US fab construction costs twice as much, takes twice as long as Taiwan (www.tomshardware.com)
from Amoxtli@thelemmy.club to technology@lemmy.world on 19 Feb 18:37
https://thelemmy.club/post/22841415

#technology

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infinitevalence@discuss.online on 19 Feb 19:16 next collapse

Also because we dont have the construction experience of building FAB’s, and we have different building regulation and standards.

25% tariffs on steel also wont make it any cheaper.

Dkarma@lemmy.world on 19 Feb 20:02 next collapse

Also because Taiwan has basically slave labor like China. Also things cost more here cuz our workers have benefits and things like rights.

Eheran@lemmy.world on 19 Feb 23:53 next collapse

What benefits and rights are that supposed to be?

K1nsey6@lemmy.world on 20 Feb 00:45 next collapse

1950 wants its tired anti china tropes back

finitebanjo@lemmy.world on 21 Feb 05:18 collapse

Noting that China has been almost universally hated for 75 years is actually the most anti-China post today, good job.

sunzu2@thebrainbin.org on 20 Feb 00:59 next collapse

cuz our workers have benefits and things like rights.

Who is gonna tell this stable genius how US construction actually work?

👀

Pyr_Pressure@lemmy.ca on 20 Feb 05:06 collapse

You saying things like OSHA and fall arrest harnesses and PPE don’t affect construction speed in the US at all?

FreakinSteve@lemmy.world on 20 Feb 05:50 next collapse

Fun fact: Taiwan doesnt want its workers dying or disabled either

Pyr_Pressure@lemmy.ca on 21 Feb 03:18 collapse

My comment had nothing to do with Taiwan, just the quote that sunzu2 said about how US construction actually works.

sunzu2@thebrainbin.org on 20 Feb 14:40 collapse

I am saying that original commenter is talking out of his.

Also, referencing OSHA here shows that you don't understand how a construction site functions. Sure there is regulations but lax enforcement, extensive usage of suncotnrwctors and less than legal labour makes all of that enforcement merely a theater.

sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works on 21 Feb 14:05 collapse

If you think it’s bad here, try other countries. I don’t know about Taiwan specifically, but lots of countries have even worse enforcement.

sunzu2@thebrainbin.org on 21 Feb 14:54 collapse

A lot of countries have it better but I don't see my dear cuntry men strive for that...

Cope harder haha

FreakinSteve@lemmy.world on 20 Feb 05:49 next collapse

What rights are these of which you speak?

rottingleaf@lemmy.world on 20 Feb 06:08 collapse

Those with which you don’t have record suicide rates at workplace, probably, with workers jumping out of windows, the solution to which was to put grids like in prison. Talking of Foxconn.

I get it, people have it hard everywhere, but some have it harder, and between American and Chinese workers the relation is clear.

FreakinSteve@lemmy.world on 20 Feb 06:10 next collapse

The difference is that Americans want rights destroyed.

CookieOfFortune@lemmy.world on 20 Feb 18:30 collapse

But America has a higher suicide raterate?

rottingleaf@lemmy.world on 21 Feb 07:26 collapse

Compared to what? I didn’t name a specific country, but you can pick some and let us compare.

rottingleaf@lemmy.world on 20 Feb 06:09 next collapse

You are correct, but people always want to believe their enemy’s enemy is their friend, and if their enemy is ideological, then that enemy’s enemy must be their ideological friend, and same with morality. That’s never so.

chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world on 20 Feb 06:44 next collapse

There’s a big cultural difference. Taiwanese workers, like Chinese, Korean, and Japanese workers as well, have a much higher tolerance for long work hours and less pay.

All of these East Asian cultures have long-standing social norms against complaining and refusing to work hard. It’s a collectivist culture of work that puts the success of the company ahead of the individual’s interests. In return, companies tend to be loyal to workers so it’s very common to stay at one company for your whole career.

We westerners used to have similar values back in the 1950s and earlier. That all changed during the counterculture.

TheBeege@lemmy.world on 20 Feb 18:09 next collapse

I live in Korea. How do you define “loyal to workers?”

sunzu2@thebrainbin.org on 21 Feb 12:08 collapse

All of these East Asian cultures have long-standing social norms against complaining and refusing to work hard.

