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Democrats would probably want to do years of environmental reviews. That's why you won't see anyone putting manufacturing in California anytime soon.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
FWIW, the problem wasn't a generalized grid management problem. It was a failure to properly winterize gas plants for rare freezing events. The Texas grid itself is in reasonable shape as far as I know.
https://www.ferc.gov/media/february-2021-cold-weather-outage...
Of course they said a bunch of things and made a bunch of recommendations the last time ERCOT fucked up, and they didn't listen to nearly any of them, so I would expect the same this time.
with Tesla, SpaceX, Samsung and other tech investing this heavy in Texas, when/will it surpass CA as a tech powerhouse of the future?
Let's be clear why this is happening though, and where the credit is due: Trump's push for on-shore manufacturing, Gov. Abbot, and the attractiveness of Texas for a plant and FDI. $17B and 2,000 jobs and, even more importantly, one less dependency put in China. Democrats would probably want to do years of environmental reviews. That's why you won't see anyone putting manufacturing in California anytime soon.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The blame for this is purely on the shoulders of business leaders coming out of MBA programs across the US. It seems the only thing those places are teaching is how to join a company, strip it to the bone, hype up the short-term 5% growth, and get millions of dollars in raises.
The blame is clearly on the shoulders of politicians and those who keep voting for them. Most of the political class are pushing globalization, and thus align tax incentives towards outsourcing. Imagine if the politicians in charge practiced what they preach and refused to buy or import goods that were produced by countries who don’t meet US labor law or emissions standards. The problem would practically solve itself…
Texas is the new choice for multinationals, they seem to be doing something right or is it that some states are a mess?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, it increases the security and continuity of our civilization when China invades Taiwan.
China has no reason to invade Taiwan, and plenty of reasons to avoid doing it. The whole thing is just another American wet dream.
Let's be clear why this is happening though, and where the credit is due: Trump's push for on-shore manufacturing, Gov. Abbot, and the attractiveness of Texas for a plant and FDI. $17B and 2,000 jobs and, even more importantly, one less dependency put in China. Democrats would probably want to do years of environmental reviews. That's why you won't see anyone putting manufacturing in California anytime soon.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The US did produce its own sufficient supply of rare earths and silicon for decades, they occur everywhere, mainstream semiconductors don't contain any rare earths, and I suggest you at least skim a Wikipedia article on a relevant topic before writing your next HN comment.
The US imports massive amounts of silicon (from countries like Russia no less). We do not have our own supply. And no, rare earths are not contained in semiconductors specifically, but I assumed the parent comment wants to onshore more production than solely semiconductors, and rare earths are needed for lots of essential electronics.
More broadly, it's difficult to find a rock where silicon isn't a significant component. It is difficult for me to imagine the level of ignorance that could lead someone to claim that an entire country lacked silicon resources. It could be remedied by reading the first paragraph of the introduction to the English Wikipedia article about silicon (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon).
It turns out to be true that rare earths are used for lots of essential electronics, though most components are devoid of them. Essential electronics are silicon semiconductors (silicon, aluminum, copper, boron, arsenic, phosphorus), metals for wires and traces (copper, tin, lead, silver, gold, zinc), FR4 (glass fiber and epoxy), optoelectronic semiconductors (indium, gallium, phosphorus, arsenic), high-speed semiconductors (indium, phosphorus, gallium, arsenic), inductor cores (steel, silicon, barium, manganese, nickel, zinc again, cobalt, strontium), quartz crystals, and capacitor dielectrics. Capacitor dielectrics include plastics, mica, electrolytic anodized coatings, tantalum or niobium pentoxide, and ceramics. Ceramics include the high-capacitance ferroelectrics (lead, zirconium, titanium, sometimes barium) and the high-stability NP0/C0G paraelectrics.
And this is where you finally got something right! It turns the NP0/C0G dielectrics do often contain rare earths: oxides of neodymium and samarium. There are non-rare-earth alternatives made from silica, manganese, titanium, barium, and zirconium (https://patents.google.com/patent/US5599757A/en) or titanium and magnesium (https://exxelia.com/uploads/PDF/ceramic-capacitor-non-magnet...), but the rare-earth compositions are widely adopted. Perhaps they have slightly higher permittivity (permitting smaller capacitors) or lower costs. I don't know.
Regardless, essential electronics can be made without rare earths with only minor compromises, and of course rare earths are everywhere; they could easily be mined in the US again.
I worked at Samsung Austin Semiconductor for ten years as a software engineer. AMA. I very much love the people I worked with at SAS. It was one of the best experiences of my life and I'm very happy to see them expand like this. Wayne at Louie Mueller's BBQ had better add a few more pits, they're about to get a lot busier!
How do you get into chipmaking, really? Is it a Physics degree, or is it a Computer Science degree with just lots of on-the-job training?
Graduate degrees in physics and EE focused on semiconductor physics and manufacturing are also useful. I've known a few post grad/doctoral folks from nuclear engineering and optics that have careers in the field.