Germany Spends Big To Win $11 Billion TSMC Chip Plant (reuters.com) 35
TSMC is committing $3.8 billion to establish its first European factory in Germany, benefiting from significant state support for the $11 billion project as Europe aims to shorten supply chains. Reuters reports: The plant, which will be TSMC's third outside of traditional manufacturing bases Taiwan and China, is central to Berlin's ambition to foster the domestic semiconductor industry its car industry will need to remain globally competitive. Germany, which has been courting the world's largest contract chipmaker since 2021, will contribute up to 5 billion euros to the factory in Dresden, capital of the eastern state of Saxony, German officials said.
"Germany is now probably becoming the major location for semiconductor production in Europe," German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said, less than two months after Intel announced a 30 billion euro plan to build two chip-making plants in the country. "That is important for the resilience of production structures around the world, but it is also important for the future viability of our European continent, and it is of course particularly important for the future viability of Germany."
TSMC said it would invest up to 3.499 billion euros into a subsidiary, European Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (ESMC), of which it will own 70%. Germany's Bosch and Infineon and the Netherlands' NXP (NXPI.O) will each own 10% of the plant, which will make up to 40,000 wafers a month for cars and industrial and home products when it opens in 2017. The factory will cost around 10 billion euros in total.
"Germany is now probably becoming the major location for semiconductor production in Europe," German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said, less than two months after Intel announced a 30 billion euro plan to build two chip-making plants in the country. "That is important for the resilience of production structures around the world, but it is also important for the future viability of our European continent, and it is of course particularly important for the future viability of Germany."
TSMC said it would invest up to 3.499 billion euros into a subsidiary, European Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (ESMC), of which it will own 70%. Germany's Bosch and Infineon and the Netherlands' NXP (NXPI.O) will each own 10% of the plant, which will make up to 40,000 wafers a month for cars and industrial and home products when it opens in 2017. The factory will cost around 10 billion euros in total.
Excellent move (Score:4, Insightful)
The big subsidies are unfortunate, but advanced semiconductors are critical to the EU. A very smart move for Germany and I hope other countries there will encourage investment.
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These companies love to announce that they are going to spend $billions$ building new factories, but they rarely follow through. (How's that big Foxconn factory in Wisconsin coming along?)
Exactly! We've already seen TSMC using this playbook [tomshardware.com] here in Arizona. What makes the Germans think they're going to fare any better?
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Let's hope that German Engineering we hear about means we get some solid chips that overclock like a mofo right off the line. They won't be cheap though...lol. :(
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But how much lignite is it going to take to run that thing?
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Relax. Germany gets about 46% electricity from renewables.
https://www.reuters.com/busine... [reuters.com]
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Relax. Germany gets about 46% electricity from renewables.
https://www.reuters.com/busine... [reuters.com]
No one is doing enough to reduce or mitigate GHGs & Germany has a target of 80% by 2030, which itself isn't sufficient but they're going to fail that one by a wide margin too.
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I find that pessimism is counterproductive.
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I find that pessimism is counterproductive.
I was optimistic & actively doing my part from 1985 - 2015 & all it meant was me having a tougher time getting through life.
In the early years I was dragging recyclable trash on city buses to dropoff sites.
I don't have 30 more years left & I'm done killing myself when so many still don't give a damn & when elected officials continue to make soothing noises while actually doing what amounts to almost nothing.
Great for Europe, but huge mistake in America (Score:3)
America has bits and pieces, but in particular, we are seriously lacking in the final steps. We need to push this. Building chips factories here does no good when China can simply say no to imports and Japan, S. Korea, India, etc simply tell their companies to buy local parts and keep the chains going.
The entire North America needs to push all of this together with robotics.
In the meantime, Congrats to Germany. You did good.
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Europe owns the most critical part of the world's semiconductor manufacturing chain in the form of ASML.
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Its just the one company, and the EU doesn't own it. You could buy some yourself.
https://finance.yahoo.com/quot... [yahoo.com]
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He means that if Europe wants to close its borders and take control of the factory, USA is in trouble. It doesn't matter if you own a peace of factory if you can't access it. This is obviously quite unlikely at the moment, so I would not see it as an urgent problem.
Also those machines shoot liquid metal droplets with lasers and guide the resulting radiation with lenses and mirrors using mathematical formulas that are impossible to solve into target area that is smaller than wavelength of visible light. Best
Chip Gods (Score:2)
TSMC who art in Taiwan,
hallowed be thy name.
Thy chips come.
Thy will be done
In Germany as it is in Taiwan.
Give us these chips our daily chips,
and forgive us our trespasses,
we might shoot those who trespass against us,
and lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us a chip supply chain.
For thine are the chips and the power, and the glory,
forever and ever.
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This hymn is banned in mainland Taiwan.
"Mainland Taiwan"??
You mean the PRC?
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Exactly what will they be making there?
the abstract says exactly what and how much exactly they expect to be making. yw.
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Probably the same thing they made in the US. Storage facilities.
They don't learn, do they? (Score:2)
Remember Nokia Bochum? Anyone?
Nokia produced cellphones in Germany for as long as the subsidies flew freely. No subsidies and they instantly shut down the plant and moved it to Romania.
How many times do you have to touch the stove to know that it's hot?
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Having access to cutting-edge semiconductors is a bit more important to Germany than having access to $10 Nokia candy bar phones.
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The point is that TSMC likely doesn't give any more fucks about Germany than Nokia. As soon as the gravy train dries up, they'll move on.
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I think a semiconductor foundry is much more difficult than Nokia's electronics assembly line. Lithography machine are precision systems, they might lose the fine precision tuning when dismantled/remounted and you struggle to restore the process resolution. Also by moving outside country you lose the local technicians that learnt all the quirks of that particular machine along the years, an amount of practical knowledge that cannot be transferred easily. Overall I think it's better to make a new foundry tha
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You made an excellent point, which I agree with. But as test321 points out below, "a semiconductor foundry is much more difficult than Nokia's electronics assembly line".
Germany's car industry is a major part of its economy, and it was hit badly by the recent chip shortages. According to TFS (which I just read), the new foundry will address this issue directly.
Ambitious schedule (Score:2)
They really have to hurry up if they want to open the new semiconductor plant in 2017.
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Europe has plenty of high speed rail.
Getting a train to travel 88 miles/hour isn't as far-fetched as it might have seemed in 1885.
impressive timeline (Score:2)