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How real is America’s chipmaking renaissance?

economist.com

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Re: How real is America’s chipmaking renaissance?

#191

Post by BirAdam »

strictnein wrote: post #164
photochemsyn wrote: post #25

America's basic socioeconomic structual model is highly flawed and any company wanting to do manufacturing here will see obvious disadvantages compared to Europe or Asia. 1) Employers are responsible for employee health coverage, inflating employee costs by a significant degree. The rationale for this model among the investor class is that it makes employees dependent on their employer and limits the power of unions,…

BMW would seem to be in a good position to judge the manufacturing capabilities of both Europe and the US, with their large presence in both. $1.7 billion expansion in the US towards the end of 2022: https://www.bmwgroup-werke.com/spartanburg/en/news/2022/BMW-... Expanding on their already expansive presence in Spartanburg. The X3-X7 and their newest high end vehicle the XM are all built in the US: https://www.bmwgro…

KIA and Hyundai have built and are building more in Georgia as well.

Re: How real is America’s chipmaking renaissance?

#192

Post by gorjusborg »

jjoonathan wrote: post #101
gorjusborg wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Careful. The cost of a fab makes it very difficult for competitors to start up. Working in a field with only a few competitors seems attractive, but you risk specializing in skills that only few businesses worldwide can leverage. I used to work in semiconductors and transitioned to software when I realized how precarious that was.

Using mad physics and computer skillz to change the course of empire? Cool! For a $78k salary in HCOL area? Not Cool! This was years ago and not TX. I'm sure it has gotten slightly better but what I see on glassdoor still makes me very glad I listened to the job hunting postdocs in nanofab class and steered clear of this career path.

It really is such a cool field, but yeah, the pay isn't great, especially given the tendency to crunch.

Re: How real is America’s chipmaking renaissance?

#193

Post by TulliusCicero »

BirAdam wrote: post #189
floor_ wrote: post #132

This all feels like a prelude to a World War.

For the USA, war (at some level) has pretty much always been constant. Autarky also isn't new to the USA. The current on-shoring movement seems to me to be more about the USA's empire collapsing, and the military contractors getting worried about their supply lines. So, prelude to WWIII? Maybe, but it can be explained in other ways.

To the extent that the US has an empire, it's not collapsing right now. The US continues to maintain plenty of foreign military bases, US military alliances and partnerships are strong (arguably NATO is now stronger than it was in the recent past), and overseas territories like Guam are still firmly under US control.

What's changed is that China continues to rise in power and exert its influence, combined with Russia's invasion of Ukraine making the West antsy about dependencies on China as well as Taiwan (if China invades or blockades Taiwan).

Re: How real is America’s chipmaking renaissance?

#194

Post by DiogenesKynikos »

colechristensen wrote: post #62
shubb wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the interesting lessons of the past few years is that supply chain lead times are a thing and policy doesn't just happen because central planning says it should. So, if there is a bubble in the chip supply pipeline, auto manufacture doesn't happen. If there is undersupply of precursor chemicals it takes a while to make vaccines at scale... What you are talking about makes me think of the very long lead product…

>One of the interesting lessons of the past few years is that supply chain lead times are a thing and policy doesn't just happen because central planning says it should. I would say exactly the opposite, the vaccines were made quite quickly and there weren't major supply issues. The Defense Production Act (er... central planning as you put it) was used to say what was going to happen when with money to back it up and…

> The lack of corruption and general merit-based placement here compared to so many other places combined with a large degree of vertical integration means that we can accomplish quite a lot and is one of the underappreciated cornerstones of our ability to make war (and why nobody wants to fight us).

First of all, other countries managed to develop and produce large amounts of vaccine in very short timeframe during the pandemic. Second of all, the reason nobody wants to fight the US is that the US spends as much on its military as the next ten or so countries. The US makes up 40% of all global military spending.

> We are decimating (and then some) Russia's military by giving away second tier equipment to Ukraine

The total value of NATO aid to Ukraine is on a similar scale as Russia's entire military budget. NATO is not just giving away second-tier equipment. It's giving Ukraine what it thinks Ukraine can use most effectively right away (such as upgraded T-72 tanks, man-portable air-defense and anti-tank systems early on), and some of that is cutting-edge gear (such as the Storm Shadow missile).

