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

Samsung plans $17B chip plant in Taylor, Texas

datacenterdynamics.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 453 posts

Re: Samsung plans $17B chip plant in Taylor, Texas

#131

Post by mindcrime »

shortstuffsushi wrote: post #113
0_____0 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

tangentially related bit of trivium... when i was house hunting a looked at a house across from a fire station, and upon doing research about what it's like to live across from one, found that a.) they tend not to blast sirens upon exiting the station, in contrast to living near a hospital with an ED, and b.) the power grid segments that fire stations are on have priority and are less likely to lose power during blac…

I wonder if the siren thing varies from location to location, a good friend of mine lived right next to one and it seemed you couldn't go 15 minutes without being drown out by them heading out.

I wonder if the siren thing varies from location to location,

In my experience (former firefighter here), it absolutely does. It also varies by call type, time of day, etc. So if we got a call at 2:00 AM and there was no traffic on the road near the station, we might leave the station with no siren out of respect for the people trying to sleep in the homes very close to the station. This would be more true if the call was a lower priority call in the first place. OTOH though, if the call as "residential structure fire with occupants reported trapped" our focus would not be on sleeping neighbors and there's a better chance that we'd be getting on the Q pretty much right out the door.

Another factor for us was that our station was right next to an intersection that was very busy at times, and known for many traffic accidents. So any call where we had to turn left (towards the intersection) out of the parking lot, there was a better chance we'd be hitting the siren and air-horn pretty much right from the jump.

Anyway, yeah, net-net, this is going to vary based on lots of factors: department policy / culture, geography, time, traffic, etc, yadda yadda.

Re: Samsung plans $17B chip plant in Taylor, Texas

#132

Post by javajosh »

abledon wrote: post #110
burnished wrote: post #13

Ok, this article quietly gets fucking wild halfway through. >> Samsung spent years evaluating where to build the new fab, courting multiple locations and pitting them against each other for better incentives. But the ultimate decision came down to Samsung Group's leader Jay Y. Lee, who was granted early parole in August expressly to speed up crucial business decisions like the Texas chip fab. Accounting for between 1…

great find! But is it really that bizarre that someone who finds themselves thriving in an insanely high-stress and powerful position such as leader of Samsung, is involved in dishonest power games, as well as having an interest in Spiritual experiences? One can have everything available money can buy, but inward experiences can go largely unexplored.

The allegation is of a corrupted spiritual experience, hence the Rasputin reference. It's one thing to go on a meditation retreat; its another to go on retreat and have the guru follow you home to advise you on policy when they learn you're powerful.

Money corrupts spirituality, and it always has.

Re: Samsung plans $17B chip plant in Taylor, Texas

#133

Post by [deleted] »

burnished wrote: post #13

Ok, this article quietly gets fucking wild halfway through. >> Samsung spent years evaluating where to build the new fab, courting multiple locations and pitting them against each other for better incentives. But the ultimate decision came down to Samsung Group's leader Jay Y. Lee, who was granted early parole in August expressly to speed up crucial business decisions like the Texas chip fab. Accounting for between 1…

[deleted]

Re: Samsung plans $17B chip plant in Taylor, Texas

#134

Post by politician »

trasz wrote: post #104
politician wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We’re moving fabs to the West to defuse a potential hostage situation where China strangles the global supply of semiconductors. The UFO releases are either about telling China that we are aware of and can track their surveillance assets, showing China our new highly advanced classified assets, or else demonstrating the superiority of our current Air Force assets. Both activities serve to dissuade the Chinese militar…

Except that 1. It’s the west (in particular the US) that is strangling the semiconductor supplies in order to hamper Chinese industry, and 2. China is completely uninterested in military aggression, as opposed to US, which just finished a war and is probably looking for another one.

This is just wrong.

The White House recently identified semiconductors as an essential product critical to US national security [1]. These actions by the US and allies to onshore fabs is part of the adjustment to defuse a supply chain risk caused by potential future actions by China.

During the Cold War, both sides used strategic release of classified information on capabilities to notify the war planners on the other side in order to prevent miscalculations that could lead to a nuclear exchange. This is common knowledge and a good tactic to tamper escalation. It would be extremely irresponsible to surprise a nuclear peer with new capabilities.

[1] https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases...

