Samsung Considers Austin For $17 Billion Chip Plant (reuters.com) 69
Samsung is considering Austin, Texas, as the site for a new $17 billion chip plant that the South Korean firm said could create 1,800 jobs, according to documents filed with Texas state officials. Reuters reports: The documents say the project would involve building out 7 million square feet (650,000 square meters) of new space on a 640-acre (259-hectare) site that the company already owns. The company has an existing chip plant in Austin that makes computing chips. Samsung's filing said it plans to make "advanced logic devices" for outside customers at the facility, meaning it would aim to make the smallest, fastest kinds of computing chips. Samsung said in its filings that if Austin is selected, the company would break ground on the site in the second quarter of this year and that the plant will become operational in the third quarter of 2023.
Computerchips! (Score:2)
The company has an existing computer chip plant in Austin that makes advanced computing chips specializing in computation logic. Next year they plan to expand with salt & vinegar and Texas BBQ.
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Motorola brought semiconductor manufacturing to Texas and Arizona, starting way back in the middle of the last century. Intel and others made the Silicon Valley. (Yes, there are/were some US fabs in unsung locations like Massachusetts, Maine, etc.)
Semiconductor manufacturing has an incredibly large and complex supply chain. These supply chains inevitably grow entire industries physically close to those fabs.
And then, there are all the engineers, scientists, technicians, and management that used to be in ph
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Whole lotta shakin going on. (Score:2)
Hopefully Texas is a pretty stable state.
https://texashillcountry.com/h... [texashillcountry.com]
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Tornadoes are no joke, not that you were making one.
There's video out there of a factory being scoured from the concrete slab it was built on, the only thing left standing was the reinforced vault built specifically as a shelter for the employees. Thankfully nobody was hurt but that was also the result of proper planning by the people responsible for building the place.
It appears to me that for as many people that properly plan for tornadoes there's also plenty of people that do not. I was once caught in
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Where is a safe place to build anything? There's earthquakes, tornadoes, floods, or something or other that will kill you no matter where you go.
Australia has a lot of very stable places.
Just watch out for dropbears. Oh and just about everything is poisonous.
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Where is a safe place to build anything? There's earthquakes, tornadoes, floods, or something or other that will kill you no matter where you go.
Norway is pretty safe.
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Compared to Taiwan, Japan, and Korea, which are all on the Ring of Fire, I'm sure Texas will be quite stable.
Texas has an another stability advantage: it is not right next to China and North Korea. For all the grousing people do about dysfunction in the United States, at least Texas is not seen by China as a renegade province, and under threat of imminent invasion.
Austin is New California (Score:2, Insightful)
And before you jump in with your left v right gutter talk, I'm a firm believer that balance is good, and Austin being a Left town in Right state seems to be doing a better job finding that balance (maybe?)
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California isn’t so much anti business as its pro worker. Because god forbid the government looks out for the little guy.
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Based on the amount of legal hoops they create for any business that sells in California, I can't imagine it's "pro worker" as much as it's "pro fucking shit up." I'm in South Dakota, but because of California's crazy everything causes cancer bullshit, I had to create an entire compliance regime for every single stocked item in our inventory, then link it to every end product we produce so that we have a full compliance database that warns customers when they are purchasing a carcinogenic containing item.
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Why build a delicate multi-billion dollar manufacturing facility when it's probably going to be shaken apart in the next 20 years?
Re:Austin is New California (Score:5, Insightful)
Not just eqrthquakes - power stability.
A fab is more than a multi-billion dollar investment, it's hundreds of billions of dollars. To make that back, they have to run 24/7/365 with no downtime, and the processes are extremely delicate (semiconductor manufacturing is one of the most impressive mass manufacturing processes available - given how delicate the process is we can just crank it out - it's similar to how we can stamp plastic discs with details in the micrometers in mere seconds knowing that any flaw ruins the product).
Thus, a power blip for even a second can ruin millions of dollars of production and set back timetables by weeks as everything has to be restarted. California's rolling blackouts tend to be the antithesis to needing constant power.
Texas though is perfect, as the past decade as seen the creation of the intertie that ties 4 of the US and Canada's power grids together (West, Central, East and Texas), which is a massive HVDC installation where even the great power failure of 2003 that shut down most of the East Coast of the US and Canada can still draw power from other grids.
More recently power blips in Taiwan have resulted in semiconductor manufacturing being temporarily halted as the production line needs to be restarted. And let's not forget, Taiwan's got typhoons to worry about.
