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ASML reports fire at its Berlin factory

reuters.com

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Re: ASML reports fire at its Berlin factory

#201

Post by throwawaylinux »

sudosysgen wrote: post #181
throwawaylinux wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No they have been seriously trying before then, it's just that they had failed and were somewhat covered by USSR. Even if we take that date, 40 years and countless actual engines to study and they're not even there yet! > They are nowhere even near to having spent as much as the Russians in resources. You forget that the economy of the USSR was a massive powerhouse, that allocated absolutely massive incestments in mi…

Nope, before the Sino-Soviet split and shortly thereafter there was zero serious effort to build jet engines. They were producing Soviet designs under license and working on that until the mid 80s. China never, ever, ever had anywhere near the engineering resources of the Soviet Union. To suggest as much is insanity. They arrived to that level somewhere before 2010. China already has competitive engines. They can and…

> Nope, before the Sino-Soviet split and shortly thereafter there was zero serious effort to build jet engines.

Nope, the WP-1A was built in 1958. Just because they were incapable of designing their own competitive jet engine does not mean they were not attempting to.

> China never, ever, ever had anywhere near the engineering resources of the Soviet Union. To suggest as much is insanity. They arrived to that level somewhere before 2010.

You mean somewhere after? Totally disagree. Clearly there were not good or well run resources like the soviets, but they had the money and the manpower earlier than that. If you're just looking at GDP overlap that is misleading because it does not account for more people in China, or the relative advantage it gets from much stronger computing power and ability to copy more advanced designs. Also you're taking the GDP from the height of the USSR, which is not representative of its economic power for those same 70 years it was designing engines.

> China already has competitive engines. They can and do simply buy Russian engines.

Not the most advanced ones.

> Domestic engine development is a nice-to-have, and not a huge priority. This is obviously reflected in the low budgets and the low number of employees in these programs. This is public information.

That shows how much you know. It is a huge priority for them and it has been for a long time.

Re: ASML reports fire at its Berlin factory

#202

Post by quartesixte »

hda2 wrote: post #93
onionisafruit wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most governments can’t afford to do that.

I'm pretty sure the majority of countries can. We're talking 90s-era infrastructure that costs less than a single modern passenger airplane to build and run. Governments can subsidize their use in local industries or even build the infrastructure themselves doing what many governments already do with power, telecommunications, and transport.

The vast majority of countries, I reckon, don’t have enough domestic stability or human resources to maintain any sort of thing like that. Let alone the capital. It takes a small army to run a industrial-production level facility, a few of which need advanced degrees and experience.

The G7 and G20 aren’t an exclusive club for nothing. There are real things behind GDP.

Re: ASML reports fire at its Berlin factory

#203

Post by DoingIsLearning »

CookiesNCream23 wrote: post #180

I work in the industry and have worked in a fab. Here is some insight. We are taught that fabs are not treated as factories but as hazardous chemical storage plants. On top of that, we work with high pressure and high power systems. Fires have accounted for the most damage to fabs over the years; however, this situation is different. The site is not a fab, it is a ASML manufacturing plant. This plant does not produce…

I've seen some interesting positions from ASML but like many Dutch companies they seem to be office/lab centric. Do you know of any software teams within ASML that are remote friendly?

Re: ASML reports fire at its Berlin factory

#204

Post by siva7 »

kragen wrote: post #167
siva7 wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s slightly misleading. Most Chinese are vaccinated with CoronaVac whose protection is far behind against the Omnicron variant compared with SpikeVax or Corminaty that is being administered in NA and EU. That’s the reason why the chinese vaccine isn’t acknowledged in the EU as a full vaccination with all travel implications.

I appreciate the added context! Not just most Chinese --- as I said, CoronaVac is the most popular vaccine worldwide. Doesn't its lack of authorization in the EU, and its authorization in most of the rest of the world, predate the emergence of Ό?

True, most people in EU outright refuse to get any other vaccination than Corminaty if they have choice, even SpikeVax had some acceptance trouble because other vaccinations are perceived as inferior in public opinion. Chinese or russian vaccs would have no chance of acceptance by the public here.

Re: ASML reports fire at its Berlin factory

#205

Post by phasersout »

wumpus wrote: post #153

One of the fun parts of working in Silicon Valley is that there's... industrial stuff everywhere. At one office building, not only did we have the usual fire evacuation plan, but we had extra instructions because of one of our neighbors, who had storage tanks with the usual fab chemicals. Yow.

A small bavarian town in the 80's. A summer day in an elementary school which happens to be across a leather-tanning-plant. One of the kids suddenly bursts out "hey look, why do all the trees suddenly turn brown?". The teacher is flabbergasted but wise enough to close all the windows immediately. Outside it looks like autumn is in full blow, while the sirens in the city go off and the road between school and plant fills rapidly with firetrucks, ambulance and police cars...

It later turned out that one container had over-pressure and a chemical escaped trough an outlet... no people were harmed though but every leave in the vicinity turned completely brown...

Re: ASML reports fire at its Berlin factory

#206

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

DoingIsLearning wrote: post #203
CookiesNCream23 wrote: post #180

I work in the industry and have worked in a fab. Here is some insight. We are taught that fabs are not treated as factories but as hazardous chemical storage plants. On top of that, we work with high pressure and high power systems. Fires have accounted for the most damage to fabs over the years; however, this situation is different. The site is not a fab, it is a ASML manufacturing plant. This plant does not produce…

I've seen some interesting positions from ASML but like many Dutch companies they seem to be office/lab centric. Do you know of any software teams within ASML that are remote friendly?

