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I did not know that but I am not surprised.
That said, i think that the rationale goes like this: my school budget is $1m. My town has a grand list (list of physical assets - houses, buildings, equipment) worth $10m. Each million in capital is taxed at rate of $0.1 on the $. A fab moves into...
You are right, TX is not poor. That said, I doubt that much fab capital is taxed at the local level anywhere in the country. I seem to recall a similar deal in Malta. The local entities go along, hoping for windfalls in jobs and new taxable developments (such as housings, shopping malls etc.)...
TX is a unique case where the absence of income tax at the state level has shifted the tax burden to school districts and other low accountability environments (example your local hospital or EMT). In other states, the Taylor side deal would have come from the state capital.
Put another way...
Short answer: no. Euro 11b for hi-tech is insignificant. For lower technology fabs (SiC, etc.) it might make sense but where do you get the equipment? Low tech fabs (On, Microchip, X-FAB) are NOT investing (and have no intention to). Could a Vanguard build something outside of its home base? i...
Don't confuse chip shortage with chip technology. TSMC and Samsung have a big market share in high-end devices. However, many fabs (including many newish ones) do not make 5N devices. We are out of chips because we are out of fab capacity and especially lower-tech factories. There are many...
SIA has commission this report and they have been lobbying for it for 2 or 3 years. Dozens of influencers are involved so we can talk about a campaign at this point. National security is a fig leaf IMO since DOD is not a big consumer of chips and they have no practical limit on capex. They could...
@jms_embedded Very fair point. Data is data so how could we discriminate? What bothers me about crypto is the large (and growing) CPU usage. Google does not run a complicated calculation each time it serves an ad.
Many old chips go into a coin miner. They need to come from somewhere and could be used elsewhere (or the fabs could make other chips). I am not sure if the volume is significant though.
It seems to me that the tradeoff between feeding the crypto bubble and the real world is not a good one...
There's been many excellent discussions on this forum about chip shortages affecting many industries (automotive in particular). It's a story with many chapters so no need to re-hash here.
I am wondering if the growth of crypto mining is an important factor to the overall tightness of the IC...
@hist78 No. Was in the Chinese version as I recall. Perhaps 7 years ago, maybe less. I lived in Taiwan at the time and it was well known (then) that tsmc was in no hurry to pay their bills (to local suppliers - I mean ASML was not affected!). We liked to say Korea had one king and a few princes...
@hist78 I have no idea how that slipped in there. I mean 200 mm was not part of their road map for 10 years before that. I believe the only reason they ever operated that fab was because of contractual requirements related to Alpha CPU which was a competitor to X86 at the time. The site was...
@Lorien Well put. This kind of thread content may belong elsewhere. I love our industry, warts and all. Let's keep politics all of it whenever possible.
I am no fan of exceptionalism. I bet a bunch of people carried the B of R with them as they decided that the US election was "rigged" and they stormed the Capitol.
We should learn to deal with the world as it is. We can't stop a nation of 1.5b which is a nuclear power to boot. How many...
@hist78 For the record, Dalian was sold to SK and Hudson has been closed for a number of years (former Digital factory - 200 mm).
@Daniel Nenni Agree 100%. Do not take this seriously. In recent weeks, there was an announcement about intel Germany and another one about intel Italy. Both had to...
@Scotten Jones Excellent background information. The 450 tools were gigantic indeed for those of luck lucky enough to see them. RIP. Yes it was going to be cheaper on paper but it was far from clear that all OPMs would be able to join. I fear that we would have ended up like FPD with 2 or 3 OEMs...
On point #4. They are subject to the same rule. It takes about the same amount of time to move a 200 mm and a 300 mm wafer from A to B. So 300 mm is more cost effective in terms of "square inches of silicon moved per unit of time" (in terms of handling). Same for overhead handling. At constant...
jms, there many elements to consider here. Here are a few.
1- Cutting edge tools are only available on 300 mm. There is no EUV on 200 mm for example.
2- You are neglecting the impact of wafer edge. The usable area for a 300 mm is approximately 292 mm (varies from fab to fab). Using the same...
And how does the 40% who think that Jan 6th was just a "Capitol Tour" figure into this equation? You think those folks who believe the FBI and the Democratic party are behind the riots want to hear about technology and chip making? You think that guy with the horns (now calling himself a victim)...
Keeping this on topic and summarizing:
1- Fab capacity for 200 mm flat-lined several years ago.
2- Not every IC can be cost-effectively made on 300 mm, either because of lot size or because customer qualification. Automotive is notorious for being slow when it comes to changes in manufacturing...
