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Japan's gamble to turn island of Hokkaido into global chip hub

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Re: Japan's gamble to turn island of Hokkaido into global chip hub

#271
post #78

As a European I have to say I am extremely jealous of a government with the willingness of doing something as radical as this. Europe desperately needs to secure its own semi conductor supply chain. Neither the EU nor any member states seems willing to do anything about this though. Europe still is in a position, where it feasibly could control 100% of the semiconductor value chain on the continent. But besides meani…

At least European countries excel at introducing new regulations and taxes.

Some of the regulations make sense, like PFAS (correlated with chip manufacturing because HF is needed to etch Silicon and so fluoro-organics make great complements) And they seem to be sincere about it.

https://www.americanchemistry.com/chemistry-in-america/chemi...

As for the Japanese professional classes, environmental issues are always an afterthought. Don't let the "harmonious" design philosophy of the fab fool you..that's tatemae. (Remember Jobs and pancreatic cancer? There's the price to pay for the shiny toys)

I wont be eating from Hokkaido if this pans out (their milk is overrated imho, but the seafood is top)

Maybe I'll get to eat more Austrian millet in the near future..

Re: Japan's gamble to turn island of Hokkaido into global chip hub

#272
post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not even a tough call if you had to lay odds on which would go offline first. Is "politically unstable" once again an acceptable euphemism for a small democracy being threatened with destruction by a totalitarian superpower? I thought we decided that was gauche. After, say, the German invasion of Czechoslovakia.

China doesn’t want to destroy Taiwan , it wants to reunite with it like it did with other territories that had been taken by foreign powers, like happened to Hong Kong and Macau. Taiwan was occupied by Japan and then never went back to being China after the Japanese were defeated because the Chinese Party that was defeated in the Revolution fled to the Island and never accepted the PRC as legit government in China. S…

What happens is Taiwan opposes the union? You know, through a democratic vote?

The standard authoritarian playbook would require moving to step two, which we saw in action a few years ago on the other side of Eurasia:

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2023/may/18/stark-b...

Re: Japan's gamble to turn island of Hokkaido into global chip hub

#273

As a European I have to say I am extremely jealous of a government with the willingness of doing something as radical as this. Europe desperately needs to secure its own semi conductor supply chain. Neither the EU nor any member states seems willing to do anything about this though. Europe still is in a position, where it feasibly could control 100% of the semiconductor value chain on the continent. But besides meani…

The Netherlands has its own semi supply chain, from photolithographs to chip design to printing the actual chips.

Re: Japan's gamble to turn island of Hokkaido into global chip hub

#274
post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're saying that like the two are at odds. France is a military superpower with almost entirely France, worst case scenario western EU, based supply chain. Italy, Spain, to a lesser extent Germany are too. Manufacturing is also pretty strong across (most) of the EU. Automotive is struggling in Germany, but booming in France (Renault are killing it). Leading in Aeronautics too. It's just mostly high value manufactur…

What you are saying is just not true. Frances car industry is dying. Renault is a small company, not even in the top 10 and Stellantis is doing extremely poorly, also affecting Italy's car industry. Within a decade or so COMAC will have a competitive passenger plane, seriously threatening Airbus market share. Germany's entire industry is currently dying since it is impossible to have a cost competitive manufacturing…

> Renault is a small company, not even in the top 10

How exactly is that even remotely relevant? They only sell in select markets, and are killing it in them (best selling EV in the EU, Renault 5). What, if it's not a global behemoth dominating the world, it doesn't count as manufacturing? What exactly is your argument here?

> Within a decade or so COMAC will have a competitive passenger plane, seriously threatening Airbus market share.

Nope. Their own goal is to have, within a decade or so, a fully Chinese plane (their current C919 heavily relies on engines and other critical components from European and American suppliers). Specifically for the engines, they're looking at a comparable to the Leap 1C they were sold by CFM (American General Electric+French Safran joint venture). Those engines are around a generation behind the current best ones (Leap 1A, Pratt&Whitney GTF). In a decade, CFM and Rolls-Royce will have a new generation out, both having new models being tested right now.

So, in around a decade, the Chinese engines will be two generations behind. Efficiency is critical in aviation. And that's just the engines, in a decade Airbus will have a new A320 series replacement out, and Boeing will have one on the way too. And this is just for short to medium haul planes. And both the C919 and the C909 show that it's taking years for production to ramp up to any relevant numbers. Airbus recently opened a second final assembly line in Tianjin for the local market, they wouldn't have done that without being sure they have a market there for at least a decade or more.

