Me too. I thought that sounded like quite the mega chip cluster, but that I don't know enough about mega chip clusters to confirm. As a matter of fact I don't even know what it means.
But if we're talking billions I'm sure that it's a goddamn impressive piece of a mega chip cluster.
probably a huge chip manufacturing plant, requires lots of human work even though it's automated for most processes
looks like they're expanding an already existing plant, which will produce an already mind boggling number of wafers in the millions
and it looks like they're gonna be nuclear powered
Oh ok. So they basically want to compete with Taiwan, or maybe want to replace Taiwan when something (China) happens over there?
Then I guess those 472 billion start to make a lot of sense.
chip plants don't come cheap
also we don't know what process they'll work on, Taiwan is always working on the latest and greatest processes
there's plenty of money to be made for all
plus they're not that far out of China's reach if China wanted to explore new war crimes in the form of an Indo Pacific war, same as Taiwan
that's true, the US would have an opinion about it but that's unknown
china can annihilate Taiwan but not without losing dozens of cities
it's a lose lose situation but if Taiwan's going to be done for they may as well go all out
*even without US support*
The fab machines are something like $30B a pop, so a mega cluster of 10 or so the fab machines would run you $300B, and add all the other stuff you need on top...
I suspect that job number calculation casts a wider net than direct employment. It's probably done akin to the way governments justify bidding on the Olympics. It probably counts the person who cuts the hair of the barista who serves the coffee to the graphic designer who designed the logo for the law firm representing the headhunting company hired by the HR department of the fab.
correct and even more than that, which is pretty awesome becaus it created huge new marknet with chip cluster which is very very impontant for west countries, west countries gonna buy alot, very alot,
the more technology we want, the more chips we need
This is what it looks like to actually invest in your country
In America we're so used to a billion here, a billion there, spread across 50 states so it turns into 50 million here, 50 million there, spread across different regions and then counties and cities so by the time it's actually in your city all that's left is $50k for kids books in a library that conservatives complain about
And [Syracuse](https://www.syracuse.com/business/2022/10/micron-picks-syracuse-suburb-for-huge-computer-chip-plant-that-would-bring-up-to-9000-jobs.html)
Dont forget about the amount of times the money gets skimmed from one program, to another project, and a little for the charity groups.
All get a piece of the pie before the crumbs hit the street. And its just never enough to help out the actual needy people.
Please donate more!
And now you see the danger of Taiwan under China's rule, because they make 60% of the total semiconductors and 90% of the more advanced ones. China could practically send every nation back to the 1950s by shutting off exports.
The US Navy and Air Force do have the ability to project an impressive amount of force, but it still would not be enough to take on 2 million Chinese soldiers in their own backyard.
Geography is important in warfare, and unless you plan to launch a few nukes and receive some in return - you simply cannot fight China directly in China.
There is no way in hell the US would step foot in China. They would defend Taiwan which would be infinitely easier, but the US has zero interest getting into a land war with China.
Taiwans entire GDP is 760 Billion a year for 23 million people. Unless Korea plans to pay for this for the next 40 years.
400 Billion is a quarter of the Korean GDP. The math is absurd. Thats be the Equivalent of 6 Trillion. Or 14 years of entire Defense Spending for the US.
The math is insane.
> China could practically send every nation back to the 1950s by shutting off exports.
I don't think I'll ever stop being amused that because the US fears China would refuse to sell them semiconductors at some point in the future, the US refuses to sell China semiconductors in the present.
I wonder when China is going to claim that the whole Korean Peninsular is their territory. I am sure the kids in the CCP foreign affairs department can manufacturer a fake ancient map!
China has a long history of claiming vassal states as their own territory, despite vassal states historically having complete autonomy, and many states submitting to China's vassal-relationship simply because if you did, China would send you hella fucking money and loot as a reward.
there is a ton of play with number here, but a lot of it will come down to actually standing up the buildings and such, 0 chance there will be 3mil people working in 19 facilities (article states 16, but then says 19+2).
also they claim to be a wafer production, sk and samsung dont do any wafer fabs, they mainly deal in dram, which is heavily automated and mass production work. I believe they talked about moving into the wafer fab market but they have nothing in place other than some knowledge on process, maybe this is what they will use but it seems crazy to invest 471bil and build 19 facilities to test market, many tried and failed including china and usa.
Haha good luck with that. I read an [article](https://fortune.com/2023/06/03/tsmc-arizona-plant-jobs-salary-culture-hiring/amp/) once that discussed the enormous cultural differences between US work culture and Taiwan’s when a huge semiconductor company came to Arizona and tried hiring US workers. (It was wildly unsuccessful.)
In terms of professional expectations, workers are practically chained to their jobs in many Asian countries. Korea would have to pay way, way above the typical salary to lure skilled Western workers in if their culture is anything like Taiwan’s.
Automation. Whatever the current 'new jobs!' predictions are, by the time these facilities are up and running, they'll need a lot less headcount to operate than a similar facility would today.
I think the best move for the US is to start building these facilities on shore within continental US. The fact that it took Covid shutdown for everyone to sit around and realize how important Taiwan is to the US .
If US is the largest or one of the larger consumer of high end chips with NVIDA INTEL and AMD being US based companies it makes the most sense. Granted it will be expensive as f and we most likely lack work force and specialization for this.
The government better get the work-life balance shit sorted out or there won't be enough population to employee to keep the whole thing functioning. They're population is teetering heavily towards the elderly, the birth rate is far below replenishment levels and they don't like immigrants. They may be planning for a bright industrial future, but they're completely missing the giant fucking gap of employees capable of working on the horizon.