Most semiconductor/electronics companies are not at all remote friendly, in the way you'd imagine, since, like you said, their core business is lab centered and focused on selling products you have to physically interact with, unlike the pure SW industry.

Some are however, remote friendly in the way that they do offer WFH options, but that means you live around the office/HQ for legal and security reasons and can WFH every now and then, with the agreemant that you have to show up at the office when required, not you get employed form anywhere in the world you happen to reside in and keep working from your living room, that's a no-go from the start for any established company in the semi field.

Also, most of them believe in a culture where shoulder-to-shoulder collaboration is key to development success and innovation, and having worked in the industry I have to agree. When the industry was forced remote kicking and screaming in 2020 "thanks" to Covid, morale and junior onboarding suffered a lot since the whole processes and culture was built on decades of shoulder-to-shoulder work where the only way to learn was, besides the necessary years in academia, to hang around seasoned graybeards and get your hands dirty with them vs self study with Googling the answers on stack overflow, so this process couldn't (management also didn't want to) suddenly uproot it and convert it to fully remote.

Basically, a material scientist, optics engineer or physicist would be at the core of the main money making products (lithography machines) and therefore be way more valued than SW devs which tend to be treated more as cost center in this industry (in general but can't speak for ASML), so if you like being at the core of the product and be treated like a rockstar, then I'd stay in the SW industry and avoid the semi industry all together (I worked 7 years as a dev in semi, before leaving it for good for the SW industry, but the graybeards I worked with in analog design with deep domain knowledge in RF were making bank and were pampered like rockstars, whereas SW and FW devs were treated like replaceable cogs that could be easily offshored without any losses).

Re: ASML reports fire at its Berlin factory

#207

Post by cromka »

Fnoord wrote: post #194
wumpus wrote: post #153

One of the fun parts of working in Silicon Valley is that there's... industrial stuff everywhere. At one office building, not only did we have the usual fire evacuation plan, but we had extra instructions because of one of our neighbors, who had storage tanks with the usual fab chemicals. Yow.

Yeah, that's not just in SV. Here in The Netherlands, you might have a neighbor who hosts illegal fireworks in their apartment/house. Some of that (e.g. 'cobra') is akin to having explosives. Which is illegal to have in your house, due to the safety concerns for other people.

Is this in any particular way specific to The Netherlands? Sounds like it could happen anywhere?

Re: ASML reports fire at its Berlin factory

#208

Post by krisoft »

hutzlibu wrote: post #197
baq wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a quote from Ignition! - a very very very good book about liquid rocket fuels. PDF is available online after a quick google. A must read for anyone on HN - imagine what it’s like to be a rocket fuel hacker.

"imagine what it’s like to be a rocket fuel hacker." I think there is a reason, there are not that many around. If you would apply the default computer safety mindset to rocket fuels ...

Absolutely. There is a reason that berms between buildings is one of the strong signals of a solid fuel rocket facility when one is analysing satellite imagery.

The mound of earth is there to redirect any potential explosion upwards hopefully protecting the rest of your facility if one building goes boom.

Re: ASML reports fire at its Berlin factory

#209

Post by probably_wrong »

leokennis wrote: post #165
keewee7 wrote: post #159

Berlin is surprisingly backward compared to the rest of Germany. I don't know why tech companies have established themselves in Berlin.

Out of just curiosity (I do not live in Germany, I have no stakes in this game): how is Berlin backward?

Not the person you are replying to and I don't think that "backwards" is the right way to describe Berlin.

Having said that: Berlin is a very "un-German" city in the sense that it seems unable to get things under control. At first they were broke ("poor but sexy", as the slogan went), then they where overwhelmed by tourists and aspiring artists, and now there's not a single free apartment anywhere. The bureaucracy is slow and everything is forever under construction. The BER airport exemplifies all of this at once.

Having said that, it's one of my favorite places in the world: there's a vibrant, multicultural art community, everything is more laid back, it has plenty of beautiful corners and parks, and you don't need a car at all.

It's a city with a special character, but I can also understand those who would rather live in a more predictable place.

Re: ASML reports fire at its Berlin factory

#210

Post by sudosysgen »

throwawaylinux wrote: post #201
sudosysgen wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope, before the Sino-Soviet split and shortly thereafter there was zero serious effort to build jet engines. They were producing Soviet designs under license and working on that until the mid 80s. China never, ever, ever had anywhere near the engineering resources of the Soviet Union. To suggest as much is insanity. They arrived to that level somewhere before 2010. China already has competitive engines. They can and…

> Nope, before the Sino-Soviet split and shortly thereafter there was zero serious effort to build jet engines. Nope, the WP-1A was built in 1958. Just because they were incapable of designing their own competitive jet engine does not mean they were not attempting to. > China never, ever, ever had anywhere near the engineering resources of the Soviet Union. To suggest as much is insanity. They arrived to that level s…

In 1958 the Chinese built the WP-5/PF-1 the WP-1A, which was a license built version of the Soviet VK-1 and descendants.

The first Chinese-designed jet engine was the WP-14, and the project started in the mid 80s.

China did not have enough engineers to rival the USSR until after the fall.

> That shows how much you know. It is a huge priority for them and it has been for a long time.

It really hasn't. Defence in general is not a big priority of the Chinese state. Even within defence, producing new airframes is a much bigger than domestic engines.

> Not the most advanced ones.

Incorrect. The most advanced Russian engine in mass production is the AL-31F series, which is sold to China. Further developments intended for production, the AL-41F, are not in mass production.

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