless they can promptly achieve world domination, ultimately self-destruct.

Re: Germany paying $5.5B for Intel fab

#407

Post by rat87 »

malchow wrote: post #240

It will be clear that this money was wasted within ten years. What a government needs to do to attract real manufacturing entrepreneurs: - pro family policies (for people) - pro immigration (for people) - cut environmental laws (for capex make-right) - cut business taxes (for gm make-right) - cut personal taxes (for people) - fight back against china-sponsored economic maneuvering at the multilateral level (to create…

I'm not saying this won't be wasted but in also skeptical of your policy? And why do we care so much about manufacturing anyway?

Re: Germany paying $5.5B for Intel fab

#408

Post by phkahler »

_fat_santa wrote: post #152
baybal2 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This will not do much with Taiwan being a single source for semiconductor manufacturing supplies. Much of critical blockers for chemicals, consumables, materials will still be in Taiwan just because the semi industry is that huge there. All 300mm fabs working outside of Taiwan are just few shipments of consumables away from stalling all the time. When Russia attacks Ukraine, the 3rd world is fucked. When China attack…

> When China attacks Taiwan, the 1st world is fucked. China would be shooting themselves in the foot by invading, because it would equally fuck them. I've read in may places that as soon as China invades, Taiwan will blow up all the fabs and supporting supply lines. So even if China takes control of Taiwan, the semiconductor industry will be a smoldering pile of nothingness. This article[1] does a great job in descri…

>> China would be shooting themselves in the foot by invading, because it would equally fuck them. I've read in may places that as soon as China invades, Taiwan will blow up all the fabs and supporting supply lines. So even if China takes control of Taiwan, the semiconductor industry will be a smoldering pile of nothingness.

That sounds incredibly stupid. If China invading is shooting themselves in the foot, then Taiwan blowing up their (worlds most advanced) fabs would be suicide. Nobody ever won a conflict by doing that.

Re: Germany paying $5.5B for Intel fab

#409

Post by TedDoesntTalk »

coffeeblack wrote: post #88
ChemSpider wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That part is solved: (1) German BASF is one of the manufactures for "semiconductor chemicals". (2) More important: Getting parts from Malaysia (etc) is no issue as I don't think they plan to attack any neighboring countries in the next decade. Also, they did not start a trade boycott against Lithuania just over the name of an trade office.

If there is a conflict with China, maritime routes will become much less reliable than they are now, after 75+ years of peace and 30+ years of a unipolar international system.

And the possibility port blockades.

Re: Germany paying $5.5B for Intel fab

#410

Post by rat87 »

PKop wrote: post #395
rat87 wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes it doesn't revolve around America vs Russia You have to consider the EU vs Russia. It's not in EU's or Germany's intrest to keep trading with Russia

It is though, they get something like 40% of their gas from Russia, and 30% of oil imports. It is immensely in the interest of Germany to have good relations and continued trade with Russia.

No it's in Germanys interest to f*ck Russia up as much as they can financially (and in terms of weapon shipments ( in the hope it ends the war sooner. And diversify their energy.

Germany's intrest is for Ukraine to win as quick as possible

Before the war Germany at least had a reasonable sounding argument (peace through trade) but it's been proven totally wrong they need to admit they were wrong and move on

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