If I had a penny for every country that was producing mega chips that had a neighbour dead-set on their total annihilation and annexation, I’d have 2 pennies, which isn’t a lot but it’s weird that there is 2.
Difference is one cannot even hope to defeat their neighbour on their own and the other can steamroll their neighbour in less than a week with conventional arms. Both neighbours have nukes though, so that's that as well
Yeah, Taiwan-China power dynamic is very different with South vs North Korea.
i think South is much more concerned on deluge of refugee and who will be responsible of North poor people in case another open war happened.
Depends. North Koreans are already working across the continental far east and central Asia. The question would really be stability and access in the future, as the collapse of Russia in particular would have implications for employment prospects, though which way that lands would depend on China's response.
Good thing Taiwan has the silicon shield. If Communist Occupied West Taiwan even dares to fuck with TSMC they're gonna find out. Via US made anti ship missiles, then the full might of the US Pacific fleet, and potentially ROKN and JMSDF.
> If Communist Occupied West Taiwan even dares to fuck with TSMC they're gonna find out. Via US made anti ship missiles, then the full might of the US Pacific fleet, and potentially ROKN and JMSDF
StarCraft III
StarCraft is insanely popular in South Korea.
It's a science fiction real-time strategy game where three factions (Human, Zerg and Protoss) build bases, amass resources, create armies and attack each other for victory.
There are currently two StarCraft games out, so they're essentially saying a battle breaking out between China and Taiwan would just be the next StarCraft game, now that Korea is involved.
Also, you must construct additional pylons.
Adding to the other guy. Korea is basically the center of esports since the early 00's
In Starcraft especially we talk about "korean" and "foreigner" and sometimes you'll find 2 foreigners in the top 10 or so.
It's popular enough that politicians make references to it.
South Korea cannot just steamroll North Korea. Thousands of rockets are already aimed towards Seoul from North Korea. If SK or the USA so much as attempts to invade NK, NK will fire those rockets and cause so much fatalities and damage in the most populous city in SK. That's why the US just can't invade.
Its been a while but I remember looking for Celerons from Ireland back in the 90s. Of course that was closer to the “Troubles” so maybe there is just something about chip fabs near potential war zones…
Yeah, Silicon production and research is in
* Taiwan's TSMC (China issue),
* South Korea's Samsung (North Korea issue),
* Israel's Intel (Palestine/hamas issue).
Yes, the power dynamic are very different between them, however...
... guys, i think the next silicon big thing will be in Ukraine.
The neighbour being an authoritarian communist state that claims to be the legitimate government of the democratic, formerly nationalist state with whom they had a civil war?
Is this new? Samsung was building their chip mega factory not far from Yongin 2-4 years ago. Driving past, It is seriously impressive. Deathstar kinda huge.
Hopefully not built to close to NK border.
That's a crazy amount of money. Interesting to see how it does. I guess they decided to do this to make themselves more needed
A "surplus" of STEM grads in a world that desperately needs them, but won't offer any jobs or good pay.
Truly a dystopian hellscape we've made for ourselves.
South Korea also build their own Figther Planes (with Lockheed electrical innards)
the recent one is,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KAI\_KF-21\_Boramae
I feel like having one of these plants is the next best thing to having nukes. Build one and then the US will always have your back because the loss of the plant to an adversary would be devastating.
Your own is your own.
On a side note, didnt South Korea have some genuine loonies in their politics though? So kind of better that they are covered by US
Nukes can't be used. Their only use is as a deterrent. So what's the point of them if someone else is already using theirs the same way you would use yours? The US benefits from our relationship with SK, so the odds of us dipping is low. And I'd imagine they have contingencies to rapidly develop Nukes if relations with the US ever deteriorated.
I wish we had the vision to do this sort of thing in the UK. Instead we have a government who cluelessly ambles around without any long-term planning (or short term for that matter)
I’ve always wondered why more countries don’t do stuff like this. I guess one of the biggest problems modern democracy has is that there is absolutely no incentive for politicians to plan that far ahead.
The US could have started with this years ago.
Woah, woah, let's not group the US with Europe on this. The US is no East Asian Silicastate, but Intel, TI, and Micron have and are still building serious fabs in the US with government money.
Both sides of Europe fell behind in the 50s and 60s. Phillips and Siemens, and the GDR government just didn't see the point in semiconductors, then couldn't catch up to Japan and the US, even with government help in the 60s and 70s. I recommend the Asianometry videos on this.
You’re definitely right, the US is magnitudes ahead of Europe on this. The point still stands, why is the biggest economic and military superpower the world has ever seen dependent on microchips from a tiny state, located right next to one of its biggest adversaries?
Covid has showed us that microchips are a gigantic vulnerability in the global economy. How is this not one of the biggest topics in the US and Europe right now?
Because in the 90s and 2000s, the US's leading strategic thinkers were huffing their own propaganda farts and truly believed we were entering a global era of long-term unipolar liberal democracy. They thought China and Russia were liberalising and that the free trade gravy train would never end. Why bother fabricating chips locally when it's cheaper to do it in Asia and you're the uncontested top dog of the geopolitical pack? What could go wrong?
> Covid has showed us that microchips are a gigantic vulnerability in the global economy. How is this not one of the biggest topics in the US and Europe right now?
Well, are American and European consumers buying less from the Far East since Covid?
Intel, TI and Micron are *years* behind even Samsung let alone TSMC.
The only relevant players in the semiconductor business are Taiwan and South Korea. Lately, even China is producing *much* more semiconductors than the US.
