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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

#221

Post by suction »

steffen84 wrote: post #206
nicbou wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This applies to all public pension systems, not only the German one.

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

#222

Post by LeanderK »

corty wrote: post #54
Bigpet wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Labor laws would still be sort of OK for a high-tech factory like TSMC. But I think environmental policy would be really hostile to a large fab. Politics seems really fickle about it too. For "old school" industries like coal they try to bend over backwards to make exceptions, but when it comes to new players especially local politics will have little reservations to tanking your multi million dollar projects. This c…

Problem with new players imho is the high level of corruption in certain parts of government and industry. While you cannot usually bribe a policeman in Germany, construction, permitting and industry subsidies and politics are heavily corrupt. Old-school industries are propped up by an old-boys-network and revolving doors between political parties, unions, administration and industry. Many politicians who did well by…

I think Tesla is just in such trouble because they were building their factory without having all permits. They were allowed to do that, but had to get all the permits in the end. As I understood it Tesla then build stuff that are not usually allowed, I suspect Tesla was trying to establish facts and thereby trying circumvent regulation.

I don't really see the german government here at fault. They were eager to get the factory up and running and were working with Tesla to get it built quickly. If Tesla wants to build first and get the permits later, it also has to retroactively improve things when they were not up to code. You can't just get permits because you've built something.

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

#223

Post by suction »

jcfrei wrote: post #188
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.

A well-working system? Germany only has an income tax but no wealth tax, unsurprisingly there's a huge inequality in wealth. If you earn your living in Germany through work you are basically a sucker: You have to hand on average 38.9% to the state. Taxation on capital gains, interest and dividends is 25%. This difference is compounding every year so the net effect over a lifetime is huge.

By well-working system I mean there are still enough checks and balances in place to make the rise of a figure like Trump or Putin very unlikely. And this of course is tied to economic well-being.

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

#224

Post by LeanderK »

Bigpet wrote: post #35
cpach wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? From my POV Germany seems good at manufacturing. E.g. Siemens. And cars.

Labor laws would still be sort of OK for a high-tech factory like TSMC. But I think environmental policy would be really hostile to a large fab. Politics seems really fickle about it too. For "old school" industries like coal they try to bend over backwards to make exceptions, but when it comes to new players especially local politics will have little reservations to tanking your multi million dollar projects. This c…

Bosch recently built a fab in Dresden (afaik), so it has to be possible.

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

#225

Post by throw0101a »

bschne wrote: post #41
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... >

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…

> Are there any good background resources on how some of these things are done?

For a cultural history of precision see The Perfectionists: How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World by Simon Winchester:

* https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35068671-the-perfectioni...

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvOEcyYsiHc

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

#226

Post by benhurmarcel »

GrigoriyMikh wrote: post #195
bluGill wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if you care about salaries, German engineers are cheap. If you are looking for the best engineers they are as cheap as India (India has a lot more bad engineers for cheap, but they have plenty of good ones that demand and get a good salary). The real downside of Germany is lead Engineer is a non-union position so you end up with the majority of your engineers refusing to lead the project (despite the higher sala…

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…

That's funny because a lot of experienced engineers move to Germany from France, Spain, Italy, the UK, etc to get better salaries.

Engineering salaries in Germany are high compared to most of western Europe.

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

#228

Post by suction »

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…

Yet how many people, even well-educated ones, have this balanced view on salaries? Most people see the bottom line on their pay statements. They "conveniently" forget that they still have to pay for health insurance, pension funds, etc.

A big figure on the pay slip is a status symbol. If Germany wants to attract foreign high-profile human capital like the US does, they should create a similar system: Pay them their full salary without deductions, and then charge them the mandatory cost instead of their employers. It could work wonders.

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

#229

Post by sdiepend »

artemonster wrote: post #63
hans1729 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany is positioned excellently for chip production, why would you consider that a bad investment?

its not. you have to have _TEST HOUSES_ nearby. and this would mean, like for most of germany semiconductor output, that these wafers are flown to china for testing & assembly.

Seems strange they have to do that when there is: https://www.imec-int.com/en/applications/advanced-semiconduc...

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

#230

Post by _ph_ »

Akronymus wrote: post #150
suction wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keep in mind that for a high-profile engineer or lead who expects to make 400k at least per year, the company would actually have to pay him 800k to make that much net. Labor cost in Germany is sky high. That times a thousand is not insignificant.

And that 800 is what you see on your paycheck. The company pays around double that in total.

No, there are only very little payments beyond the pay check. The employee does of course only get payed out a large part of the pay check, the rest goes to taxes and social insurances.
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