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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

#201

Post by est31 »

SiempreViernes wrote: post #176
ahartmetz wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing about not coming back is probably true (30% the salary?!), but yeah, not many leave in the first place.

Adding to that, is there any general reason for a German, besides money, to go to the US? So if the ones that go mostly do it for the money, they'll most likely stay gone.

I know people who came back after having worked a few years in the USA. Seems like a smart move to me, considering how large bay area home prices are compared to home prices in Germany. From my limited point of view, Germany is a way better and way less expensive place to raise your child than the USA. There is way more social peace. You don't have massive gun violence. Etc.

I know people who emigrated to the USA decades ago, and now send their children to German colleges because those are practically tuition free for EU citizens (you need to pay rent tho). If you want to move back more early on, you can use your savings from your time in the USA to get the bulk cost of buying a house in one of the regions with good tech jobs like Munich out of the way. Then you can live a great life in Germany even with the limited German tech salaries.

Note that I'm not saying that you shouldn't go to the the USA in the first place. In fact, I'm still strongly considering it myself. But the less healthy, young, single, and childless you are, the more advantages does Germany have for you.

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

#202

Post by GrigoriyMikh »

bluGill wrote: post #199
GrigoriyMikh wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why you think that Germany has a lot of good and cheap engineers? I think the biggest problem that low salaries are causing there is that people with some(5+ years) experience are moving either to Switzerland/US or to freelance for Switzerland/US companies. So, there's big deficit of experienced engineers. German companies are trying to solve it by inviting Eastern European/Indian/Asian workers, that are cheaper, but…

As I said, the union has enough benefits that the value of higher salary positions isn't worth it to many. In the union you are not allowed to work more than 36 hours a week (I might have the numbers off a bit?) and they check to ensure that. Non-union can work longer hours, in practice they don't, but they are allowed to. There are a number of other things like that, the one lead engineer I work with in Germany does…

What's "the union"? I never heard about it. Not a single engineer that i know personally is in this union(or at least they are hiding that). And literally all of them planning to leave Germany once the good opportunity arrives. Also, i know personally almost 20 engineers who left the country only for better pay and that's during pandemic only.

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

#203

Post by _pmf_ »

Lev1a wrote: post #60
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…

From what I've seen as an amateur that is yet fascinated by mechanical engineering: iteratively work up to the precision limits with your current methods then try to find/research a (slightly) better way of measuring and/or manufacturing. Since humanity has worked up to this point over centuries/millenia, you wouldn't need to "bootstrap" it from the beginning anymore, just choose the appropriate level of (manufacturi…

This is a beautiful video!

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

#204

Post by yorwba »

nickik wrote: post #170
rsynnott wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla's problem, from the outside, looks like they didn't ask for expert advice, or ignored it if they got it. Which seems to be a recurring problem with Telsa in technical fields, but it's interesting that it comes up in business and regulatory fields.

What problem? What could they have avoid if they had asked experts? I have been following the process in a lot of detail, as I speak German. I have no idea what you are referring to.

One issue is that the factory is located within the boundaries of the Wasserschutzgebiet Erkner/Neu Zittau, which means they have extra strict environmental safety requirements to avoid contaminating the water.

That seems like it could've been avoided, since Brandenburg doesn't have that many Wasserschutzgebiete: https://maps.brandenburg.de/apps/Wasserschutzgebiete/ (The WSG Erkner/Neu Zittau is the big blob south of Erkner, southeast of Berlin. If you zoom in far enough, you can see Tesla's factory at the blob's eastern border.)

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

#205

Post by platz »

reportingsjr wrote: post #159
Akronymus wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It is necessary to grind in a random fashion (OP is talking about the method of grinding, not the order), or you will end up with imperfections. Lots of info about this if you look in to grinding mirrors for telescopes. Also, the order being random wouldn't effect the end result.

When grinding the concave plate why didn't that make then other flat plate convex again?

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

#206

Post by steffen84 »

nicbou wrote: post #184
suction wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Might be true, but in Germany, the salary you pay to your employee is also about 1% of all the labor cost for him or her. Which is hyperbole, of course, but Germany is one of those countries where the actual net payout is usually significantly less than 50% of the salary the company provides. I'm not criticising it as I think Germany is a good example of a well-working system but net salaries are low for most.

Eh the salaries are alright. It seems to me like the salaries are higher in America, while in Germany they're lower but include things American end up paying for: pensions, insurance, and education. If I were American, a part of my net income would still end up going to health insurance, student loans and other things. My employer might pay less benefits, but pay a higher salary to compensate for those costs. I think…

You are right except the german pensions they are a ponzi scheme and will fail in the future.

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

#207

Post by GrigoriyMikh »

wasmitnetzen wrote: post #131
volta83 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I know almost 20 engineers personally, who moved out from Germany, only because of low pay. But all of them were expats in a first place. Not all moved to US, some to Switzerland and some back to home country(for higher managerial positions).

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

#208

Post by quakeguy »

lispm wrote: post #49
grlass wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention the people who design many of the machines that TSMC use in their plants: ASML. "The mirrors guiding this light, made of sandwiched layers of silicon and molybdenum, are ground so precisely that, if scaled to the size of Germany, they would have no bumps bigger than a millimetre" https://www.economist.com/business/2020/02/29/how-asml-becam... >

and ASML works together with Trumpf (lasers) and Zeiss (optics).

And the silicon ingots come from Wacker-Chemie.

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

#209

Post by stackbutterflow »

raverbashing wrote: post #158
volta83 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Do you think they're not paying any tax in the US? That 600k gross is at most 500k net (probably less) Also you assume they are a) happy to stay in the US b) have no immigration issues to deal with c) don't have a crazy CoL on SV that eats most of that 500k... Yes, it's not a clear-cut move, but not too bad neither. Salary is not everything.

For reference: 600k USD is 508k euros. 500k USD is 423k euros.

We're already down a notch. People tend to assume $1 = 1€ in this thread.

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

#210

Post by jonp888 »

rsynnott wrote: post #161
nbevans wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> The UK isn't even manning its customs posts for imports from the EU at present. I mean, largely true, but entirely irrelevant to someone planning a factory. That's a temporary situation that cannot realistically continue.

> That's a temporary situation that cannot realistically continue.

It might not be realistic, but it is UK government policy: https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/uk-asks-for-brexit-standst...

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