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Samsung plans $17B chip plant in Taylor, Texas

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

#151

Post by rllearneratwork »

adam_arthur wrote: post #148
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?

Beyond specific companies, Texas has more favorable business climate and tax rates. Housing alone is such a huge knock against CA for new companies. Even paying somebody 500k there leaves them feeling middle class when trying to raise a family. Perhaps a bit of an exaggeration, but in Texas they build like crazy to support population inflows. If you drive through Austin you'll see every third or fourth house is getti…

they are also not hostile to kids in public schools (CA dumbs down math, requires masks, requires CRT, etc.)

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

#152

Post by ddingus »

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.

A conversation may yield better too. If they know they are waking a day sleeper, for example.

I know I would attempt one. Try nice and some charm and see what comes of it. May end up popular with neighbors.

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

#153

Post by SECProto »

fabfabfab wrote: post #99
guai888 wrote: post #18

‘Impossible':TSMC founder Morris Chang on US dreams for onshoring chip supply chain https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4327937 Morris Chang spent 25 years (1958–1983) at Texas Instruments.He knows US very well.

Having worked in Fab, the supply chain is already in the US+EU+Japan. About the only change in last 5 years or so is Intel's ability to compete in lithography process and get sufficient yield to stay competitive in pricing. Lithography is one of the 400 or so steps in Fab processing, but arguably the most critical and a bottle neck. TSMC does not have a lead in every single of these 400 steps, in fact quite the oppos…

> Anytime someone says "impossible", I would take that opinion with a grain of salt.

Or to quote Arthur C Clarke:

> When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.

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

#154

Post by dukeyukey »

missedthecue wrote: post #106
JavaBatman wrote: post #11

I am still amazed by the shortsightedness of how these critical and strategic goods are off-shore. No wonder why the supply chains are fragile and not robust. It should be illegal for strategic goods and components such as chips and semiconductors to be produced offshore. Yes, it will raise prices in the short and medium-term, but it will make the domestic economy and manufacturing sector more robust, resilient to su…

You don't make semiconductors out of thin air. They're made out of inputs that we have to buy from other countries. The United States cannot possibly produce its own sufficient supply of rare earths and silicon for instance, they must be extracted where they occur naturally.

My understanding is that the US definitely _could_ produce everything needed, it's just not financially viable or desirable to do so. With tax changes, automation and the rise in cost of labor in non-western countries, it might just become viable.

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

#155

Post by hparadiz »

AdamN wrote: post #146
JavaBatman wrote: post #11

I am still amazed by the shortsightedness of how these critical and strategic goods are off-shore. No wonder why the supply chains are fragile and not robust. It should be illegal for strategic goods and components such as chips and semiconductors to be produced offshore. Yes, it will raise prices in the short and medium-term, but it will make the domestic economy and manufacturing sector more robust, resilient to su…

No single country is capable of producing the newest chips end to end. Lithograph machines, raw materials, clean room builders, educated workforce, and the scale to do each of these economically are simply not available in one location. By the time you could produce such a focus of the industry, it would already have moved on and require different inputs that are not in that country.

I think that's what the person you're replying to is saying. The government should subsidize domestic production because it's a prestige issue for the nation. Sort of like having an aircraft carrier group but in the form of economic power.

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

#156

Post by shigawire »

betwixthewires wrote: post #79
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…

OK, a lot to unpack. Lots of militaries prepared for conflict. OK. What do the pentagon UFO releases have to do with war with China? You say it's completely related, would you elaborate? And a peasant revolt in China? That's a big statement and I'd like to know more about your reasoning.

Best standard of living for Chinese "peasants" in history. Not sure where this revolt comes from

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

#157

Post by throw0101a »

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.

> erg

For anyone wondering, this is a unit of energy (100 nJ):

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erg

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

#158

Post by kragen »

jvanderbot wrote: post #26
guai888 wrote: post #18

‘Impossible':TSMC founder Morris Chang on US dreams for onshoring chip supply chain https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4327937 Morris Chang spent 25 years (1958–1983) at Texas Instruments.He knows US very well.

Well that sounds about right from the guy who moved it all to Taiwan. I hope the scene has changed a little in the last 40 years. The US is eager to have these businesses, and I can imagine a lot of incentives and regulatory reductions.

It has changed. That's what makes it impossible.

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

#159

Post by awsthro00945 »

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…

I really doubt proximity to the ERCOT center has anything to do with it. The new facility isn't close enough at all to the ERCOT center to be on the same grid segment. And with a new facility like this that is in the middle of a field outside of town, the new fab will be built on its own grid segment anyway, completely separate from the rest of Taylor and the ERCOT center.

Taylor was chosen because that area (northeast of Austin, just south of Taylor) is one of the last areas near Austin that has abundant amounts of wide open fields ready to be developed. They also got a good deal on the water usage, and of course the tax breaks from Williamson County.

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

#160

Post by throw0101a »

fabfabfab wrote: post #99
guai888 wrote: post #18

‘Impossible':TSMC founder Morris Chang on US dreams for onshoring chip supply chain https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4327937 Morris Chang spent 25 years (1958–1983) at Texas Instruments.He knows US very well.

Having worked in Fab, the supply chain is already in the US+EU+Japan. About the only change in last 5 years or so is Intel's ability to compete in lithography process and get sufficient yield to stay competitive in pricing. Lithography is one of the 400 or so steps in Fab processing, but arguably the most critical and a bottle neck. TSMC does not have a lead in every single of these 400 steps, in fact quite the oppos…

> Lithography is one of the 400 or so steps in Fab processing, but arguably the most critical and a bottle neck.

In their ongoing series on supply chains, the Odd Lots podcast had episodes on both TSMC and ASML:

* https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-story-of-how-tsmc-...

* https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/asml-the-obscure-power...

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