Samsung plans $17B chip plant in Taylor, Texas • Hacker News Board

Re: Samsung plans $17B chip plant in Taylor, Texas

#411

Post by politician » Thu, Nov 25, 2021, 1:42 PM UTC

FooBarWidget wrote: post #383

politician wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, SMIC looks like one aspect of a global reorganization of semiconductor manufacturing. I’m not sure I buy your reasoning though. I don’t understand how effective blocking the use of US technology by SMIC will be given the propensity for IP theft, so I don’t see how it furthers the goal of preventing China from becoming self-sufficient. Nor would I really agree with the assumption that they are not already self-su…

US rethoric says that they are concerned about IP theft, unfair economic practices, etc. But if you look at the sanctions then you see that they target pretty much only R&D-heavy sectors. That should be telling. The semiconductor industry is extremely R&D heavy. You can't just steal your way into success. It is also heavily dependend on a global network of specialized suppliers and is one of the most complex supply c…

There’s a difference between self-sufficiency and state of the art. China can be self-sufficient without having cutting edge technology.

For most military applications, 28nm process is comfortably sufficient - USAF 5th generation aircraft were designed and flying before 28nm.

I’m not convinced that there is any real need right now for <14nm process besides striving for market share. Market share which is itself reorganizing around new ISAs. EUV is a (amazingly clever) Rube-Goldberg machine.

Re: Samsung plans $17B chip plant in Taylor, Texas

#412

Post by sudosysgen » Thu, Nov 25, 2021, 2:35 PM UTC

PeterisP wrote: post #329

petersellers wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> in that case USA will ensure that they do not get taken over by a geopolitical adversary in the coming decade How will the USA ensure that?

If the push comes to shove, a US carrier group parked in Taiwan's territorial waters makes any sea invasion impossible if it's willing to shoot at Chinese ships; you can't ship and land a million soldiers across a hostile sea, and China can't (at the moment) win the sea battle. It's debatable to what extent USA is willing to fight for that, but if it chooses to do so, then now and at least until 2030 USA has enough m…

If a carrier is willing to shoot at Chinese ships and close enough to reliably do so, then the Chinese are willing to shoot at it and are close enough to reliably do so.

Chinese antiship weapons are significantly better than the US. Without immediately inducing Kessler syndrome and still being very lucky, I don't see how a US carrier is going to survive two dozen DF-21 missiles simultaneously, a couple hundred supersonic cruise missiles, and whatever submarines or UUVs the Chinese have got lurking there.

The US fleets most advanced weapon, SM-6, still can't reliably intercept MRBMs or SRBMs(https://www.defensedaily.com/mda-conducts-sm-6-missile-raid-..., https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/us-fails-...) and has never intercepted a single IRBM. I struggle to see how it can possibly defend against dozens of IRBMs with advanced countermeasures that aren't on a predefined trajectory if it can't even hit a single one with no countermeasures. And by the way, they're building over 100 missiles a year. They could realistically have 1000 antiship IRBMs in a few year - more antiship IRBMs alone than the combined amount of interceptors of all carriers the US could hope to deploy within 8000km of Taiwan.

Right now the best the US can do is try to jam the missiles and deploy smoke, and hope they miss, which they probably won't.

A US carrier group in Taiwan's territorial waters is 100% getting absolutely wiped. The US will never risk getting their carriers that close to Chinese weapons, they'll stay thousands of kilometers away and hope for the best.

The US's best hope is to keep its assets far away from the theater and cooperate with Taiwan to try to whittle away the Chinese fleet and prevent them from setting up a beachhead, and hope the Chinese air defences, low-frequency radars, and signals intelligence platforms can't stop the counterattack.

The Chinese also won't need a million soldiers. They just need to get a few dozen thousand on the shores with air superiority and disable the Taiwanese military then take as much time as they want pacifying the island.

Re: Samsung plans $17B chip plant in Taylor, Texas

#413

Post by sudosysgen » Thu, Nov 25, 2021, 2:38 PM UTC

pertymcpert wrote: post #405

m0zg wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To those downvoting, if your attention span is long enough for a long read, here's an explanation of why the United States will 100% guaranteed lose if it chooses to engage: https://scottlocklin.wordpress.com/2021/11/03/america-agains...

I read that. Doesn't at all explain why the US would be guaranteed to lose in a naval conflict in the Taiwan strait.

The US has no hope to even possibly defend surface naval assets in the Taiwan strait or its periphery. A carrier strike group literally doesn't have as many interceptors as the Chinese could fire missiles at them from that distance.

The US will have to leave the Taiwan strait waters to China and attempt to strike as many Chinese boats there as they can from a distance in the air.