Chances are good Texas is chosen because if you can draw from the HVDC of the intertie, the power is not going to waver at all, short of a massive power grid collapse. At that point, there are bigger things to worry about.
Fabs are so expensive, environmental regulations, safety shelters for existing climate, etc., really aren't a problem. When the fab costs hundreds of billions of dollars, spending a billion for a water processing plant (already required), an effluent processing plan, bunkers for tornadoes, reinforced walls and floors for said tornadoes, etc., are trivial matters you're going to invest in because you're going to need that anyways to protect the expensive machinery inside.
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Chicken feed.
Next.
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Unless things have changed drastically, the amount of power that can be transferred among those regional power grids [ieee.org] is pretty limited: 1-2 GW. I haven't found in
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And before you jump in with your left v right gutter talk, I'm a firm believer that balance is good,
Balance around what center? That seems to be where California went off the rails, they lost the center on which to balance just about every public policy.
The Republicans and Democrats used to be able to agree on a great many things. Now they can't even agree on the color of the sky. Ronald Reagan is famous for saying he didn't leave the Democrat party, the party left him. The policies of the Democrat party of the 1960s, when Ronald Reagan left the party, would be too right wing for the Republicans of to
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Balance around what center?
The Constitution is a good start.
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"And before you jump in with your left v right gutter talk..."
So "left v right gutter talk" is reserved for you, right?
"Austin being a Left town in Right state"
Ah yes, "left v right gutter talk"in action.
"I'm a firm believer that balance is good"
I bet you even have friends who are black.
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"Austin being a Left town in Right state".
Austin is 90% Democrat, Texas is a Republican state. I have no idea how else you could have interpreted this...
So "left v right gutter talk" is reserved for you, right?
If that qualifies for gutter talk, you must live a very sheltered life...
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Austin is to Texas as Berkley is to California.
Texas/Walker (Score:3)
Somehow I think Texas won't be taken for a ride like Walker was up north. Texas has plenty of stupid in their state government but they at least know how to put on a rodeo.
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Somehow I think Texas won't be taken for a ride like Walker was up north. Texas has plenty of stupid in their state government but they at least know how to put on a rodeo.
I'm pretty certain that these folk consider that Texas is a deep red state, but they won't understand the nuances of Republican mantra, and just suspect they've found another mark.
They'll be needing 100 percent tax free, and Probably something to sweeten the pot.
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I'm pretty certain that these folk consider that Texas is a deep red state
Texas is only slightly red. Sort of a reddish magenta. Almost purple.
Trump carried Texas with only 52% of the vote.
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Texas is not that unlike California, more conservative but not that much more.
It's political outcomes are far different only because of durable, corrupt political power and voter suppression, the worst in the country. Texas state government is notoriously corrupt and ineffective.
Texas is not "deep red", Texas is governed by an anti-democratic party and has been for many decades, longer than any of us have been alive. Long ago it was solidly Democrat, then civil rights came along, then the southern stategy
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I'm pretty certain that these folk consider that Texas is a deep red state
Texas is only slightly red. Sort of a reddish magenta. Almost purple.
Trump carried Texas with only 52% of the vote.
But they elect people like Ted Cruz, and have people in their government who demand to control other states voting.
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I'm pretty certain that these folk consider that Texas is a deep red state
So you're sure that they're idiots who believe things that aren't true, because of public perception?
but they won't understand the nuances of Republican mantra
"Money is good. Successful people are my god-kings."
and just suspect they've found another mark.
They have. Texans are not any smarter than anyone else, but they're much surer that they are... which means they ain't.
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Texans are not any smarter than anyone else, but they're much surer that they are... which means they ain't.
Texas is more diverse than a lot of countries. People joke about how big it is, but a state that takes 12 hours to drive across is not going to be one culture.
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Texas is more diverse than a lot of countries.
Certainly true.
People joke about how big it is, but a state that takes 12 hours to drive across is not going to be one culture.
No, it certainly is not. In fact, Texas is a massive mix-not-mix of cultures. That is to say, there are numerous essentially segregated-by-town communities of different ethnic and other groups spread around the state.
P.S. I lived in Austin for a year and a half, and drove through much of the state. I'm not an expert on Texas, and I haven't been there for some time, but I do have some first-hand experience.
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"Hurr durr I lived in Austin and drove all over Texas! Listen to me! I know things!"
LOL, you don't know shit you stoopid dooshnozzle.
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Man, you got called a "dooshsnozzle"! Wicked burn!
Re: Texas/Walker (Score:2)
Yeah, by someone who wouldn't talk one word of shit to me in person. They sure told me!