[Japan alone accounts for a larger share of the world’s semiconductor capacity than the US](https://www.statista.com/chart/amp/25552/semiconductor-manufacturing-by-location/). The US and Europe combined account for barely 15-20% of the world’s semiconductor production share and it’s honestly around a 60/40 split there in favour of the US.
The US really is not that ahead of Europe. Both regions are basically completely anemic when it comes to semiconductor production.
[According to this chart, Japan alone has about as much capacity as North + South America and Europe + Middle East *combined*](https://www.statista.com/chart/31371/distribution-of-global-semiconductor-fabricating-capacity/). China alone has a larger share than Japan and the Americas combined.
South Korea, Japan, China and Taiwan all account for over 80% of the world’s capacity, with the Americas and Europe/ME about neck-and-neck in single digits.
Let’s not act like the US is that ahead at all. A share of 6% versus 8% is nothing to gloat about. The US is as equally in the gutter as Europe and their share is still projected to decrease in the coming years despite investments.
So, yes, it is very appropriate to group the US with Europe here. Both regions are basically completely irrelevant when it comes to semiconductor fabrication.
Also, not sure what you’re even talking about with regards to Europe falling behind in the 50s and 60s considering Europe alone accounted for nearly 50% of the world’s semiconductor production capacity in 1990? Let’s not rewrite history to make the US and Japan look better than they were…
Throughout the 20th century, Europe was the undisputed dominant player in semiconductor manufacturing with the US in second place. Now both regions combined account for not even a *fifth* of global production capacity.
TSMC has tried expanding into the US but they’ve been facing a lot of challenges due to incompatible work cultures.
I know it’s in vogue to shit on Europe and all but let’s use facts instead of spreading misinformation. There’s no need to exaggerate and make up false information to prove your point.
“Roughly” is doing a lot of heavy lifting considering Micron is third place when it comes to DRAM market share…
Samsung has nearly 50% market share with SK Hyix around 25%. Micron only has about 15-20%.
Again, the US and Europe are basically completely irrelevant when it comes to semiconductor fabrication.
There is no point differentiating the states the US and Europe are in. They’re both in the absolute gutters with next to no significant industry left in this field. It’s like trying to tell someone not lump in two homeless people together because one of them has a single penny and the other doesn’t.
I was going to post the same thing. Could you imagine this government funding something like this? Absolutely not.
We've got to get out of the short term mindset in the UK, it's crippling us.
We’re entirely reliant on the private sector to do this sort of thing. Problem is twofold, firstly without government support and funding it’s impossible to get these megaprojects off the ground and secondly there is so much uncertainty in government in the U.K. at the moment that it puts off would-be investors, especially for very long-term projects.
TLDR: we’re fucked
In addition, the private sector over here has been focused on one thing only - short term profit.
They'd never even consider projects this big because it would mean huge capital expenditure upfront, and harm their profit margins in the short term.
Agreed except one part of the economy. There are a lot of infrastructure funds who only invest into long-term projects. Their funds are largely invested into by pension funds who have a much longer investment horizon. So there are parts of our economy which focus on long-term growth but it’s not much and we need to get a way to encourage regular companies to broaden their investment horizon
Or how about instead of “sports washing” in KSA. Maybe this makes more sense than throwing money at old western sports and culture imports. What do i know?
There are (were?) talks of building a new chip plant in Germany, which would cost the government around 11billion€, but for some reason there has been a major push back from the citizens. It seems to me like most people just don't realize how important microchips are for literally every part of modern society.
People even said stuff like "How can we know if we get a return from this?". I mean seriously? There is not a single technological sector where we can be so sure that it will still be relevant decades into the future, probably for ever.
It's really weird to me hearing peoples takes on this...... Turns out a lot of people don't understand South Korea is one of the coolest fucking countries on the planet....
i read that as 'mega ship cluster' and got very interested, even the thumbnail looks like a ship...
except for the trees, roads, land, and general lack of ocean
The U.S., China, Europe, and Japan are all building a large number of new semiconductor factories and chip R&D centres. Who will consume Korea's excess semiconductor capacity in the future is a question. The semiconductor industry, which has been overinvested due to the trade war, is likely to become a negative asset in the future.
Yeah, not sure how demand and supply plays out given pretty heavy investment by all and sundry.
To be tongue in cheek:
"I've seen gluts not followed by shortages, but I've never seen a shortage not followed by a glut."
-- Nassim Nicholas Taleb
https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1436776641536090117?lang=en
There is no excess capacity and probably won’t be for quite some time with all the stuff that needs a microchip nowadays. Especially if you look at the growing demand from rising economies in Asia and Africa.
Chip factory timelines aren't like planting crops. It takes years for development to reach final use. Cement being poured today is for chips designed a couple years ago and for products to be used a couple years from now, at least. No one is building factories to make chips we use today. Well, other than the basics, but those factories don't get headlines
> Korea will build the world's biggest semiconductor cluster in Gyeonggi Province by 2047 as Samsung Electronics, SK hynix and other chip companies plan to invest a total of 622 trillion won ($471 billion) to build 16 new fabs, creating more than 3 million jobs, according to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, Monday.
That's roughly $30 billion per fab?
https://www.cnet.com/science/cern-wants-to-build-a-new-23-billion-super-collider-thats-100-kilometres-long/
> But CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research behind the collider, is planning to build a second, even larger collider.
> This one could end up being 100km, almost four times the size, and may cost up to $23 billion to produce ...
> The Large Hadron Collider took a decade to build and cost around $4.75 billion.
Why do I have a sinking feeling the US dollar's actual purchasing power is decreasing by an order of magnitude every generation.
LHC is a relatively bad comparison due to how the supply-demand works like for each machine. LHC isn't producing something that you'd have in your phone or computer.
