Follow Slashdot blog updates by subscribing to our blog RSS feed

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×
United States Businesses Technology

Visions of a US Computer Chip Boom Have Cities Hustling (nytimes.com) 41

Many local governments see a silver lining in the shortage of semiconductor chips that has contributed to a slowdown in the global economy. From a report: The shortage of computer chips has zapped energy from the global economy, punishing industries as varied as automakers and medical device manufacturers and contributing to fears about high inflation. But many states and cities in America are starting to see a silver lining: the possibility that efforts to sharply increase chip production in the United States will lead to a busy chip factory in their backyard. And they are racing to get a piece of the potential boom. One of those towns is Taylor, a Texas city of about 17,000 about a 40-minute drive northeast of Austin. Leaders here are pulling out all the stops to get a $17 billion Samsung plant that the company plans to build in the United States starting early next year.

The city, its school district and the county plan to offer Samsung hundreds of millions of dollars in financial incentives, including tax rebates. The community also has arranged for water to be piped in from an adjacent county to be used by the plant. But Taylor is not alone. Officials in Arizona and in Genesee County in upstate New York are also trying to woo the company. So, too, are politicians in nearby Travis County, home to Austin, where Samsung already has a plant. Locations in all three states "offered robust property tax abatement" and funds to build out infrastructure for the plant, Samsung said in a filing. Congress is considering whether to offer its own subsidies to chip makers that build in the United States.

Where Samsung's plant will land remains anyone's guess. The company says it is still weighing where to put it. A decision is expected to be announced any day. The federal government has urged companies like Samsung, one of the world's largest makers of the high-tech components, to build new plants in the United States, calling it an economic and national security imperative. Intel broke ground on two plants in Arizona in September and could announce the location for a planned manufacturing campus by the end of the year. This could just be a warm-up act. The Senate passed a bill to provide chip makers $52 billion in subsidies this year, a plan supported by the Biden administration that would be Washington's biggest investment in industrial policy in decades. The House has yet to consider it. Nine governors said in a letter to congressional leaders that the funding would "provide a new, powerful tool in our states' economic development toolboxes."

This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Visions of a US Computer Chip Boom Have Cities Hustling

Comments Filter:
  • One of those towns is Taylor, a Texas city of about 17,000 about a 40-minute drive northeast of Austin. Leaders here are pulling out all the stops to get a $17 billion Samsung plant that the company plans to build in the United States starting early next year.

    Beef up that power grid and they're in business.

  • by fermion ( 181285 ) on Friday November 19, 2021 @12:17PM (#62002171) Homepage Journal
    I did somewhat high tech manufacturing in small town Texas. Even tough we were on the high tech corridor at the time, think TI, compaq, the telecoms, getting workers wes hard. We did weekly interview, with skill test, and were lucky to get one good employee. And we paid better than anyone outside of oil.

    Austin is a place some people want to move, but you have to pay them. UT is a party and art school, not known for technical people. Taylor is not one of the, or near, a gated lake community that people move north of Austin to live.

    So you donâ(TM)t have a local educated work force. You are not in an area to attract an educated work force. This is area where people are poorer than Texas in general, much less educated, and very few are college educated. And it does not even have any of the demographic advantages of Austin.

    But as long as all they are doing is wasting local tax money to bribe Samsung that is their huskiness we just donâ(TM)t want to see the fiasco that was Wisconsin and the flat panel TV plant, with Abbott claiming all the jobs it creates.

  • by Lost Penguin ( 636359 ) on Friday November 19, 2021 @12:33PM (#62002223)
    The completely unregulated, untested, uninspected, Texas power grid cannot handle the additional load.
  • Nothing says free markets and capitalism like the taxpayers being forced to hand over money to multi-billion dollar coporations who generally don't pay taxes to begin with.

    But then, this is Texas, a well know socialist haven.

    • "Forced" is for the shortsighted. "Investment in one's future" is for those who believe they have one..

      • "Forced" is for the shortsighted. "Investment in one's future" is for those who believe they have one..

