A big hurdle to fixing the chip shortage: substrates • Hacker News Board

Re: A big hurdle to fixing the chip shortage: substrates

#51

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 9:15 PM UTC

elefanten wrote: post #36

usui wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you might have missed that I already stated that it's an irrational thing to complain about because units in nature are arbitrary, but given that no one uses these units for the topic at hand, why use them at all? Just for relatability? > It may as well be in hectares or "multiples of some lake somewhere", it's a massive number. We're saying the same thing but arguing for the opposite. Like I said, no one in…

Yes, in short it's for relatability. You're talking about a general circulation newspaper -- and one of the very biggest at that. At the end of the day, their customer is the general American news consumer, and what they read has to make sense to them . A technical or industry-aware American probably won't go to WSJ first for their technical / industry news.

[deleted]

Re: A big hurdle to fixing the chip shortage: substrates

#52

Post by contingencies » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 9:15 PM UTC

stagger87 wrote: post #7

cronix wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's say that all Banana growers were shut down for 8 months and during that time all existing supply was bought up that were sitting on store shelves. After they were allowed to start growing again, how long until you see a Banana in your local store? You better be there when they arrive, because everyone else who has been wanting Bananas is waiting too. On top of that, can the Banana grower even get all of the ite…

Don't forget people panic buying extra bananas so they have inventory in case banana production shuts down again.

This is now the main problem.

Re: A big hurdle to fixing the chip shortage: substrates

#53

Post by usui » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 9:17 PM UTC

cptskippy wrote: post #47

usui wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you might have missed that I already stated that it's an irrational thing to complain about because units in nature are arbitrary, but given that no one uses these units for the topic at hand, why use them at all? Just for relatability? > It may as well be in hectares or "multiples of some lake somewhere", it's a massive number. We're saying the same thing but arguing for the opposite. Like I said, no one in…

> I'm not trying to make fun of Americans, I'm trying to understand what the extra efort is worth for? Quit being dishonest. You're not trying to understand because it's really fucking easy to understand. If you really truly want an answer, it's relatablity. If you ask the vast majority of Americans how many centimeters are in a foot, you'll get blank stares. If you ask them how long 30 centimeters are you'll get bla…

> Quit being dishonest. You're not trying to understand because it's really fucking easy to understand.

Again, being very disingenuous. I'm sorry that it's so offensive to you that I was reading the article in Japanese and found it very strange that imperial units were leaking across not only domain topics (semiconductors), but language itself. If you ask me, it's more obtrusive this way than the other way around. I thought it wouldn't be too much of an ask to use the original units that the entire industry uses

This touts a certain kind of agenda that Americans should be pandered to, and I think your aggressive tone reflects that.

I hope you're aware that a very well-supported Japanese edition of The Wall Street Journal exists, and its target audience is Japanese readers. It usually handles localization extremely well. I was reading the non-English article and saw it was using imperial units both in the text and graphs and I had to do a double take. This is the entire reason why I found it interesting.

https://jp.wsj.com/articles/the-chip-shortage-has-made-a-sta...

As previously mentioned, the scale is massively big. Does the WSJ think its viewers will perceive 17,187,062 square meters as small?

Re: A big hurdle to fixing the chip shortage: substrates

#54

Post by andrewxdiamond » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 9:23 PM UTC

lovich wrote: post #50

azemetre wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It costs over $5 billion dollars to build a single fab. I can only assume the more complicated chips costs 3-4 times more. It also takes over three years to build the plant itself. We aren't even talking about the people you'd even need to employ, design, and run the place (highly specialized labor). This is such a huge burdensome cost. It's not even a guarantee that that such an investment would even make sense once…

In the article it says they are committing to buying the entire production lines output. Isn't that just committing to spending as much money as building the factories + the profit of the vendor, but with no control over the actual production ?

It’s very unlikely that the deal says “we will buy everything you sell us no matter what.” It’s probably a typical purchasing agreement with tolerances and QA, just paid in advance.

Thus there is still a lot of risk being taken on by the fabs. The production could go sour, geopolitics could change, resources might be unavailable, etc.

The purchasing companies are externalizing all of this risk by purchasing the products instead of the company.

Re: A big hurdle to fixing the chip shortage: substrates

#55

Post by contingencies » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 9:27 PM UTC

engineer_22 wrote: post #38

philg_jr wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The developer of the O.MG cable has a good Twitter thread describing the issues. https://twitter.com/_mg_/status/1388321639524229120?s=21

Unrolled thread: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1388321639524229120.html

This is a pretty good summary. Note on interpretation: it links to people expressing surprise about 12 months after the shit had hit the fan.

IMHO a strong mitigation strategy includes (1) have control of your designs (be responsive to your business environment) (2) minimize vendor-specific components (replace sexy ICs with stock-components where possible) (3) keep tested alternatives on the books for major components (redundant supply chain) (4) cache parts where necessary

Re: A big hurdle to fixing the chip shortage: substrates

#56

Post by marcosdumay » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 9:37 PM UTC

genewitch wrote: post #27

usui wrote: post #24

Lol every time I see the word "feet" I'm reminded that this article isn't targeted to anyone but Americans, even when talking about manufacturing lines in Asia. My East Asian bias is showing but in all my experience I absolutely have never had to use those units in a serious professional context. Any time I see a technically-sounding article use units like "feet" and "football fields" I subconsciously find it very di…

The difference between 185 million ft^2 and whatever you pick doesn't matter. It may as well be in hectares or "multiples of some lake somewhere", it's a massive number. You have, and are probably using right now, a voice controlled computer that can convert anything to anything else, by just asking. Is it really worth typing this every time an American site uses American language? We all get it, Americans with their…

Funny, because it's about 1700Ha, what is a perfectly relatable number, or, if you like your numbers small, 1.7km^2. That's around the size of a district.