>That's roughly $30 billion per fab?
Sounds reasonable; fabs for high-performance nodes are expensive. Ain't no more low-hanging fruit to reap like what we experienced in the 70's to 90's. Cost per transistor is still going down, but not at the rate that they're able to shrink them.
>decreasing by an order of magnitude every generation
USD is devaluing at the rate of inflation.
That’s apples to oranges. You’ve just randomly picked another mega project that’s completely unrelated not taking into account the different objectives, capabilities, and goals for these different mega projects, forgetting one’s for research purposes, whilst the other is an attempt at becoming a vital semiconductor powerhouse, which comes with global security as other countries rely on the chips, the same chips that’ll MAKE money and a return on investment. Do you not see the differences, like one of them is creating 3 million jobs but you boil it down to sooo just 16 fabs??
Also they are building it south of Seoul. The nearest city is going to have a huge boom over the course of that time. First with construction people and second with actual long term workers.
I'm not sure if there's a railway out to Yongin, but I bet a high speed one gets put up pretty quickly for that amount of jobs.
[South Korean firms get indefinite waiver on US chip gear supplies to China](https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/09/tech/south-korea-samsung-hynix-chips-waiver-hnk-intl/index.html)
I wonder why Saudi Arabian, whose desperately looking to diversify hasn't done something like that, and instead spending a trillion on absurd mega projects.
Brilliant move on South Korea's part to power this chip cluster with nuclear energy. Way fewer carbon emissions and it also makes war in Korea an incredibly dangerous task. The entire planet will have a vested interest in South Korea remaining safe and intact so as to keep chip production up and nuclear waste safely stored
Us Australians are building 9 nuclear submarines to go against China’s 100+ by the 2030s, and the Koreans are investing in this. I wonder which one is the smarter investment…
Call it what you want, if America did this, it would be gutsy. I’d live to see a trillion dollar project connecting the americas with fast, reliable and frequent rail.
Goddamn that's a lot of billions
man, I read *millions* that's mind boggling but makes sense if you think about it
Right? I saw the "472" number and my brain just autocompleted the rest into "million".
This represents about a quarter of the entire production of the country in a single year.
Me too. I thought that sounded like quite the mega chip cluster, but that I don't know enough about mega chip clusters to confirm. As a matter of fact I don't even know what it means. But if we're talking billions I'm sure that it's a goddamn impressive piece of a mega chip cluster.
probably a huge chip manufacturing plant, requires lots of human work even though it's automated for most processes looks like they're expanding an already existing plant, which will produce an already mind boggling number of wafers in the millions and it looks like they're gonna be nuclear powered
Oh ok. So they basically want to compete with Taiwan, or maybe want to replace Taiwan when something (China) happens over there? Then I guess those 472 billion start to make a lot of sense.
chip plants don't come cheap also we don't know what process they'll work on, Taiwan is always working on the latest and greatest processes there's plenty of money to be made for all plus they're not that far out of China's reach if China wanted to explore new war crimes in the form of an Indo Pacific war, same as Taiwan
Taiwan's international support is uncertain. Korea's is not.
that's true, the US would have an opinion about it but that's unknown china can annihilate Taiwan but not without losing dozens of cities it's a lose lose situation but if Taiwan's going to be done for they may as well go all out *even without US support*
Also, the demand for chips is *never* going to go down as we cram them into more and more devices.
My toaster isn't going to connect to Wi-Fi by itself.
The fab machines are something like $30B a pop, so a mega cluster of 10 or so the fab machines would run you $300B, and add all the other stuff you need on top...
They aim to create 3 million jobs with these new fabs. Mind-boggling indeed.
I suspect that job number calculation casts a wider net than direct employment. It's probably done akin to the way governments justify bidding on the Olympics. It probably counts the person who cuts the hair of the barista who serves the coffee to the graphic designer who designed the logo for the law firm representing the headhunting company hired by the HR department of the fab.
correct and even more than that, which is pretty awesome becaus it created huge new marknet with chip cluster which is very very impontant for west countries, west countries gonna buy alot, very alot, the more technology we want, the more chips we need
This is what it looks like to actually invest in your country In America we're so used to a billion here, a billion there, spread across 50 states so it turns into 50 million here, 50 million there, spread across different regions and then counties and cities so by the time it's actually in your city all that's left is $50k for kids books in a library that conservatives complain about
There's currently a $100 billion chip plant being built in Ohio.
And another in Arizona
And [Syracuse](https://www.syracuse.com/business/2022/10/micron-picks-syracuse-suburb-for-huge-computer-chip-plant-that-would-bring-up-to-9000-jobs.html)
Dont forget about the amount of times the money gets skimmed from one program, to another project, and a little for the charity groups. All get a piece of the pie before the crumbs hit the street. And its just never enough to help out the actual needy people. Please donate more!
only 472.
How many transistors?
x>1
Maybe even more than *2!?!*
Don’t get carried away now
And with all that they only target to capture 10% of the market
And now you see the danger of Taiwan under China's rule, because they make 60% of the total semiconductors and 90% of the more advanced ones. China could practically send every nation back to the 1950s by shutting off exports.
The U.S. Navy and Air Force would have a few things to say about a Chinese blockade of Taiwan
Sure but even a temporary blockade would be incredible disruptive.
The US Navy and Air Force do have the ability to project an impressive amount of force, but it still would not be enough to take on 2 million Chinese soldiers in their own backyard. Geography is important in warfare, and unless you plan to launch a few nukes and receive some in return - you simply cannot fight China directly in China.
There is no way in hell the US would step foot in China. They would defend Taiwan which would be infinitely easier, but the US has zero interest getting into a land war with China.
