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

Ukraine is a major producer of neon gas, critical for lasers used in chipmaking

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 452 posts

Re: Ukraine is a major producer of neon gas, critical for lasers used in chipmaking

#111

Post by pirate787 »

munk-a wrote: post #98
hammock wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"We saved some money" is how economics works in price competitive markets. This is a result of many players doing what keeps each one competitive, but without collaborating on what the large scale effects are down the road. An excellent and accurate elaboration of the modern economic theory that led us, nevertheless, to our current precarious position.

Modern economic theory doesn't disallow subsidies - it's very possible to exist in a primarily capitalist society with either tariffs or domestic business subsidies to ensure certain key industries remain on local shores - it might be politically infeasible for such laws to be passed in the US, but it is a very reasonable response.

The United States has all kinds of tariff and other subsidies for key industries. Foreign airlines and shipping companies are literally blocked from providing domestic US services. (That's also why all major US cruise ships touch a foreign port in their journey). Steel and autos and much of agriculture are also heavily protected.

These are all anti-consumer and bad public policy.

Re: Ukraine is a major producer of neon gas, critical for lasers used in chipmaking

#112

Post by NeoVeles »

MisterTea wrote: post #39
vondur wrote: post #29

Since it's extracted from the air, it shouldn't be too hard to start doing it here. I assume we do this for other gases already, so ramping it up for Neon may not be that difficult.

This is exactly why this is a non-issue. It's not like the air over the Ukraine is magically richer in neon.

Although it is still an issue. While the resource is everywhere, the technology for extraction is still in a specific vulnerable position.

Once we have the extraction capabilities elsewhere - then is is a non-issue. The turn around time on that? I have no idea. It could be days, months or years.

Re: Ukraine is a major producer of neon gas, critical for lasers used in chipmaking

#113

Post by hammock »

munk-a wrote: post #98
hammock wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"We saved some money" is how economics works in price competitive markets. This is a result of many players doing what keeps each one competitive, but without collaborating on what the large scale effects are down the road. An excellent and accurate elaboration of the modern economic theory that led us, nevertheless, to our current precarious position.

Modern economic theory doesn't disallow subsidies - it's very possible to exist in a primarily capitalist society with either tariffs or domestic business subsidies to ensure certain key industries remain on local shores - it might be politically infeasible for such laws to be passed in the US, but it is a very reasonable response.

It doesn't disallow them but it discourages them - the ruling class of the Western world has been on the side of globalization for many decades now (still is) and that is really what is in question.

Re: Ukraine is a major producer of neon gas, critical for lasers used in chipmaking

#114

Post by deltaonefour »

CountSessine wrote: post #75
chongli wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt the TSMC fabs would survive a PLA invasion of Taiwan. If nothing else, the CIA would probably blow them up during the attack.

I doubt they care about TSMC. The CCP understands (or at least was predicting back with Jiang and Hu) that eventually China will democratize. Taiwan is a democracy right now. Democratic countries almost never re-unite into a single country. I can only name one instance of this happening in the last 70 years, and in some ways East Germany wasn't really a democracy yet. The CCP knows that Taiwanese reunification will n…

The CCP won't democratize. It was heading in that direction under Hu, now under Xi Jinping things are consolidating back towards a centralist power.

I do agree that to China, Taiwan isn't about TSMC. TSMC is the reason why the US cares about Taiwan but not the reason why China cares about it. If it was the main reasoning why doesn't China go after the Dutch? The dutch have ASML, which manufactures the more critical components involved with EUV lithography. But China never made a single move against ASML.

There is deep history between Taiwan and China, and it is this history that is the main reason why China eyes Taiwan. Think of it like if California rebelled and became a separate country from the US 50 years ago. How would the rest of the US think about California?

Re: Ukraine is a major producer of neon gas, critical for lasers used in chipmaking

#115

Post by perihelions »

I've found the reason (I think) 90% of the world's semiconductor-grade neon production is concentrated in one country. Per this German government whitepaper about the noble gas industry: the USSR massively overinvested in neon capacity in the 1980's, in order to build space-based excimer laser weapons. Ukraine's extant plants date (probably) to the 1980's; they're responsible for a global oversupply that's persisted since the Cold War.