Re: A big hurdle to fixing the chip shortage: substrates

#57

Post by cptskippy » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 9:41 PM UTC

usui wrote: post #53

cptskippy wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm not trying to make fun of Americans, I'm trying to understand what the extra efort is worth for? Quit being dishonest. You're not trying to understand because it's really fucking easy to understand. If you really truly want an answer, it's relatablity. If you ask the vast majority of Americans how many centimeters are in a foot, you'll get blank stares. If you ask them how long 30 centimeters are you'll get bla…

> Quit being dishonest. You're not trying to understand because it's really fucking easy to understand. Again, being very disingenuous. I'm sorry that it's so offensive to you that I was reading the article in Japanese and found it very strange that imperial units were leaking across not only domain topics (semiconductors), but language itself. If you ask me, it's more obtrusive this way than the other way around. I…

> I'm sorry that it's so offensive to you

Let's clarify. You're sorry that I find your insults offensive?

> Lol every time I see the word "feet" I'm reminded that this article isn't targeted to anyone but Americans

> I absolutely have never had to use those units in a serious professional context.

> Any time I see a technically-sounding article use units like "feet" and "football fields" I subconsciously find it very difficult to take anything afterward seriously.

You basically said "the American units of measure are unprofessional and I can't take anyone seriously when they use them" and you wonder why that might be offensive?

You're reading an American newspaper about things topical to Americans. Are you reading it for laughs then? I don't understand.

It's ok to not like the Imperial system, most Americans hate it too. And we're stuck with it until momentum can built to change that fact. But what you're exhibiting is elitism and snobbery.

Re: A big hurdle to fixing the chip shortage: substrates

#58

Post by trangus_1985 » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 9:50 PM UTC

cptskippy wrote: post #35

usui wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you might have missed that I already stated that it's an irrational thing to complain about because units in nature are arbitrary, but given that no one uses these units for the topic at hand, why use them at all? Just for relatability? > It may as well be in hectares or "multiples of some lake somewhere", it's a massive number. We're saying the same thing but arguing for the opposite. Like I said, no one in…

> why use them at all? Just for relatability? Yes. Was that hard? The WSJ didn't write this article for you, it isn't an industry rag. This is like complaining that their scientific articles try to dumb it down for a layman's depth. A football field or soccer field is a perfectly reasonable unit of measure when you're simply trying to convey "a lot" to someone.

I don't particularly agree with the parent comment, but you are being oddly aggressive over something that is a real problem - communicating things is hard and it's a useful topic to consider in a world that increasingly runs on text-based communication.

Re: A big hurdle to fixing the chip shortage: substrates

#59

Post by usui » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 9:56 PM UTC

cptskippy wrote: post #57

usui wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Quit being dishonest. You're not trying to understand because it's really fucking easy to understand. Again, being very disingenuous. I'm sorry that it's so offensive to you that I was reading the article in Japanese and found it very strange that imperial units were leaking across not only domain topics (semiconductors), but language itself. If you ask me, it's more obtrusive this way than the other way around. I…

> I'm sorry that it's so offensive to you Let's clarify. You're sorry that I find your insults offensive? > Lol every time I see the word "feet" I'm reminded that this article isn't targeted to anyone but Americans > I absolutely have never had to use those units in a serious professional context. > Any time I see a technically-sounding article use units like "feet" and "football fields" I subconsciously find it very…

> Let's clarify. You're sorry that I find your insults offensive?

> You basically said "the American units of measure are unprofessional and I can't take anyone seriously when they use them" and you wonder why that might be offensive?

> Are you reading it for laughs then? I don't understand.

I tried to make it clear that I was describing my own experiences and biases, and I admitted that the units (when taken alone, by themselves) are arbitrary, and so it's irrational to harbor this subconscious, yet you still seem fully set on being offended rather than taking my descriptions at face value.

I think in the future your conversations could go better if you put less effort into deconstructing people's ulterior motives.

> It's ok to not like the Imperial system, most Americans hate it too. And we're stuck with it until momentum can built to change that fact. But what you're exhibiting is elitism and snobbery.

Sure, sounds good.

Re: A big hurdle to fixing the chip shortage: substrates

#60

Post by q-big » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 9:57 PM UTC

cptskippy wrote: post #47

usui wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you might have missed that I already stated that it's an irrational thing to complain about because units in nature are arbitrary, but given that no one uses these units for the topic at hand, why use them at all? Just for relatability? > It may as well be in hectares or "multiples of some lake somewhere", it's a massive number. We're saying the same thing but arguing for the opposite. Like I said, no one in…

> I'm not trying to make fun of Americans, I'm trying to understand what the extra efort is worth for? Quit being dishonest. You're not trying to understand because it's really fucking easy to understand. If you really truly want an answer, it's relatablity. If you ask the vast majority of Americans how many centimeters are in a foot, you'll get blank stares. If you ask them how long 30 centimeters are you'll get bla…

> If you really truly want an answer, it's relatablity.

> If you ask the vast majority of Americans how many centimeters are in a foot, you'll get blank stares. If you ask them how long 30 centimeters are you'll get blank stares. If you ask them how long a foot is they'll hold up their hands about a foot apart.

> Americans use imperial units because it's what they used daily, what they're familiar with, and what they know. It's really not that hard to understand.

xkcd has a comic to make metric units more relatable: https://xkcd.com/526/