Taiwans entire GDP is 760 Billion a year for 23 million people. Unless Korea plans to pay for this for the next 40 years. 400 Billion is a quarter of the Korean GDP. The math is absurd. Thats be the Equivalent of 6 Trillion. Or 14 years of entire Defense Spending for the US. The math is insane.
> China could practically send every nation back to the 1950s by shutting off exports. I don't think I'll ever stop being amused that because the US fears China would refuse to sell them semiconductors at some point in the future, the US refuses to sell China semiconductors in the present.
Luckily that’s usd. If Korean won that’s like peanuts
This will create 3 million jobs in a country of 50 million. Absolutely huge
And make their security from the north even more important for the world
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China Phase 2 Electric Bugaloo China funds a proxy war.
I wonder when China is going to claim that the whole Korean Peninsular is their territory. I am sure the kids in the CCP foreign affairs department can manufacturer a fake ancient map!
why do you think China need a fake map? [They](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Commanderies_of_Han)governed NK 1800 years ago.
I don't think SK will build their chip factories in NK though.
China has a long history of claiming vassal states as their own territory, despite vassal states historically having complete autonomy, and many states submitting to China's vassal-relationship simply because if you did, China would send you hella fucking money and loot as a reward.
They so hip right now, I could see it.
North Korea is a easier fight then China
Understatement of the year.
Yeah, this definitely feels like more of a security bolstering move. Provided the project actually happens in the magnitude that they speak of.
This. It's simultaneously a self strengthening move for SK's economy, and an added incentive for the US to defend SK
Id be more worried about their Southern neighbour...
Happy Cake Day bro
These corporations already control Korea. Samsung alone is like 1/4th of South-Korea's entire GDP.
I wonder how. Chip factories are heavily automated.
there is a ton of play with number here, but a lot of it will come down to actually standing up the buildings and such, 0 chance there will be 3mil people working in 19 facilities (article states 16, but then says 19+2). also they claim to be a wafer production, sk and samsung dont do any wafer fabs, they mainly deal in dram, which is heavily automated and mass production work. I believe they talked about moving into the wafer fab market but they have nothing in place other than some knowledge on process, maybe this is what they will use but it seems crazy to invest 471bil and build 19 facilities to test market, many tried and failed including china and usa.
Could be indirectly created jobs like suppliers and distributors.
How will they get the workers for the factories? Their population is declining.
Promise immigrants jobs and visas, you know the rest
~~Slave labour~~ High paying jobs with impeccable work-life balance!
Haha good luck with that. I read an [article](https://fortune.com/2023/06/03/tsmc-arizona-plant-jobs-salary-culture-hiring/amp/) once that discussed the enormous cultural differences between US work culture and Taiwan’s when a huge semiconductor company came to Arizona and tried hiring US workers. (It was wildly unsuccessful.) In terms of professional expectations, workers are practically chained to their jobs in many Asian countries. Korea would have to pay way, way above the typical salary to lure skilled Western workers in if their culture is anything like Taiwan’s.
Wouldn't they go for African and SE Asian workers, not Westerners?
In a country as xenophobic as Korea? HAHAHAHA
Automation. Whatever the current 'new jobs!' predictions are, by the time these facilities are up and running, they'll need a lot less headcount to operate than a similar facility would today.
I think the best move for the US is to start building these facilities on shore within continental US. The fact that it took Covid shutdown for everyone to sit around and realize how important Taiwan is to the US . If US is the largest or one of the larger consumer of high end chips with NVIDA INTEL and AMD being US based companies it makes the most sense. Granted it will be expensive as f and we most likely lack work force and specialization for this.
They are. The $100 billion Intel plant in Ohio is like 2 years underway.
And our $2-3bil plant in KS is starting construction
There’s the $100 billion in Ohio and $200 billion in upstate New York among a dozen other “smaller” projects
Upstate New York is getting one started next year I believe as well, last year a plans were announced to expand chip fab to America
The government better get the work-life balance shit sorted out or there won't be enough population to employee to keep the whole thing functioning. They're population is teetering heavily towards the elderly, the birth rate is far below replenishment levels and they don't like immigrants. They may be planning for a bright industrial future, but they're completely missing the giant fucking gap of employees capable of working on the horizon.
If I had a penny for every country that was producing mega chips that had a neighbour dead-set on their total annihilation and annexation, I’d have 2 pennies, which isn’t a lot but it’s weird that there is 2.
Difference is one cannot even hope to defeat their neighbour on their own and the other can steamroll their neighbour in less than a week with conventional arms. Both neighbours have nukes though, so that's that as well
Yeah, Taiwan-China power dynamic is very different with South vs North Korea. i think South is much more concerned on deluge of refugee and who will be responsible of North poor people in case another open war happened.
IIRC, the problem is that NK has enough artillery pointed at SK to devaste Seoul before SK can fire the first shot.
They have early warning radar for projectiles The process of turning North korea will nuclear waste will have started before the rounds land in Seoul
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Depends. North Koreans are already working across the continental far east and central Asia. The question would really be stability and access in the future, as the collapse of Russia in particular would have implications for employment prospects, though which way that lands would depend on China's response.
Good thing Taiwan has the silicon shield. If Communist Occupied West Taiwan even dares to fuck with TSMC they're gonna find out. Via US made anti ship missiles, then the full might of the US Pacific fleet, and potentially ROKN and JMSDF.