Re: Samsung plans $17B chip plant in Taylor, Texas

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Post by BeFlatXIII » Thu, Nov 25, 2021, 4:43 PM UTC

scottcodie wrote: post #354

eigenman wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...but it will almost certainly hurt the taxpayers as a whole.

Not necessarily. Let's review our options: regulate companies to account for every disaster scenario, let the government plan and provide assistance during disaster scenarios, or do nothing and let people suffer and let companies go bankrupt. Passing costs to the taxpayers isn't the worst option.

Letting companies go bankrupt is a good thing. Letting people suffer without power is not.

Re: Samsung plans $17B chip plant in Taylor, Texas

#415

Post by ddingus » Thu, Nov 25, 2021, 4:43 PM UTC

shortstuffsushi wrote: post #370

ddingus wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A conversation may yield better too. If they know they are waking a day sleeper, for example. I know I would attempt one. Try nice and some charm and see what comes of it. May end up popular with neighbors.

He's since moved, I'm not sure if he had spoken to them, but I think you're right that it would have made him a hero of the area. This was a pretty densely residential area of Waukesha, WI - the fire department near the airport.

Well, maybe a passerby benefits from this exchange.

Re: Samsung plans $17B chip plant in Taylor, Texas

#416

Post by BeFlatXIII » Thu, Nov 25, 2021, 4:44 PM UTC

jkestner wrote: post #227

bell-cot wrote: post #101

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.

The going deal is, if there’s a power failure, we’ll let you recoup your costs from the taxpayers even as you profiteer. The governor can be bought for a very affordable $1 million. Certainly the incentives are aligned to solve this problem! https://www.texasobserver.org/after-kelcy-warrens-energy-tra...

If the costs do get passed to the taxpayer, let's hope the populace elects representatives who openly rip up the old contract and say "we're not paying". Flex the fickle power of democracy on the investors.

Re: Samsung plans $17B chip plant in Taylor, Texas

#417

Post by micromacrofoot » Thu, Nov 25, 2021, 4:56 PM UTC

mrep wrote: post #301

micromacrofoot wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're really comparing an abortion ban to delayed algebra? Also, that was just a single example. If you want to stick to education, Texas lawmakers have also been trying to push a book ban for public schools just this past month. There's also a bill targeting the concept of critical race theory that would ban curriculum where “an individual should feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological d…

You're really comparing a state level abortion ban to delayed algebra? Abortion at the state level is not something I would even consider in my list of priorities when choosing where to live when you can just drive to another state for a once in a lifetime event if you ever actually needed one. Public school systems are a whole other level though as your kids will deal with that daily.

even if it doesn’t impact you directly it highlights a general disregard for bodily autonomy

Re: Samsung plans $17B chip plant in Taylor, Texas

#418

Post by sixothree » Thu, Nov 25, 2021, 6:07 PM UTC

quickthrowman wrote: post #62

sixothree wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> with executives pardoned for crimes in the name of ensuring national economic growth. Is that really so different from how things work here?

Nope, it works like that here too. See Elon Musk and the SEC kid gloves treatment for an example of a similar situation in the US.

I feel like it makes it worse that it's regulatory decision and not a court decision. At least we know the reason for it in Korea.

Re: Samsung plans $17B chip plant in Taylor, Texas

#419

Post by comboy » Thu, Nov 25, 2021, 7:44 PM UTC

josaka wrote: post #69

After the TX grid failure last winter, it's probably not a coincidence that Samsung's new facility will be near ERCOT's operation center in Taylor, which manages the TX grid, and will likely be the last load to shed when the grid's stressed. Used to work in the Austin fab, and the amount of money lost per minute in a power failure is mind boggling. The tax breaks Taylor offered ($314m) are not that different from wha…

Why not use generators like most data centers in case of power failure? Is energy usage that much higher?

Re: Samsung plans $17B chip plant in Taylor, Texas

#420

Post by tomatofarmer » Thu, Nov 25, 2021, 8:51 PM UTC

FooBarWidget wrote: post #402

tomatofarmer wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you feel the same way about Hong Kong?

Seeing that Hong Kong was literally an NED-sponsored [1] color revolution, and that every country in the world had a national security law except for Hong Kong until last year, I'd say that the Hong Kong situation is not at all a case study for whether China would invade Taiwan. Since 2019 I've watched for a year how the western public and the protesters yelled that "it's going to be a Tiananmen 2.0" and "the tanks w…

With many violent protestors being confirmed CCP agents, substantial amounts of social media manipulation, dismantling of the free press (eg, Apple Daily), imprisonment of journalists - this topic is so extremely muddied that none of your sources are going to convince anyone who is paying attention.