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TSMC eyes Germany as possible location for first Europe chip plant

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Re: TSMC eyes Germany as possible location for first Europe chip plant

#131

Post by wasmitnetzen »

volta83 wrote: post #97
martin_a wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a German myself: Why would you not invest? Infrastructure, state of mind? I'd really love to see more high-tech companies invest here, after we've managed to kill the solar companies... :-/

Top technical talent scarcity and cost. In Silicon Valley, you can find a dozen 600k$ engineers relatively quickly to scale up a random startup. In Germany... the salaries these people would be making would be This disparity in the valuation of top engineers cause many to emigrate, and once you are in the US, it is impossible to financially justify taking a 5x pay cut to go back to Germany. (You can justify it "non-f…

I don't know of a single person in my Master's degree class in Computer Science in one of Germany's top tech universities who went to the US. And I have most of them as contacts on LinkedIn. I'm not buying your premise.

Re: TSMC eyes Germany as possible location for first Europe chip plant

#132

Post by imtringued »

RivieraKid wrote: post #123
martin_a wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a German myself: Why would you not invest? Infrastructure, state of mind? I'd really love to see more high-tech companies invest here, after we've managed to kill the solar companies... :-/

My general impression is that Germany is not innovative, dynamic and backwards in technology among developed nations. For example: http://cdn.statcdn.com/Infographic/images/normal/17307.jpeg Also, they've made some seemingly stupid decisions such as closing nuclear power plants. And I'm not a fan of their climate change policy, they should push for a worldwide carbon tax instead of forcing EVs.

Von der Leyen is pushing CO2 tariffs on the EU level to force CO2 taxes world wide.

Re: TSMC eyes Germany as possible location for first Europe chip plant

#133

Post by Akronymus »

symmetricsaurus wrote: post #64
bschne wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Extremely naive question, but I always wonder how you can "bootstrap" this kind of precision — intuitively for something to be this precise, the tools and equipment that "create" it should also have to be more or less equally precise. Or is it a matter of manufacturing it, testing it, and rejecting some percentage of things that don't fit your requirements due to imprecisions? Are there any good background resources…

Take three somewhat flat stones to start out. Alternate rubbing the surfaces together in a random fashion. As you continue the high spots of the stones will be ground down and the surfaces will become flatter and flatter. In the end you can get very precise flat surfaces. Two stones is not enough, you can then end up with two spherical surfaces. With three this isn't possible (imagine two of them are convex, when you…

Obligatory machine thinking: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNRnrn5DE58

Altough, I disagree with the "random fashion". Alternating the pairs AB -> BC -> CA seems more logical to me.

Re: TSMC eyes Germany as possible location for first Europe chip plant

#134

Post by detaro »

corty wrote: post #126
detaro wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There aren't any competitors in the state, and there has been basically no politically influential pushback, so that line of argument doesn't really make sense.

There is no overt pushback. That doesn't mean that there is none. And the presence and activity of the usual environmental NIMBY organisations like Deutsche Umwelthilfe, NABU, BUND, etc. point to at least some covert opposition, since those organisations happily serve as fronts for non-environmental interests. And state politics, especially in the east, is rife with people using it as a stepping stone to the federal…

Anything that's not just wild speculation of what people could be doing, although to no apparent effect?

Re: TSMC eyes Germany as possible location for first Europe chip plant

#135

Post by bserge »

volta83 wrote: post #97
martin_a wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a German myself: Why would you not invest? Infrastructure, state of mind? I'd really love to see more high-tech companies invest here, after we've managed to kill the solar companies... :-/

Top technical talent scarcity and cost. In Silicon Valley, you can find a dozen 600k$ engineers relatively quickly to scale up a random startup. In Germany... the salaries these people would be making would be This disparity in the valuation of top engineers cause many to emigrate, and once you are in the US, it is impossible to financially justify taking a 5x pay cut to go back to Germany. (You can justify it "non-f…

> the startup scene in Germany is poor. Nobody wants to be the engineer that actually builds the stuff

And nobody wants to fund a startup run by engineers. Double whammy

Re: TSMC eyes Germany as possible location for first Europe chip plant

#136

Post by fundatus »

nbevans wrote: post #112
rsynnott wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> after everybody is seeing what Germany is doing to Tesla's Gigafactory there Requiring it to follow the rules? As a portion of GDP, manufacturing is a bigger part of Germany's economy than nearly any other developed country. It is even higher as a portion of GDP than _China_ (edit not China, see below). Pretty much everyone except Tesla seems to cope, so I'm inclined to assume that this is more a Tesla incompetence…

Dial down your tone - it is unwarranted. Rules and red tape was exactly my point. Why would TSMC choose to run that gauntlet willingly and potentially fall foul of the same hurdles that Tesla has encountered? One of the big problems Tesla had was around water supply. Do you have any idea how much water a chip fab uses? My point around export restrictions was in reference to the EU blocking vaccine exports this year b…

> My point around export restrictions was in reference to the EU blocking vaccine exports this year because it suited them.