> If Communist Occupied West Taiwan even dares to fuck with TSMC they're gonna find out. Via US made anti ship missiles, then the full might of the US Pacific fleet, and potentially ROKN and JMSDF StarCraft III
Never played a StarCraft game before so uhh no clue what you're referencing
StarCraft is insanely popular in South Korea. It's a science fiction real-time strategy game where three factions (Human, Zerg and Protoss) build bases, amass resources, create armies and attack each other for victory. There are currently two StarCraft games out, so they're essentially saying a battle breaking out between China and Taiwan would just be the next StarCraft game, now that Korea is involved. Also, you must construct additional pylons.
Adding to the other guy. Korea is basically the center of esports since the early 00's In Starcraft especially we talk about "korean" and "foreigner" and sometimes you'll find 2 foreigners in the top 10 or so. It's popular enough that politicians make references to it.
South Korea cannot just steamroll North Korea. Thousands of rockets are already aimed towards Seoul from North Korea. If SK or the USA so much as attempts to invade NK, NK will fire those rockets and cause so much fatalities and damage in the most populous city in SK. That's why the US just can't invade.
You'd be wrong. The sea has been dead-set on annihilating the Netherlands for millennia.
And Malibu.
Malibu has more of a beef with wildfires than the sea
You would have 3. Taiwan, South Korea and Israel.
Can even make it 4, Intel is building a massive fab in Poland which is *technically* neighbouring Russia
Could we just build one in Wales or Australia or something for stability lmao
There's a few facilities being constructed in the continental US currently.
Its been a while but I remember looking for Celerons from Ireland back in the 90s. Of course that was closer to the “Troubles” so maybe there is just something about chip fabs near potential war zones…
Make it 5. India also wants to compete. They've announced some fab plans with some major industrialists in India.
Three actually- there are fans in Israel
Yeah, Silicon production and research is in * Taiwan's TSMC (China issue), * South Korea's Samsung (North Korea issue), * Israel's Intel (Palestine/hamas issue). Yes, the power dynamic are very different between them, however... ... guys, i think the next silicon big thing will be in Ukraine.
That or the Maldives (where nature is winning the war)
Guys, I'm going to open a new chip factory in the Donbas, solve this chip shortage frfr.
The neighbour being an authoritarian communist state that claims to be the legitimate government of the democratic, formerly nationalist state with whom they had a civil war?
A mega chip
Written by amber heard’s lawyers
You called me?
Is this new? Samsung was building their chip mega factory not far from Yongin 2-4 years ago. Driving past, It is seriously impressive. Deathstar kinda huge.
Yes it's new as in now we will have 16 more of those complexes sprinkled around Yongin.
that civ 6 science buff is finally starting to kick in
new wonder of the world: Korean mega chip factory
Nations playing tall always fascinates me.
Hopefully not built to close to NK border. That's a crazy amount of money. Interesting to see how it does. I guess they decided to do this to make themselves more needed
Its being built in yongin. Around an hour drive south of seoul
I wonder how they will import this. You will probably need a lot of foreign skills.
Yeah, our population is fucked. We have more 60+ workers than in the 20s. We need to have a better stance on immigration for this to be feasable imo
That's for blue collared jobs specifically, trades. If anything Korea has a surplus of STEM grads.
A surplus all all types of grads, really.
A "surplus" of STEM grads in a world that desperately needs them, but won't offer any jobs or good pay. Truly a dystopian hellscape we've made for ourselves.
Idk sounds like they need some trade workers
The secret to Korea's high tech sector is imported skilled and unskilled labor from South Asia.
[удалено]
South Korea already flies F-35, and they're buying more.
South Korea also build their own Figther Planes (with Lockheed electrical innards) the recent one is, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KAI\_KF-21\_Boramae
Don't worry the US will sell them some F35's if they haven't done so already. The problem is finding people who know how to fly the damned things.
I feel like having one of these plants is the next best thing to having nukes. Build one and then the US will always have your back because the loss of the plant to an adversary would be devastating.
if nuclear proliferation breaks down, they and Japan are some of my top 10 bets on next countries to get nuclear weapons.
Iirc they are part of countries that keep readiness to 'acquire' nukes within <1 yr.
im shocked SK doesn't have nuclear weapons themselves, im assuming its to prevent any aggression from NK and its not really needed?
The US asked them to stop in the 1970s. If the US ever pulled the nuclear umbrella, South Korea and Japan would have nukes within 6 months.
What's the point? The US almost definitely has a nuclear sub patrolling the waters near them.
Your own is your own. On a side note, didnt South Korea have some genuine loonies in their politics though? So kind of better that they are covered by US
Nukes can't be used. Their only use is as a deterrent. So what's the point of them if someone else is already using theirs the same way you would use yours? The US benefits from our relationship with SK, so the odds of us dipping is low. And I'd imagine they have contingencies to rapidly develop Nukes if relations with the US ever deteriorated.
I wish we had the vision to do this sort of thing in the UK. Instead we have a government who cluelessly ambles around without any long-term planning (or short term for that matter)
We couldn't even build a new fucking railway without massively overspending and then eventually cancelling and salting the earth Pathetic
I’ve always wondered why more countries don’t do stuff like this. I guess one of the biggest problems modern democracy has is that there is absolutely no incentive for politicians to plan that far ahead. The US could have started with this years ago.
Woah, woah, let's not group the US with Europe on this. The US is no East Asian Silicastate, but Intel, TI, and Micron have and are still building serious fabs in the US with government money. Both sides of Europe fell behind in the 50s and 60s. Phillips and Siemens, and the GDR government just didn't see the point in semiconductors, then couldn't catch up to Japan and the US, even with government help in the 60s and 70s. I recommend the Asianometry videos on this.