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I'm pretty certain that these folk consider that Texas is a deep red state
So you're sure that they're idiots who believe things that aren't true, because of public perception?
I believe that they figure that another state that is run by republicans will have a similar grovel as Scott Walker in Wisconsin. If anything, the recent attempt by Texas to overturn the voting results in other states lends at least a little credence to that attitude.
While I can't definitively speak to every single non- American out there, the media and certainly the internet believes certain things about America that lend themselves to a homogenous Republican mindset. It really doesn't matter if X numb
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I disagree: it tied him inextricably to a very visible, very expensive failure. It contributed to his re-election loss in 2018.
More accurately (Score:4, Insightful)
Samsung is teasing Austin city officials with the promise of potential jobs creation in return for massive city subsidies and tax breaks.
There's a fair chance that the city of Austin will be disappointed a few years from now, and realize they've been swindled. But that's for the next elected mayor - and the taxpayer - to deal with.
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Unlikely. This is Texas. By default there are tax breaks. Many cities are surprised when they go to Texas that Texas does not offer them more.
What more could there be than living in Texas?
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How many cities have gone to Texas and been surprised like that?
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Samsung is teasing Austin city officials with the promise of potential jobs creation in return for massive city subsidies and tax breaks.
There's a fair chance that the city of Austin will be disappointed a few years from now, and realize they've been swindled. But that's for the next elected mayor - and the taxpayer - to deal with.
Uh yeah, or more obviously, there's a fair chance that Samsung could just be preparing to get the fuck out of California.
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Why not both?
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Dell moved out of Austin because the Austin city government thought like you do. They're disappointed now, not because they were cheated but because they held out for the tax windfall.
If "the city of Austin will be disappointed a few years from now" it won't be because of swindling, it will be because it didn't negotiate in good faith.
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Samsung is teasing Austin city officials with the promise of potential jobs creation in return for massive city subsidies and tax breaks.
Let me guess. There's some rule in American politics that says that subsidies and tax breaks must kick in before construction is completed and the doors open for business.
Fantastic! (Score:2)
It would be great to have more semiconductor manufacturing actually happening in the US but I can't help but wonder why it required a company from foreign country to come up with the plan.
Re: Fantastic! (Score:2)
It's simple. The people who run successful foreign companies got there often by having some technical experience. As such, they know how to improve business processes and lead to the efficiency in design that utilizes a workforce with better general education but higher base wages. This is basically a large part of Taiwan and Singapore's success. If you do not improve business processes, then it's often a brave to the bottom.
I was going to say innovative to business processes in America died with Ford bu
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The constant threat of being overrun by mainland China a la HK is no doubt on their minds, too.
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That's the thinking behind RoC's TMSC moving manufacturing to Arizona. Samsung doesn't want to lose ground to any "America-made" initiative and hopes to trump TMSC by opening sooner.
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You two are mixing things. TMSC is Taiwan, while Samsung is South Korea. Never mind China overrunning either place would be a bad idea for multiple reasons. Plus HK wasn't "overrun" it was given by the British.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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It would be great to have more semiconductor manufacturing actually happening in the US but I can't help but wonder why it required a company from foreign country to come up with the plan.
It is pretty difficult for the USA to do much of anything any more. We can't even get vaccines out while managing to be the world leader in Covid deaths.
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The USA is not the world leader in COVID deaths per capita. Belgium, the UK, and Italy all have higher rates of deaths per capita.
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True, but the USA is 9th in the list, and most of the other countries in the top ten have small but dense populations, like no.1 San Marino.
Cost vs. jobs created (Score:3)
I think that is a pretty good indicator that this kind of industry will not create any significant number of jobs in the future. While semiconductor manufacturing is more automatized than other industries, it is a good indicator where things are going with manufacturing in general.
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I think that is a pretty good indicator that this kind of industry will not create any significant number of jobs in the future. While semiconductor manufacturing is more automatized than other industries, it is a good indicator where things are going with manufacturing in general.
Automation and AI is being driven by Greed to decimate human employment, and eventually make humans not merely unemployed, but unemployable.
It's going to be a painful transition, and our generations are likely going to be the victims of it, but in order for modern society and quite possibly humanity to survive, we will need to eventually abandon the idea that a humans net worth, revolves around employment.
Either that, or you better start exporting employment off planet. Sadly, the vacuum of space and the
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Pretty much, yes.
And later... (Score:1)
And later... Samsung: "Sorry, Austin, but your $2B subsidy was outbid by low labor costs in Vietnam."