LMAO

The EU blocks ONE vaccine shipment - while the UK and the US had export bans in place for months and now the EU is the bad guy. smh

Re: TSMC eyes Germany as possible location for first Europe chip plant

#137

Post by nbevans »

nbevans wrote: post #104
fundatus wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the UK just willingly put up giant trade barriers with their biggest trading partner. Doesn't really scream "free trade" to most people outside the UK. There is a reason why annual foreign direct investment into the UK almost halved (!) after the Brexit referendum. Probably one of the main reasons why TSMC doesn't consider the UK for this. Also skilled immmigration to Germany is MUCH easier compared to the UK,…

The UK isn't even manning its customs posts for imports from the EU at present. And there is no tariffs on the vast majority of exports to the EU - and certainly not on semiconductors. FDI in 2020 was almost identical to France (albeit yes 2nd to France in 1st place) for Europe: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jun/07/uk-second-t... This is counter to your claims concerning FDI. I doubt it is "much easier" f…

"No one (apart from Brexiters) cares that much about tariffs. EU tariffs are some of the lowest in the world - the average applied tariff for imports into the EU in 2019 was just 1.88%. Compare that to 6% for India or 13% for the US."

Bizarre comment. You initiated it by suggesting the UK has erected "giant trade barriers" but then reply saying nobody cares about trade tariffs? And then immediately in the second sentence go on to compare trade tariffs globally? What exactly is your point as it isn't really cutting across?

Re: TSMC eyes Germany as possible location for first Europe chip plant

#138

Post by bserge »

volta83 wrote: post #122
FabHK wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're saying in SV, they're 600k$, but in Germany they're only 100k$, but it would be 2x expensive to hire them? Why don't you pay 600k$ gross then, they get 300k$ net, and thus 3x what they'd get otherwise in Germany, but don't have to move to the US? Seems like a feasible strategy to me.

Paying somebody 300k/year doesn't make them "top talent". The top talent is in the US, Taiwan, etc. designing the 3nm plants, operating the 5nm plants, doing research, etc. Why would a 600k$/year engineer relocate from the US to Germany for a 300k$ salary pay cut ? I've always made more money at my next job than the previous one. If a company wants me to leave my life here behind and move 15000km, they better offer m…

I mean, it's not like it's impossible to assemble a team that can become top talent.

But they need the ability to "level up" (by working with already existing high tech). And then they leave for the US anyway heh.

Re: TSMC eyes Germany as possible location for first Europe chip plant

#139

Post by rsynnott »

tpush wrote: post #115
rsynnott wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> after everybody is seeing what Germany is doing to Tesla's Gigafactory there Requiring it to follow the rules? As a portion of GDP, manufacturing is a bigger part of Germany's economy than nearly any other developed country. It is even higher as a portion of GDP than _China_ (edit not China, see below). Pretty much everyone except Tesla seems to cope, so I'm inclined to assume that this is more a Tesla incompetence…

> As a portion of GDP, manufacturing is a bigger part of Germany's economy than nearly any other developed country. It is even higher as a portion of GDP than _China_. What are your sources? That doesn't seem to be true according to both [0] and [1]. Both put Germany at 18-19 and China at ~26. [0] https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/rankings/Share_of_manufactu... [1] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NV.IND.MANF.ZS?m…

Oops, yep, you're correct. China is higher. I was thinking of broader industry figures, which also include construction and a few other bits and pieces.

Re: TSMC eyes Germany as possible location for first Europe chip plant

#140

Post by ng55QPSK »

nixass wrote: post #4

Make it Munich, make it Munich, make it Munich

Please not Munich. We're dealing already with an overcrowded area where the cost of living and cost of renting apartments is exploding and the market of engineers is literally empty.

North of bavaria closer to e.g. Audi in Ingolstadt or BMW in lower-bavaria would make more sense.

Still, you could reach Munich by train or 30min drive and 30min traffic jam.

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