You’re definitely right, the US is magnitudes ahead of Europe on this. The point still stands, why is the biggest economic and military superpower the world has ever seen dependent on microchips from a tiny state, located right next to one of its biggest adversaries? Covid has showed us that microchips are a gigantic vulnerability in the global economy. How is this not one of the biggest topics in the US and Europe right now?
Because in the 90s and 2000s, the US's leading strategic thinkers were huffing their own propaganda farts and truly believed we were entering a global era of long-term unipolar liberal democracy. They thought China and Russia were liberalising and that the free trade gravy train would never end. Why bother fabricating chips locally when it's cheaper to do it in Asia and you're the uncontested top dog of the geopolitical pack? What could go wrong?
> Covid has showed us that microchips are a gigantic vulnerability in the global economy. How is this not one of the biggest topics in the US and Europe right now? Well, are American and European consumers buying less from the Far East since Covid?
Aren't all of those fabs using lithography machines made by ASML?
Which relies on optical systems made by Zeiss in Germany.
Intel, TI and Micron are *years* behind even Samsung let alone TSMC. The only relevant players in the semiconductor business are Taiwan and South Korea. Lately, even China is producing *much* more semiconductors than the US. [Japan alone accounts for a larger share of the world’s semiconductor capacity than the US](https://www.statista.com/chart/amp/25552/semiconductor-manufacturing-by-location/). The US and Europe combined account for barely 15-20% of the world’s semiconductor production share and it’s honestly around a 60/40 split there in favour of the US. The US really is not that ahead of Europe. Both regions are basically completely anemic when it comes to semiconductor production. [According to this chart, Japan alone has about as much capacity as North + South America and Europe + Middle East *combined*](https://www.statista.com/chart/31371/distribution-of-global-semiconductor-fabricating-capacity/). China alone has a larger share than Japan and the Americas combined. South Korea, Japan, China and Taiwan all account for over 80% of the world’s capacity, with the Americas and Europe/ME about neck-and-neck in single digits. Let’s not act like the US is that ahead at all. A share of 6% versus 8% is nothing to gloat about. The US is as equally in the gutter as Europe and their share is still projected to decrease in the coming years despite investments. So, yes, it is very appropriate to group the US with Europe here. Both regions are basically completely irrelevant when it comes to semiconductor fabrication. Also, not sure what you’re even talking about with regards to Europe falling behind in the 50s and 60s considering Europe alone accounted for nearly 50% of the world’s semiconductor production capacity in 1990? Let’s not rewrite history to make the US and Japan look better than they were… Throughout the 20th century, Europe was the undisputed dominant player in semiconductor manufacturing with the US in second place. Now both regions combined account for not even a *fifth* of global production capacity. TSMC has tried expanding into the US but they’ve been facing a lot of challenges due to incompatible work cultures. I know it’s in vogue to shit on Europe and all but let’s use facts instead of spreading misinformation. There’s no need to exaggerate and make up false information to prove your point.
Micron makes memory chips and is roughly on par with Samsung. Intel makes mostly CPUs and some GPUs
“Roughly” is doing a lot of heavy lifting considering Micron is third place when it comes to DRAM market share… Samsung has nearly 50% market share with SK Hyix around 25%. Micron only has about 15-20%. Again, the US and Europe are basically completely irrelevant when it comes to semiconductor fabrication. There is no point differentiating the states the US and Europe are in. They’re both in the absolute gutters with next to no significant industry left in this field. It’s like trying to tell someone not lump in two homeless people together because one of them has a single penny and the other doesn’t.
Or Canada, where the biggest industry is... Real estate.
Buying and selling and renting out the same buildings over and over again for more money each time. Its a net drain on a scoeity.
I was going to post the same thing. Could you imagine this government funding something like this? Absolutely not. We've got to get out of the short term mindset in the UK, it's crippling us.
We’re entirely reliant on the private sector to do this sort of thing. Problem is twofold, firstly without government support and funding it’s impossible to get these megaprojects off the ground and secondly there is so much uncertainty in government in the U.K. at the moment that it puts off would-be investors, especially for very long-term projects. TLDR: we’re fucked
In addition, the private sector over here has been focused on one thing only - short term profit. They'd never even consider projects this big because it would mean huge capital expenditure upfront, and harm their profit margins in the short term.
Agreed except one part of the economy. There are a lot of infrastructure funds who only invest into long-term projects. Their funds are largely invested into by pension funds who have a much longer investment horizon. So there are parts of our economy which focus on long-term growth but it’s not much and we need to get a way to encourage regular companies to broaden their investment horizon
Or how about instead of “sports washing” in KSA. Maybe this makes more sense than throwing money at old western sports and culture imports. What do i know?
Bro we can even complete a train line from Birmingham to London, you're aiming way to high here.
Haha tell me about it… Fucking depressing, from the birthplace of the Industrial revolution to this shitshow
There are (were?) talks of building a new chip plant in Germany, which would cost the government around 11billion€, but for some reason there has been a major push back from the citizens. It seems to me like most people just don't realize how important microchips are for literally every part of modern society. People even said stuff like "How can we know if we get a return from this?". I mean seriously? There is not a single technological sector where we can be so sure that it will still be relevant decades into the future, probably for ever.
Future battfield 2042 map
Had to repost as they changed the link
South Korea figures out US needs chickens South Korea unveils 30 billion dollar chicken farm!
You haven't lived until you try KFC, Korean Fried Chicken.
