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EU countries team up for semiconductor push

reuters.com

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Re: EU countries team up for semiconductor push

#321

Post by WanderPanda »

Normille wrote: post #261
arnaudsm wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It will end up in the pockets of friends and families of politicians that will be in "the management". 100% agree. Considering the incredible education system and engineers we have, the 2 only things restraining Europe from reaching Silicon Valley level are corrupt politicians and risk-adverse VCs.

>and risk-adverse VCs. I think this is the big one. I don't know exactly how realistic this is. But from this side of the pond [Europe], it seems like, in the US there are VCs willing to throw millions [billions sometimes] at companies which are little more than a couple of guys with a silly idea, which would get you laughed out of your bank manager's office over here, if you went in asking to borrow a few hundred eu…

I don‘t subscribe to this at all. If there was such a huge opportunity in investing in European startups VCs would take it. Its not like they are nationalistic, they would equalise the arbitrage opportunities in no time

Re: EU countries team up for semiconductor push

#323

Post by guai888 »

MangoCoffee wrote: post #295
rossdavidh wrote: post #254

So, as someone who used to be an engineer in semiconductor manufacturing facilities, this reminds me a lot of Sematech. That was a joint venture between American companies in the 90's, when there was a concern that we were falling behind Japan. I'm sure there will be people who try to claim otherwise, but my view from inside AMD (at that time still doing its own manufacturing) was that nothing much ever came out of S…

>If, at the time of the founding of TSMC, you had tried to get a consortium of companies, much less nations, to agree on the idea of a semiconductor foundry, you would not have been able to get agreement to do it. Consortiums can help to pool resources when everyone knows what needs doing TSMC or its ecosystem is already like a consortium. this semiwiki article point that out. https://semiwiki.com/semiconductor-manuf…

When TSMC was founded, they were not in foundry as services business. UMC actually invented it and TSMC joined the game later. Some people said UMC made the wrong decision to invest in China too early. That effort took too much of UMC's resource. TSMC focused their resource in Taiwan and was able to move forward faster in technology when compare to UMC. When UMC made the move to China, Taiwan government were not happy, so I believe government direct resource to TSMC in retaliation to ensure TSMC has the edge. it is no wonder TSMC won the technology race.

Re: EU countries team up for semiconductor push

#325

Post by Apocryphon »

jariel wrote: post #34
1cvmask wrote: post #2

Arguably the most technically advanced EU country Sweden always avoids Franco-German initiatives and the leader in chip technology in Europe is the brexiting UK with the globally dominant ARM platform (soon to be acquired by NVIDIA from Softbank).

I don't see Sweden leading in tech so much as being 'tech progressive'. Sweden is ahead in some things related to tech, particularly their own version of startups. Spotify remember, is related to the fact that Sweden is a pop-music powerhouse - there is definitely industry synergy there. They are generally well organized for a small country, they make Jet Fighters (quite a feat) which is also related to the fact they…

Reminds me of Japan in some ways.

Re: EU countries team up for semiconductor push

#326

Post by _visgean »

Zdup wrote: post #12

How will they be keeping talent? I heard workers in IT are paid low compared to other jobs and especially compared to similar jobs in North America, what stops them. from just going to US/Canada?

There is a lot of anecdote based arguments here but I think its better to look at different indices trying to capture these kind of trends:

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Happiness_Report

- http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/topics/life-satisfaction/

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where-to-be-born_Index

- https://www.numbeo.com/quality-of-life/rankings_by_country.j...

While none of these rankings are perfect they show clear trend that some of the European countries are doing better than US.

Also you should keep in mind that money is not everything. (Which is why we have the above stats anyway). People have friends and family and a way of life that they might not be willing to abandon. As other have mentioned before migration to US is non-trivial and requires quite and effort. In contrast to that you can move much easier within EU. Which is what is happening anyway - if you want high salary you go to Switzerland / London / Paris or any other high income area and you can do so without being treated as an immigrant.

Re: EU countries team up for semiconductor push

#327

Post by xadhominemx »

formerly_proven wrote: post #298
xadhominemx wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The light source is by a very wide margin the most difficult and critical component of an EUV tool. The US still dominates wafer fab equipment - Cymer plus Applied Materials, Lam, and KLA. The only major non-US supplier is Tokyo Electron who is also quite strong. ASM International is a good but niche European supplier.

ASML doesn't seem like a niche supplier considering it generates more revenue than all but one of the major suppliers you list. Applied Materials - 17bn ASML - 11bn Tokyo Electron - 10.8 bn Lam - 9.5 bn KLA Corp - 4 bn Cymer (2012, before acqusition) - 600m

ASMI aka ASM International - it’s now a separate company from ASML (formerly ASM Lithography)

Re: EU countries team up for semiconductor push

#329

Post by Apocryphon »

LunaSea wrote: post #174
JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There will be quite a few people that stop them.

Like they did for Hong Kong?

A Chinese takeover of Taiwan would be war between two advanced industrialized economies that is unprecedented in modern times since perhaps the end of WWII. It's not comparable to the PRC government reaffirming their dominance over territory they already had control over. At the very least, China would be hit with many sanctions in the event of such a conflict.

Re: EU countries team up for semiconductor push

#330

Post by mrtksn »

rossdavidh wrote: post #254

So, as someone who used to be an engineer in semiconductor manufacturing facilities, this reminds me a lot of Sematech. That was a joint venture between American companies in the 90's, when there was a concern that we were falling behind Japan. I'm sure there will be people who try to claim otherwise, but my view from inside AMD (at that time still doing its own manufacturing) was that nothing much ever came out of S…

Europe has some successful international projects like CERN or Airbus. Besides, what are the other options?

Europe is in this strange place where collectively account for enormous wealth and power but individually no country is a match to the big boys like USA/China when simultaneously are super unoptimised due to cultural/lingual differences.

The younger Europeans I met were all very eager to learn English, so who knows, maybe as the UK is out of the EU the English language can become the lingua franca with less resistance as it is no ones language(Well, there are the Irish but it's a small country).

At the end of the day, those large Eurpoean projects bring a lot of good. Be it political or simply keeping some talent in Europe. I am also hopeful for some competition from the UK :) Since the collapse of the USSR, finally there's a competition.

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