- "Neon was regarded as a strategic resource in the former Soviet Union, because it was believed to be required for the intended production of laser weapons for missile and satellite defence purposes in the 1980s. Accordingly, all major air separation units in the Soviet Union were equipped with neon, but also krypton and xenon, enrichment facilities or, in some cases, purification plants (cf. Sections 5.4 and 5.5). The domestic Soviet supply of neon was extremely large but demand low."

- "Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, global crude neon production was approximately 500–600 million l/a (= 500,000–600,000 m3/a). It was dominated by far by large-scale air separation units associated with metallurgical combines in Russia and Ukraine. Simultaneously, demand was estimated at around 300 million l/a (cf. Section 4.2). In the years between 1990 and 2012, therefore, most crude neon was not purified, but released into the atmosphere, because there was no customer base."

https://www.deutsche-rohstoffagentur.de/DE/Gemeinsames/Produ... (chapter 5.2)

For context, this would have overlapped with Energia/Buran's launch of the Polyus weapon (which was a megawatt CO2 laser).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyus_(spacecraft)

Re: Ukraine is a major producer of neon gas, critical for lasers used in chipmaking

#116

Post by robbedpeter »

jazzyjackson wrote: post #35
livinglist wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

as a Chinese raised in China myself, this happens pretty regularly since years ago. I don’t think Winnie the Pooh has big balls to attack Taiwan in recent future. China has too much to lose right now.

if I may, "recent future" implies some time travel to make sense, you might instead say immediate or forseeable future

You wollen haven be a temporal grammar enthusiast, I see.

Re: Ukraine is a major producer of neon gas, critical for lasers used in chipmaking

#117

Post by deltaonefour »

oneoff786 wrote: post #89
chongli wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt the TSMC fabs would survive a PLA invasion of Taiwan. If nothing else, the CIA would probably blow them up during the attack.

If I were Taiwan, I’d be stationing troops at the facility as a dead man’s switch to destroy it if invaded.

No, that's what'd you'd do if you were the US because China is your rival. This is what you want from a foreign perspective.

If I was Taiwan, or in other words a shareholder or OWNER of TSMC, I wouldn't want something I own being destroyed. I would rather fold into the new regime and keep my original ownership.

Re: Ukraine is a major producer of neon gas, critical for lasers used in chipmaking

#118

Post by arcticbull »

godelski wrote: post #26
atlantas wrote: post #10

90%! Did we really let ourselves become so reliant on Ukraine and Taiwan for computer chips? Taiwan being the next country most under threat. In fact, Reuters just reported that "Taiwan warns Chinese aircraft in its air defence zone" https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/taiwan-reports-ni...

If you're a small country in a dangerous position isn't this probably the best strategy you can do?

This was I believe one of the major goals of TSMC. Even if it wasn't (and my memory isn't serving me with a link) it certainly has that effect now.

Re: Ukraine is a major producer of neon gas, critical for lasers used in chipmaking

#119

Post by oneoff786 »

genericone wrote: post #90
oneoff786 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trump’s claims were largely about bringing manufacturing jobs to America. Not reducing defense dependencies on vulnerable nations.

That was the stated goal for bringing steel production back to the USA at least, not sure about the imputed goals of other manufacturing jobs, but it should follow a similar line of thought, redundancy of critical-supply-chain parts.

No, that was a jobs play. Steel is well diversified, and we get our steel from a variety of largely trusted producers. The largest import source of steel was Canada. We also produce and export a lot of steel.

Steel is important but it’s not similar at all to something like Taiwan’s unique situation

Re: Ukraine is a major producer of neon gas, critical for lasers used in chipmaking

#120

Post by tomatotomato37 »

chongli wrote: post #43
CountSessine wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they'll be watching what happens in Ukraine very carefully. Then they'll be calibrating their predictions about what would happen if they invaded Taiwan with Russia's experience in Ukraine.

I doubt the TSMC fabs would survive a PLA invasion of Taiwan. If nothing else, the CIA would probably blow them up during the attack.

Any Taiwan invasion would be spearheaded by surgical strikes against those fabs via some type of special forces. Whether those forces would be able to successfully secure the fabs before they get blown or not is anyone's guess, but China isn't stupid enough to think this is something they can just throw their standard troops at.
Post reply on HN