        So it's like using taxpayer money for early child care, school lunches, and college education. You know, an investment in one's future.

      • In Arizona, cities like Chandler and Gilbert (formerly farming towns outlying Phoenix area) offered tax breaks to Intel and other high-tech firms. [bizjournals.com]

        This resulted in a growth boom that was not supplied with basic infrastructure like schools, roads, sewer etc...

        Eventually (5-10 year gap) this money was recovered from residential taxes and the building of schools continues to this day

        It is a way to spur growth, but the costs are usually pushed back on to the "little guys", who also have to suffer for lack of ba

        • Being passed on to the consumer is the same as the corporation paying it. As long as there is competition it's fine. Hence the need for enforcement of existing antitrust law.

          • Being passed on to the consumer is the same as the corporation paying it.

            No it's not. The corporation is pawning off the costs to the consumer. They're acting as a pass through. If the corporation paid the costs those costs would be reflected in the corporate balance sheet.

            And, I might add, if those costs are being reflected in the corporate balance sheet but are still paid by the consumer, then either the corporation stops acting like a pass through and absorbs the costs, or they don't get to count tho

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Elephant in the room (Score:4, Interesting)

    by UnknownSoldier ( 67820 ) on Friday November 19, 2021 @12:52PM (#62002291)

    One thing I see no mention in the article is "seismic" isolation / sensitivity. You just can't build a fab anywhere due the extreme seismic sensitivity of the equipment. If local governments think that throwing enough money to incentivize semiconductor companies to setup shop in their backyard is going to work they are sadly mistaken. Sorry, but you can't ignore geology in this business in spite of huge tax cuts.

    Location is only part of the problem. I was the understanding that fabs run on razor thin margins but looks like they are indeed quite profitable [min.news] at around 50%. The original article also didn't mention that the cost of lithography machines is increasing. There is a reason TSMC is investing $100 Billion to increase production capacity because that is what they need to stay competitive as the nm decrease.

    I think we're still a decade away from from having more fabs and cheaper chips to help with the supply chain issues.

    • by khchung ( 462899 )

      One thing I see no mention in the article is "seismic" isolation / sensitivity. You just can't build a fab anywhere due the extreme seismic sensitivity of the equipment.

      I don't know how true this is, but considering that Taiwan has earthquakes (just had a minor one, around 4-5, off the shore about last week), and most of TSMC's more advanced plants are in Taiwan, and has been that way since they started, tells me it cannot be a critical factor.

  • Only fools are still chasing after chip foundries. There have already been enough started to wipe out any temporary shortage caused by the pandemic and create a massive glut in 3-5 years tops. This looks like the railroad boom a hundred years ago - where the rail system in the US got massively overbuilt by everyone chasing the big money. Then most went bankrupt as there was too much competition for too little freight.

    Same thing will happen here. Want your own chip foundry? Stick your money in the bank

    • Apparently the existing Intel chip foundries are unable to compete with more modern chip foundries that produce chips smaller than 10nm

      I would counter, Only fools would rest on their laurels while competitors outpace them in development of new technologies

    • Temporary shortage caused by the pandemic doesn't really cover it.

      First, shortages were already beginning before the pandemic.

      Second,besides meeting demand, there is a national security interest in being more self-sufficient in chips. Certainly such considerations do make the system globally less efficient, and I agree at some point there will be a glut, and maybe Intel will ossify in the way that Boeing has (being another quasi-state enterprise since aerospace is a critical defense industry). Just s

  • by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Friday November 19, 2021 @01:02PM (#62002327)
    This kind of manufacturing takes a ton of clear water. The SW is running out of the stuff and we're doing nothing about it.

    I suppose we could just stop letting people take showers.
  • That's how much samsung lost during the texas power outage. https://www.sammobile.com/news/samsungs-texas-chip-plant-power-outage-usd-270-million-damage/
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Redux

  • The fact that all these places are offering tax rebates and other "incentives" proves that the taxes are too high to begin with, and that might have something to do with why these outfits weren't there in the first place.

CChheecckk yyoouurr dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh..

Working...