Re: How real is America’s chipmaking renaissance?

#196

Post by gorjusborg »

bob1029 wrote: post #182
gorjusborg wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Careful. The cost of a fab makes it very difficult for competitors to start up. Working in a field with only a few competitors seems attractive, but you risk specializing in skills that only few businesses worldwide can leverage. I used to work in semiconductors and transitioned to software when I realized how precarious that was.

I used to work in semiconductors as well. At the SAS A2/S2 lines right down the street. I wasn't actually suggesting that I return to my former employer, although the thought has crossed my mind... My reasoning for a move would be about all of the higher-order consequences of having well-compensated technology enthusiasts imported by the thousands.

> I wasn't actually suggesting that I return to my former employer

No worries, I was picturing a young person setting out to 'make their fortune' by moving across the country to make it. I just wanted to share the perspective I left the field with.

That doesn't mean it isn't possible to make it work!

Re: How real is America’s chipmaking renaissance?

#197

Post by Spooky23 »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #136
jayd16 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like a union could help but I guess the odds of that are slim.

Is there anything a union can't help with, in your estimation?

Big companies with standardized jobs are great for unionization. Union bureaucracy is a great answer to corporate or government bureaucracy.

Basically, a big, inflexible place is a good unionization candidate. A smaller, nimble org is a lousy place for a union.

Re: How real is America’s chipmaking renaissance?

#198

Post by pianoben »

red-iron-pine wrote: post #160
jjoonathan wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plenty. U**ons solve one problem only: when value created is high but leverage (=pay) is low. The fact that this problem pops up all over the damn place should tell you something about our relationship to u**ons.

it's not just low pay. children used to work 10 hours a day and lose hands in machinery. hell, kids are dying in factories now, and the rules just keep getting rolled back further. miners get black lung or asbestos exposure. dudes boiled alive in machinery that didn't have fail safes. company towns that only paid in scrip and then charged you 3x the price of regular goods. people had to fight and die for an 8 hour wo…

Seriously! People forget that bosses responded to unionization with actual violent assault, including sending literal bombers against striking miners (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain). Children get to go to school and not work because Unions fought. We have a weekend because Unions fought. We have an eight-hour workday because Unions fought.

Re: How real is America’s chipmaking renaissance?

#199

Post by sangnoir »

bluGill wrote: post #152
s_dev wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about the vast energy required by fabs? Do you have a special tax to reinvest and maintain the grid or do they pay the same rates as a normal Arizona grocery store? Texas is hardly a paragon of a stable grid given the blackouts the past few years.

Despite the headlines, Texas has a fairly stable grid. They have work to do, but all grids do. In the end it doesn't matter too much as you cannot make a grid stable enough to rely on without backup power onsite and once you have that you can ride out most unstable events.

> Despite the headlines, Texas has a fairly stable grid.

Have the power generators applied any of the recommendations in the report commissioned by ERCOT after the 2021 blackouts? When the 2021 blackouts happened, they had not implemented any of the winterization updates recommended by the another report a decade earlier (2011). The outcome of the 2021 blackouts was the legislature allowing utility companies to claw back their "losses" from customers' bills over 10+ years - with no obligation to make changes or investing in equipment to ensure there same cascading failures won't happen again.

Re: How real is America’s chipmaking renaissance?

#200

Post by burkaman »

bee_rider wrote: post #102
overtomanu wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Below extension will be useful https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome

I’d have to check and see how it works. I’m happy to block ads (I’ll render whatever I’m sent however I want), but I wouldn’t want to access content that the publisher didn’t intend to send.

It works for sites that set a cookie to limit how many free articles you can see without logging in, or sites that let search engine scrapers bypass the paywall to read the full content.

I would say it's a little more ethically questionable than ad blocking. Ad blocking is like buying a paper from a newsstand and duct taping over the ads - totally fine, it's my paper and I'll do whatever I want with it. This extension is like hanging around the newsstand reading all the front pages until the owner shoos you away, and then coming back with a fake mustache to keep reading.

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