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Chip shortage: Toyota to cut global production by 40%

bbc.com

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Re: Chip shortage: Toyota to cut global production by 40%

#621

Post by blueprint »

blueblisters wrote: post #513
jvanderbot wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much would it cost to set up TSMC inside US borders? One president cycle? 4 F-35s? One SLS? A nuclear submarine? According to this page, sorting by cost, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_semiconductor_fabricat... the most expensive fab is 33 Giga$. TSMC is 17G$. pennies on the dollar in our 1-3Trillion infrastructure bill. Make america fab again. EDIT: it appears this is in the 2T infrastructure bill. https:…

Building it is one thing. Making it operational without importing talent and running it profitably is another. Taiwan has some of the best fab engineers who work at US minimum wage salaries. Of course you can pull them away with higher pay like China is doing, but that means profitability will likely go for a toss.

dont worry - we print USD locally

Re: Chip shortage: Toyota to cut global production by 40%

#622

Post by bumby »

Causality1 wrote: post #582
bumby wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate on your point? While I agree there are definitively some downsides to ag subsidies, I think the real question is if the interventionist downsides are worse than the non-subsidized downsides. As bad as they are, I'm not sure that incentivizing unhealthy food is actual worse than famine.

Cratering agricultural prices so margins are so thin small farmers are driven out of business in favor of huge conglomerates, mind-boggling levels of food wastage on the order of billions of pounds sitting in warehouses until they rot. https://reason.com/2019/03/02/thanks-to-decades-of-governmen...

I agree, those are all blowback of subsidies. But they are also side effects of food abundance. The downsides of food shortage seems much worse.

Maybe there’s an argument that we’ve moved passed the era of food scarcity when those policies were enacted and they should be modified. But I think a blanket claim that food subsidies are an inherent bad policy misses their point.

Re: Chip shortage: Toyota to cut global production by 40%

#623

Post by monocularvision »

monocasa wrote: post #476
peytn wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the government restricts facility size. Look up “Certificate of Need laws” if you’d like more information.

Those exist because the hospitals are privately owned. An area doesn't want hospital companies getting into a pricing war and then both going under leaving the area without hospital service at all. There'd be no reason for it with a public health care system.

The government tries to keep medical care expensive to avoid competition that might result in some instability so the cure is … government running health care.

Re: Chip shortage: Toyota to cut global production by 40%

#624

Post by nostrademons »

gruez wrote: post #614
nostrademons wrote: post #562

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Monthly salary for a TSMC fab engineer is about NTD$48,000/month [1]; I saw another source on the web that listed NTD$612K/year, which is consistent. The exchange rate is 1 USD ~= 28 NTD, so that about USD$1700/month or about USD$10.50/hour, which is pretty close to what McDonald's pays these days. Prices in many foreign countries are wonky though, because of different cultural & economic systems. You can have a good…

> Prices in many foreign countries are wonky though, because of different cultural & economic systems. You should just adjust for PPP. The world bank estimates taiwan's GDP (nominal) to be 759M, but adjusted for PPP it's 1,403B. If we do the same adjustment for wages, we get $3165 per month, or $18.19/hr.

Even adjusting for PPP is complex though, because different goods have different cost adjustments. Actually buying a condo in Taiwan isn't cheap - I think my in-laws said it was around USD$500K for a 3BR/2BA in one of the Taipei exurbs, and can go up past $1M for luxury condos near a city center. That's close to Bay Area prices on McDonalds wages. A lot of Taiwanese youth are pretty much priced out of many markers of adulthood (not unlike many American Millennials), and can't do much other than eat, work, and play videogames. To have a house of their own and a job with the potential for career advancement, they basically need to wait for their parents to die. That's not really captured in PPP numbers, the same way that rampant asset inflation hasn't been captured in the American CPI.

Re: Chip shortage: Toyota to cut global production by 40%

#625

Post by gilbetron »

brobdingnagians wrote: post #75
Veliladon wrote: post #7

Toyota was one of the few (only?) companies to keep a large stockpile of chips on hand to continue production in case of a supply interruption. They kept something like two years worth on hand. I guess 18 months of doing the extremely heavy lifting for the whole industry has taken its toll and now they're in the same boat.

Maybe this is a dumb question, but does anyone still produce cars without chips? It's possible, and in the current environment it seems like it would be a major competitive advantage-- and might be more reliable in general.

When I started driving in the 80s, there was always a real chance that the car wouldn't start, or have a problem starting. Even new cars. Now? Except for a dead battery, I haven't had that problem in years, and we don't buy/lease new vehicles very often (our two current vehicles are 4 and 17 years old). ICs are far more reliable than old school electronics/mechanics!