Re: Samsung plans $17B chip plant in Taylor, Texas

#135

Post by Kaytaro »

bell-cot wrote: post #101
josaka wrote: post #69

After the TX grid failure last winter, it's probably not a coincidence that Samsung's new facility will be near ERCOT's operation center in Taylor, which manages the TX grid, and will likely be the last load to shed when the grid's stressed. Used to work in the Austin fab, and the amount of money lost per minute in a power failure is mind boggling. The tax breaks Taylor offered ($314m) are not that different from wha…

This...but did Samsung quietly negotiate a "any further energy supply f*ck-ups are 100% on YOUR dime" deal with the State of Texas, or what? By several accounts, the TX grid got darn close to collapse last winter - at which point "ERCOT Op Center is next door, and we get top priority" would not get you a single erg.

I was surprised the power outage affected Samsung because in DFW the outage only affected residential areas. I didn't see a single commercial/industrial space without power including fully lit empty parking lots.

Re: Samsung plans $17B chip plant in Taylor, Texas

#136

Post by [deleted] »

[deleted] wrote: post #133
burnished wrote: post #13

Ok, this article quietly gets fucking wild halfway through. >> Samsung spent years evaluating where to build the new fab, courting multiple locations and pitting them against each other for better incentives. But the ultimate decision came down to Samsung Group's leader Jay Y. Lee, who was granted early parole in August expressly to speed up crucial business decisions like the Texas chip fab. Accounting for between 1…

[deleted]

[deleted]

Re: Samsung plans $17B chip plant in Taylor, Texas

#137

Post by Mountain_Skies »

shortstuffsushi wrote: post #113
0_____0 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

tangentially related bit of trivium... when i was house hunting a looked at a house across from a fire station, and upon doing research about what it's like to live across from one, found that a.) they tend not to blast sirens upon exiting the station, in contrast to living near a hospital with an ED, and b.) the power grid segments that fire stations are on have priority and are less likely to lose power during blac…

I wonder if the siren thing varies from location to location, a good friend of mine lived right next to one and it seemed you couldn't go 15 minutes without being drown out by them heading out.

If the fire station is located on a busy road or near a blind curve, turning on the siren when exiting might be a good policy. Out on a county road with good sight lines and low traffic? They can wait until they're going at a hazardous speed or intersection.

My main concern would be all of the communications equipment they typically have. Being that close to high powered transmitters can cause annoying interference.

Re: Samsung plans $17B chip plant in Taylor, Texas

#138

Post by tw04 »

trasz wrote: post #98
sleepysysadmin wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is about the war with china. Europe: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/tech-is-make-or-break-i... Germany: https://www.infineon.com/cms/en/about-infineon/press/press-r... Korea: https://fortune.com/2021/05/13/south-korea-chip-semiconducto... Japan: https://www.aroged.com/2021/11/23/japan-has-allocated-5-2-bi... Non-OP USA: https://9to5mac.com/2021/06/09/us-chip-production-52b/ Key players are expecting an all…

The easiest (and probably the only) way to prevent a war with China is to convince the US to not start it.

>The easiest (and probably the only) way to prevent a war with China is to convince the US to not start it.

Yes, if there's one thing we should have learned from WWII, it's that capitulating to land-grabs results in the bad-actor stopping. If we just let them take over the entirety of the South China Sea, Taiwan, and maybe just half of the African nations they've been lending money to who will never be able to repay their debts, they'll definitely be satisfied and stop. Korea, Japan, and India have nothing to worry about. Nothing at all...

Re: Samsung plans $17B chip plant in Taylor, Texas

#139

Post by jeffbee »

rllearneratwork wrote: post #76

with Tesla, SpaceX, Samsung and other tech investing this heavy in Texas, when/will it surpass CA as a tech powerhouse of the future?

I don't know but if you were waiting for a signal, Samsung built another, larger, and more valuable fab in Austin a decade ago. And if you are judging by fab capacity the question you should have asked is when Texas will overtake Arizona. There really are very few semi fabs in California.

Re: Samsung plans $17B chip plant in Taylor, Texas

#140

Post by megaman821 »

mrweasel wrote: post #121
Robotbeat wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well in principle Texas has lower (almost half) industrial energy costs than Taiwan, which could help reduce wafer production costs especially at the lower resolution nodes. As Moore’s Law slows, things like energy and raw material costs may matter more. And having wafer plants close to fab plants can help. Rough order of magnitude, but for a lower cost wafer (think like 90nm or above, not 7nm), electricity and energ…

I was wondering why Texas keep coming up when new US fabs a being talked about. From an outsider it just looks like the low energy cost comes from failing to properly manage and upgrade the Texas energy grid.

The Texas grid has been diversified and transmission upgraded. The problem is that it hasn't been winterized. While this is costly, I doubt this is the main reason why prices are low. Texas has a large, cheap supply of natural gas and good areas for both wind and solar.
Post reply on HN