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Ukraine is a major producer of neon gas, critical for lasers used in chipmaking

reuters.com

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Re: Ukraine is a major producer of neon gas, critical for lasers used in chipmaking

#51

Post by bingohbangoh »

roughly wrote: post #18
atlantas wrote: post #10

90%! Did we really let ourselves become so reliant on Ukraine and Taiwan for computer chips? Taiwan being the next country most under threat. In fact, Reuters just reported that "Taiwan warns Chinese aircraft in its air defence zone" https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/taiwan-reports-ni...

But we saved some money by shuttering all our factories and outsourcing everything, so, who's to say what the right answer was. (/s)

And when the orange man came and said we should bring it back, I laughed at home and call him an idiot!

Re: Ukraine is a major producer of neon gas, critical for lasers used in chipmaking

#52

Post by jbay808 »

tgflynn wrote: post #40

Can someone explain why neon is critical for "lasers used in chip manufacturing" ? I don't think they'd be using He-Ne lasers, and if they are I would think those could be replaced fairly easily with solid-state lasers.

There could very well be HeNe lasers used as an interferometric length standard in lithography equipment. There are some solid-state lasers that could substitute for that role, such as NPRO lasers, but they're much more expensive and not widely produced.

Re: Ukraine is a major producer of neon gas, critical for lasers used in chipmaking

#53

Post by netizen-936824 »

stingraycharles wrote: post #42
mym1990 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"We saved some money" is how economics works in price competitive markets. This is a result of many players doing what keeps each one competitive, but without collaborating on what the large scale effects are down the road.

And most importantly, economics assumes that the market is perfect, which it most certainly is not in practice. What we didn’t do enough is take the geopolitical landscape into this equation (or a potential pandemic, for that matter), which I hope changes after recent developments. I blame the governments mostly for this, I completely understand the businesses needing to do what’s best for business.

Business are still run by people. Nobody was forced to see someone else doing something shitty and then say "well I just need to be a bigger asshole than that guy! Must be okay 'cause it's not illegal"

People have far too simplistic models of how things work, this is the consequence of a lack of understanding and shortsightedness

Re: Ukraine is a major producer of neon gas, critical for lasers used in chipmaking

#54

Post by egwor »

actuator wrote: post #25
livinglist wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

as a Chinese raised in China myself, this happens pretty regularly since years ago. I don’t think Winnie the Pooh has big balls to attack Taiwan in recent future. China has too much to lose right now.

But China is too much coupled with the western economy to even sanction effectively. I think CCP must be watching this to see the cost and benefits Russia gets for invading Ukraine, which would definitely influence their decision even more than Afghanistan would have. If the cost for Russia is too low, then they wouldn't be risking much.

Russia’s economy is interesting. Russian debt is 14%. It isn’t like the UK which requires external input. Their availability cash and balance sheet is quite vast. This limits the immediate impact of sanctions?

Re: Ukraine is a major producer of neon gas, critical for lasers used in chipmaking

#55

Post by bpodgursky »

chongli wrote: post #43
CountSessine wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they'll be watching what happens in Ukraine very carefully. Then they'll be calibrating their predictions about what would happen if they invaded Taiwan with Russia's experience in Ukraine.

I doubt the TSMC fabs would survive a PLA invasion of Taiwan. If nothing else, the CIA would probably blow them up during the attack.

That's why China is trying to build out domestic chipmaking tech.

They're fine burning the rest of the world's supply chain down as long as it leaves them a monopoly.

Re: Ukraine is a major producer of neon gas, critical for lasers used in chipmaking

#56

Post by voidfunc »

bingohbangoh wrote: post #51
roughly wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But we saved some money by shuttering all our factories and outsourcing everything, so, who's to say what the right answer was. (/s)

And when the orange man came and said we should bring it back, I laughed at home and call him an idiot!

A broken clock is still right twice a day.

Re: Ukraine is a major producer of neon gas, critical for lasers used in chipmaking

#57

Post by roughly »

stingraycharles wrote: post #42
mym1990 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"We saved some money" is how economics works in price competitive markets. This is a result of many players doing what keeps each one competitive, but without collaborating on what the large scale effects are down the road.

And most importantly, economics assumes that the market is perfect, which it most certainly is not in practice. What we didn’t do enough is take the geopolitical landscape into this equation (or a potential pandemic, for that matter), which I hope changes after recent developments. I blame the governments mostly for this, I completely understand the businesses needing to do what’s best for business.

> I blame the governments mostly for this, I completely understand the businesses needing to do what’s best for business.

How do you blame government for businesses running around with planning models that miss wars and pandemics, the two most common causes of ruin and disruption for the entire duration of human history?

Re: Ukraine is a major producer of neon gas, critical for lasers used in chipmaking

#58

Post by philipkglass »

atlantas wrote: post #10

90%! Did we really let ourselves become so reliant on Ukraine and Taiwan for computer chips? Taiwan being the next country most under threat. In fact, Reuters just reported that "Taiwan warns Chinese aircraft in its air defence zone" https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/taiwan-reports-ni...

Neon is used in excimer lasers that generate ultraviolet light. These lasers are used in photolithography and for annealing amorphous silicon to polycrystalline silicon in flat panel display manufacturing. Laser manufacturers and users already faced a Ukrainian neon crisis during the last round of fighting and made changes to reduce consumption of fresh neon:

https://www.photonicsonline.com/doc/how-one-light-source-man...

https://www.gigaphoton.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/2017_E...

I expect that neon price spikes this time are going to impact laser users less than they initially did back in 2015 since lasers now require less fresh neon.

Re: Ukraine is a major producer of neon gas, critical for lasers used in chipmaking

#59

Post by car_analogy »

mym1990 wrote: post #37
roughly wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But we saved some money by shuttering all our factories and outsourcing everything, so, who's to say what the right answer was. (/s)

"We saved some money" is how economics works in price competitive markets. This is a result of many players doing what keeps each one competitive, but without collaborating on what the large scale effects are down the road.

Until running into an agent that does exhibit collaboration on large-scale, long-term effects, that uses these economic principles against countries foolish enough to hold on to them.
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