The money printing press that is chip maker TSMC

Re:The money printing press that is chip maker TSMC by joe_the_user on Monday January 17, 2022 @07:06PM (#29973179)

The only thing I'd add is "key industries" would be highly capitalized industries. Chip making is the largest scale, most highly capitalize industry in human history. Chip plants are the largest buildings in the world, suppliers for chip manufacturers are themselves large and highly capitalized.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The money printing press that is chip maker TSMC by duped on Monday January 17, 2022 @08:25PM (#29973774)

Two comparable industries are aerospace and nuclear energy (nuclear facilities cost 2-3x of a fab and nuclear weapons are on a different level of expense).

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The money printing press that is chip maker TSMC by khuey on Monday January 17, 2022 @09:56PM (#29974470)

Nuclear weapons are a lot easier than cutting edge semiconductors.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The money printing press that is chip maker TSMC by latch on Monday January 17, 2022 @08:18PM (#29973717)

How does it actually compare to other industries, namely defense, aerospace and oil. These are all capital intensive, and if you want to be generous re the term "building", some of those refineries and shipyards are gigantic.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The money printing press that is chip maker TSMC by retrac on Monday January 17, 2022 @09:35PM (#29974331)

> How does it actually compare to other industries, namely defense, aerospace and oil.

The $12 billion given as the cost for TSMC's new Phoenix fab would buy you approximately 1 new Ford-class American aircraft carrier or a ~10% share in Canada's oil extraction industry.

Chip manufacturing really is the industrial big leagues.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The money printing press that is chip maker TSMC by hyperbovine on Monday January 17, 2022 @09:54PM (#29974450)

> 1 new Ford-class American aircraft

And that's the bullshit, $30,000-toilet seat, parts-manufactured-in-every-congressional-district, Defense Contractor Special™ price. It should really buy you three or four aircraft carriers.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The money printing press that is chip maker TSMC by post_from_work on Tuesday January 18, 2022 @01:21AM (#29975783)

Yeah the Ford-class is obnoxiously overpriced. There is no way the key metrics of an aircraft carrier (sustained sortie generation rate, survivability, long-term maintenance) improved by the leaps-and-bounds necessary to justify tripling the price compared to a late-model Nimitz-class.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The money printing press that is chip maker TSMC by Denvercoder9 on Tuesday January 18, 2022 @04:35AM (#29976965)

> tripling the price

The last Nimitz-class carrier, CVN-77, cost $6.2 billion and was ordered in 2001, while the Ford cost $13 billion and was ordered in 2008. After adjustment for inflation in that period, it's only about 1.5x as expensive.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The money printing press that is chip maker TSMC by Jensson on Monday January 17, 2022 @08:26PM (#29973781)

Communist states managed aerospace, defence and oil. But they failed to make modern computer chips even after trying, instead they started importing computers from capitalist countries.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The money printing press that is chip maker TSMC by ralfd on Tuesday January 18, 2022 @05:54AM (#29977434)

Even worse: There was an export embargo for computers by the West, so the soviet union had to reverse engineer western chips and manufacture their own.

Inspired by an Apple II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agat_(computer)

clone of the Intel 8086 CPU https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K1810VM86

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The money printing press that is chip maker TSMC by lumost on Monday January 17, 2022 @07:49PM (#29973504)

True, other good recent examples include Moderna, and Biontech.

[ Parent | on HN ]