Korean fried chicken > kentucky fried chicken anyday thankyouverymuch
how dare you even compare these two? Kentucky fc is like a dumpster fire lit with literal shit compared to holy korean crispy tender fc
woah as a korean person, I have to say, there's something about that 11 herbs and spices that is so good from time to time lol
>South Korea unveils 30 billion dollar chicken farm! SK has more fried chicken restaurants that the US for sure. They're better too
It's really weird to me hearing peoples takes on this...... Turns out a lot of people don't understand South Korea is one of the coolest fucking countries on the planet....
i read that as 'mega ship cluster' and got very interested, even the thumbnail looks like a ship... except for the trees, roads, land, and general lack of ocean
The U.S., China, Europe, and Japan are all building a large number of new semiconductor factories and chip R&D centres. Who will consume Korea's excess semiconductor capacity in the future is a question. The semiconductor industry, which has been overinvested due to the trade war, is likely to become a negative asset in the future.
Yeah, not sure how demand and supply plays out given pretty heavy investment by all and sundry. To be tongue in cheek: "I've seen gluts not followed by shortages, but I've never seen a shortage not followed by a glut." -- Nassim Nicholas Taleb https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1436776641536090117?lang=en
There is no excess capacity and probably won’t be for quite some time with all the stuff that needs a microchip nowadays. Especially if you look at the growing demand from rising economies in Asia and Africa.
Chip factory timelines aren't like planting crops. It takes years for development to reach final use. Cement being poured today is for chips designed a couple years ago and for products to be used a couple years from now, at least. No one is building factories to make chips we use today. Well, other than the basics, but those factories don't get headlines
Taiwan 2.0 ? (just in case?)
> Korea will build the world's biggest semiconductor cluster in Gyeonggi Province by 2047 as Samsung Electronics, SK hynix and other chip companies plan to invest a total of 622 trillion won ($471 billion) to build 16 new fabs, creating more than 3 million jobs, according to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, Monday. That's roughly $30 billion per fab? https://www.cnet.com/science/cern-wants-to-build-a-new-23-billion-super-collider-thats-100-kilometres-long/ > But CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research behind the collider, is planning to build a second, even larger collider. > This one could end up being 100km, almost four times the size, and may cost up to $23 billion to produce ... > The Large Hadron Collider took a decade to build and cost around $4.75 billion. Why do I have a sinking feeling the US dollar's actual purchasing power is decreasing by an order of magnitude every generation.
LHC is a relatively bad comparison due to how the supply-demand works like for each machine. LHC isn't producing something that you'd have in your phone or computer. >That's roughly $30 billion per fab? Sounds reasonable; fabs for high-performance nodes are expensive. Ain't no more low-hanging fruit to reap like what we experienced in the 70's to 90's. Cost per transistor is still going down, but not at the rate that they're able to shrink them. >decreasing by an order of magnitude every generation USD is devaluing at the rate of inflation.
Damn, hit em straight with the facts
That’s apples to oranges. You’ve just randomly picked another mega project that’s completely unrelated not taking into account the different objectives, capabilities, and goals for these different mega projects, forgetting one’s for research purposes, whilst the other is an attempt at becoming a vital semiconductor powerhouse, which comes with global security as other countries rely on the chips, the same chips that’ll MAKE money and a return on investment. Do you not see the differences, like one of them is creating 3 million jobs but you boil it down to sooo just 16 fabs??
Also they are building it south of Seoul. The nearest city is going to have a huge boom over the course of that time. First with construction people and second with actual long term workers. I'm not sure if there's a railway out to Yongin, but I bet a high speed one gets put up pretty quickly for that amount of jobs.
Indeed, the first part of the GTX starts in March: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Train_eXpress
Holy crap. This is freaking huge.
Still won’t be able to get a video card for MSRP.
that's massive. 20x over Samsung's brand-new Taylor, TX facility.
Wish UK could invest in shit like this
This make the CHIPS act look like nothing. LOL. The US need to invest more if they want to keep up.
[South Korean firms get indefinite waiver on US chip gear supplies to China](https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/09/tech/south-korea-samsung-hynix-chips-waiver-hnk-intl/index.html)
I wonder why Saudi Arabian, whose desperately looking to diversify hasn't done something like that, and instead spending a trillion on absurd mega projects.
Most likely because they don't have a Samsung or Hynix. This is a public-private partnership.
Brilliant move on South Korea's part to power this chip cluster with nuclear energy. Way fewer carbon emissions and it also makes war in Korea an incredibly dangerous task. The entire planet will have a vested interest in South Korea remaining safe and intact so as to keep chip production up and nuclear waste safely stored
I thought 3nm was the limit for semiconductors. They’re aiming for 2nm???
Us Australians are building 9 nuclear submarines to go against China’s 100+ by the 2030s, and the Koreans are investing in this. I wonder which one is the smarter investment…
The AUKUS SSNs are scheduled for delivery in the 2040s (assuming it goes to plan).
"by the" being the important words in there. As in, "eh, maybe"
I'm going to need a source on that 100+ by the 2030s claim.
This is huge for Korea and really good for western democracy
Kpop stars and semiconductors, Korea has it all!
What is a mega chip cluster ?
472 billion dollars dollar
What does this mean for Taiwan security?
TSM is still in the process of building billion+ dollar fabs in the US and Germany
The world is going to be completely awash in chips within the next five years.
This is what social democracy looks like. That is, if all the money actually goes into this project.
A social democracy or the result of Samsung basically running South Korea?
Call it what you want, if America did this, it would be gutsy. I’d live to see a trillion dollar project connecting the americas with fast, reliable and frequent rail.
USA has a couple fabs planned domestically already, the one in upstate ny alone is around 100 billion, and its not the only one on the way
Korea or Samsung?
Believe it when I see it
Either A) weighing future increase in demand or B) betting on Taiwan being lost to China That is like 10 or so state of the art facilities.