> Your entire comment looks at the current status quo, not at the continuous downward trend or the abyss which awaits if Stellantis or VW Group get pushed out of the market by Chinese competition.

This is assuming that the Chinese competition would be allowed to compete on the same terms, which we already know won't happen - both the EU and the US have put in tariffs. And we can see that a low cost Dacia EV is similarly priced to a low cost BYD EV.

Re: Japan's gamble to turn island of Hokkaido into global chip hub

#275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be darkly amusing if all chips come from either politically unstable Taiwan or seismically unstable Hokkaido. But then Japan seems amazing at producing all sorts of other delicate things, despite all of its soil being basically built out of earthquakes, so I guess they have this bit figured out.

Isn't Taiwan also seismically active? They are reports of earthquakes affecting TSMC fabs in january 2025 and april 2024. Apparently these were not huge blows to their fabs, otherwise we would be talking about that day-in-day-out, but there's always a risk of that happening.

Seems silly to be talking about this as if this is some kind of global consortium effort.

Japan is building Japan at semi conductor industry, for the benefit of itself, of course it is located in Japan.

Re: Japan's gamble to turn island of Hokkaido into global chip hub

#276
post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"simultaneously destroying its international position" US has been doing the same thing for last 200 years and you act like its been different ??? oh, is that because you dnt get benefit as opposed to instability that US cause like middle east, south america, africa and asia ????

US was not destroying its own international position for 200 years. Their international position went all the way up in that period. It was also not destroying its own quality of life for 200 years.

there is nothing to be destroyed if there is no "good reputation" in the first place

You are seeing from European perspective but I can assure you that there is people that seeing western country is a "bad guys" from these region because Western power always trying exert their influence via trade deal, regime change, fund armed group etc

Re: Japan's gamble to turn island of Hokkaido into global chip hub

#277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even the Austrian moustache man justified his invasion of Russia based on myths of Aryan people having held that land in the distant past. Interestingly enough, there's a recent theory putting the location of the proto-Germanic speakers in Finland.

> there's a recent theory putting the location of the proto-Germanic speakers in Finland. There is no credible theory to that effect. Either you have stumbled on something that is not taken seriously, or you are misunderstanding the consensus. Namely, Proto-Germanic speakers did visit the eastern Baltic coast for trading and raiding, and so there are Germanic loanwords into Finnic languages of Proto-Germanic date, bu…

> Either you have stumbled on something that is not taken seriously, or you are misunderstanding the consensus.

I'm not sure you have a good grasp on the meaning of the word "recent". A recent theory, by definition, must differ from the consensus.

> There is no credible theory to that effect.

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.03.13.584607v2

Granted, they don't say "Finland". They say "the northeast along the Baltic coastline".

Re: Japan's gamble to turn island of Hokkaido into global chip hub

#278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Take Myanmar as an example: even if China occupied it and gained a warm-water port What, does the Pearl River freeze over in winter?

we also would like to have Vladivostok back

And what was the original, Chinese name of the city, may I ask?

Re: Japan's gamble to turn island of Hokkaido into global chip hub

#279
post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't Taiwan also seismically active? They are reports of earthquakes affecting TSMC fabs in january 2025 and april 2024. Apparently these were not huge blows to their fabs, otherwise we would be talking about that day-in-day-out, but there's always a risk of that happening.

Seems silly to be talking about this as if this is some kind of global consortium effort. Japan is building Japan at semi conductor industry, for the benefit of itself, of course it is located in Japan.

Sure, Japan and Taiwan have no choice. They have to build on their seismically active islands or give up, which is not an option.

Re: Japan's gamble to turn island of Hokkaido into global chip hub

#280
post #260
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least European countries excel at introducing new regulations and taxes.

Imagine a government that considers its people more than tools for the wealthy to use and discard as they see fit! So many regulations meant to protect the plebes! Universal healthcare? Vacation time you can actually use? Data privacy laws? What a bunch of losers! Next you’ll tell me they actually give parents time off to raise their kids instead of dumping them into daycare after a month of drudgery and try to call…

I wouldn't call European governments considering its people. Basically all of European countries suffer from housing crisis and nothing is being done to actually address it.
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