Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A big hurdle to fixing the chip shortage: substrates

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 136 posts

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

#71

Post by cptskippy »

usui wrote: post #59
cptskippy wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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,…

Acknowledging your bigotry doesn't make it ok.

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

#72

Post by cptskippy »

q-big wrote: post #60
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…

> 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…

So I should print out one for everyone in America and pull it out with every conversation to reference it?

If America is going to switch to metric it is going to require a concerted effort to influence everyone, not flash cards.

They need to gradually phase it in. Since road signs last ~7 years they should pass legislation stating all new road signs must have kph under mph by 2029. Legislation to say by 2036 they must have kph on top with mph minimized underneath. By 2045 all must just display kph. Everything else much have a similar phased approach. By 2050, no more imperial.

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

#73

Post by TrispusAttucks »

cronix wrote: post #4
Robotbeat wrote: post #3

It’s strange that this happened. Did COVID just cause everyone to stop investing for a bit, leading to all these downstream problems? Or was this gonna happen anyway?

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…

I was contemplating the shortages the other night while sitting around a fire.

It hit me that the problem is the whole global system is now just one big Just-In-Time (JIT) system built from smaller JIT units of industry which is a collection of yet more JIT factories.

It's JIT all the way down!

And JIT doesn't work well when the spice isn't continuously flowing.

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

#74

Post by cptskippy »

trangus_1985 wrote: post #58
cptskippy wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Insulting and making fun of people because they have a problem isn't helpful but ok, but responding "aggressively" to insults is bad?

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

#75

Post by cptskippy »

OJFord wrote: post #67
cptskippy wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> A football field or soccer field is a perfectly reasonable unit of measure when you're simply trying to convey "a lot" to someone. At least in the UK it's somewhat of a 'meme', a byword for a tabloid, in the same league as irrelevant mentions of age and house price, etc.

We measure trunk space in terms of bodies it can hold. It's funny and clearly relates the capacity.

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

#76

Post by ec109685 »

Robotbeat wrote: post #3

It’s strange that this happened. Did COVID just cause everyone to stop investing for a bit, leading to all these downstream problems? Or was this gonna happen anyway?

There's also the stimulus that injected demand into the system, so more goods may purchased than if COVID never happpened.

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

#77

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#78

Post by finiteseries »

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…

Thanks for taking the time to call out obvious casual prejudice, that you did it so articulately and humanly for someone retreating further and further into the facile impression of a robot speaks volumes.

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

#79

Post by adamdusty »

lovich wrote: post #34

>Now major chip companies are resorting to unusual tactics. They are placing orders far in advance and prepaying so that substrate companies have ample cash to build more factories. Some are committing to buying the entire supply of new production lines to give their suppliers confidence to invest. If the chip makers are investing this much money into the substrate businesses, why aren't they just purchasing some of…

The margin isn't high enough on substrates to make buying and maintaining the process worth it.

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

#80

Post by vkou »

mschuster91 wrote: post #19
nostrademons wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also imagine that there are no truck drivers to drive the bananas from the plantations to your local stores, and no ships to bring fertilizer to the banana plantations. Even when they start growing again, it's going to be a while before you can get one. Supply chains in general are in shambles. We had mass COVID outbreaks at the ports that shut down unloading, as well as outbreaks at see. Truck drivers are quitting b…

> Also imagine that there are no truck drivers to drive the bananas from the plantations to your local stores, and no ships to bring fertilizer to the banana plantations. In the UK, the situation is even worse: because there is an acute shortage of truckers to truck pigs from farms to slaughterhouses and a lack of butchers, 100k pigs are set to be killed and burned - they simply grow each day, and butchers have limit…

> And companies can't pay better wages because customers are conditioned on cheap meat.

Are customers conditioned to cheap meat, or no meat? These customers surely live in a market economy, and understand that no matter how much they may bitch on Facebook, prices... Fluctuate..?

The reason nobody wants to raise wages during a labour shortage isn't because they are afraid of hiking prices. Prices hike up all the time. It's because they are afraid of being stuck with high wages after the labour shortage ends. Wages are stickier than prices, and are much more difficult to lower.

Post reply on HN