Re: Chip shortage: Toyota to cut global production by 40%

#626

Post by CamperBob2 »

zsmi wrote: post #526
robotresearcher wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn’t positive feedback require a positive loop gain? Right now, not enough chips are available to make new chips. So the loop gain is less than zero, damping the output recursively.

The problem is, if the feedback signal is too slow in getting back to the thing which measure error (i.e. too much phase lag), then negative feedback can turn into positive feedback and this leads to an instability. One of the most complex pieces of the semiconductor fab is the building itself. Even with plans and permits in hand, it takes years to make one that can output at reason throughput and yield. This report…

"Typically the product life of a semiconductor chip (nine to 12 months) is less than the time required to construct the facility and install the equipment for manufacturing (24 to 36 months).

That's an absurd underestimate of market lifetime. I'd bet that fully 80% of the chips available in 1999 when that report was written are still in production today (or would be, if not for the crunch.)

Re: Chip shortage: Toyota to cut global production by 40%

#627

Post by gentleman11 »

throwawayboise wrote: post #603
nostrademons wrote: post #562

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Monthly salary for a TSMC fab engineer is about NTD$48,000/month [1]; I saw another source on the web that listed NTD$612K/year, which is consistent. The exchange rate is 1 USD ~= 28 NTD, so that about USD$1700/month or about USD$10.50/hour, which is pretty close to what McDonald's pays these days. Prices in many foreign countries are wonky though, because of different cultural & economic systems. You can have a good…

McDonald's is paying $15 where I am now, and begging for applications.

McDonald’s is also forcing noncompetes on new hires. Nobody should work for them

Edit: my source (potus) was mistaken apparently. A better source is below and involves non poaching and different restaurants (not McDonald’s as far as I can tell)

> About 80 percent of fast-food workers are constricted by no-poaching clauses, according to Healey's office. The other fast-food chains targeted by the states' investigation are Arby's, Five Guys, Little Caesars and Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/07/09/11-st...

Re: Chip shortage: Toyota to cut global production by 40%

#628

Post by CamperBob2 »

SavantIdiot wrote: post #504
jvanderbot wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much would it cost to set up TSMC inside US borders? One president cycle? 4 F-35s? One SLS? A nuclear submarine? According to this page, sorting by cost, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_semiconductor_fabricat... the most expensive fab is 33 Giga$. TSMC is 17G$. pennies on the dollar in our 1-3Trillion infrastructure bill. Make america fab again. EDIT: it appears this is in the 2T infrastructure bill. https:…

Part of the reason fabs are spread out is capitalism: if you manufacture the part in the country, you don't pay import taxes (e.g., Intel's Ireland fab debacle). Another part is lax environmental laws. Hillsboro Oregon is embroiled in a suit with Intel where Intel dumped 100x the fluorine into the air that they claimed when D1X was first pitched. Don't need to worry about that stuff in Asia (for now). Also, lead time…

Speaking opinion: in the long term, it is mostly rich people trying to get richer that caused this

And the chips in question exist in the first place because...?

Re: Chip shortage: Toyota to cut global production by 40%

#629

Post by falcrist »

gentleman11 wrote: post #627
throwawayboise wrote: post #603

Earlier quoted context omitted.

McDonald's is paying $15 where I am now, and begging for applications.

McDonald’s is also forcing noncompetes on new hires. Nobody should work for them Edit: my source (potus) was mistaken apparently. A better source is below and involves non poaching and different restaurants (not McDonald’s as far as I can tell) > About 80 percent of fast-food workers are constricted by no-poaching clauses, according to Healey's office. The other fast-food chains targeted by the states' investigation…

That was a bogus claim made by Biden. Looks like hourly employees don't sign non-competes.

See:

https://www.factcheck.org/2020/07/bidens-false-claim-about-m...

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/jul/28/joe-biden/...

Re: Chip shortage: Toyota to cut global production by 40%

#630

Post by ericjang »

nostrademons wrote: post #624
gruez wrote: post #614

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Prices in many foreign countries are wonky though, because of different cultural & economic systems. You should just adjust for PPP. The world bank estimates taiwan's GDP (nominal) to be 759M, but adjusted for PPP it's 1,403B. If we do the same adjustment for wages, we get $3165 per month, or $18.19/hr.

Even adjusting for PPP is complex though, because different goods have different cost adjustments. Actually buying a condo in Taiwan isn't cheap - I think my in-laws said it was around USD$500K for a 3BR/2BA in one of the Taipei exurbs, and can go up past $1M for luxury condos near a city center. That's close to Bay Area prices on McDonalds wages. A lot of Taiwanese youth are pretty much priced out of many markers of…

+1 to these Taipei real estate price estimates. Note that TSMC is headquartered in Hsinchu County, and I think real estate is much cheaper there (please fact check me on this though).

source: Parents are from Taiwan, and I have relatives in Taiwan who tell me similar price estimates.

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