Pathological Culture of Bootlicking

Disgusting

PanArab@lemm.ee on 21 Feb 12:41 next collapse

“Right to work”

lka1988@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 21 Feb 19:55 collapse

You’re getting downvoted, but I work in the industry (GF, Intel, TI, TEL, Screen) and have heard horror stories from people who have worked on TSMC and even Samsung sites.

rottingleaf@lemmy.world on 20 Feb 06:10 next collapse

Yes, and with all that combined twice as expensive and twice longer is kinda fine. Provided it will function.

EDIT: Except if ever TSMC Taiwan foundries’ monopoly is no more, this means loss of a very specific kind of shield of Taiwan’s de facto independence, which may cause a lot of interesting developments.

[deleted] on 21 Feb 12:31 collapse

.

Substance_P@lemmy.world on 19 Feb 19:22 next collapse

Yep that 24/7 round-the-clock construction and experience in Taiwan surely would contribute significantly to the difference.

scarabic@lemmy.world on 19 Feb 19:32 next collapse

“Free trade” means letting everyone do what they’re best at and then exchange the goods they produce. This is so that everybody is focused on what works best in their country, everything is done as well and as cheaply as possible. However this makes no guarantee about any one country’s ability, at the end of the day, to stand alone without dependencies on others for vital goods. In fact if anything it works against that.

I don’t know why Trump talks about globalism as some Democrat thing. It’s his own party that has been driving for free trade since forever.

Amoxtli@thelemmy.club on 19 Feb 21:14 next collapse

Trump is a former democrat. Many in his administration are former democrats. Trump isn’t a liberal. Both Republicans and Democrats are liberal. Trump is a nationalist. Trump is not a liberal Republican.

Snowstorm@lemmy.ca on 19 Feb 23:25 next collapse

Free trade is the best system for 90 % of an economy. I will take a dump on Trump any day, maybe twice , but having a small capacity to build your own silicon chip is mandatory in case of a military conflict. Covid wasn’t a planned military conflict and first world economies couldn’t produce mask, gown… and luckily the virus wasn’t so deadly and only a small % of the population died.

I am Canadian… by any free trade perspective it looks like we should buy our milk from countries with less harsh winter… but then we would be on our knee if an idiot decide to bully us with a duty tax.

There should be free trade for 90 % of a country gdp and elected officials can change their list of excluded 10 % every few years.

scarabic@lemmy.world on 19 Feb 23:27 next collapse

Are you saying that 10% of an economy is vital goods and the other 90% is not? Not that I have any numbers on this but 10% seems low to me.

Snowstorm@lemmy.ca on 19 Feb 23:34 collapse

10 % isn’t based on anything but let’s imagine: 2-4 % military 1 % communication infrastructure, media and unbiased information 2-4 % healthcare 2-4 % food. You quickly get to 10%. Too big and you loose the benefit of free trade.

scarabic@lemmy.world on 19 Feb 23:55 collapse

Could you try doing the same with the 90%? if life’s essentials are so easily paid for I am wondering what you think the rest is going to?

Jikiya@lemmy.world on 20 Feb 00:35 collapse

I don’t know about the numbers you present, but absolutely agree that some industries are just worth supporting, from a government perspective. Cannot be reliant on a geopolitical enemy for goods that allow your country to continue to function.

I think Trump losing us allies is a travesty, but there’s no guarantee during a global conflict you can get items from said allies.

rottingleaf@lemmy.world on 20 Feb 07:29 next collapse

All abstract ideas are good, and those with less assumptions are more abstract, but the problem is - nobody wants purely abstract ideas.

Pretty Victorian conditions in factories producing all those nice things we have, for example, would not be acceptable in USA.

Which means that this abstract idea is somehow mixed and divided with a border with another abstract idea.

Differently in one place and in another.

OK, I’m using a boring and long way to say that some things have to be balanced. Bad labor conditions allow cheaper production, skewing competitive balance. Tariffs or something like that can in theory balance it out back again.

EDIT: And yes, both globalism and American conservatism and what not are only in appearances divided along party lines, in fact they seem to be evenly split. Like with hedge funds, that’s what makes your two-party system stable.

CyberMonkey404@lemmy.ml on 21 Feb 05:04 next collapse

“Free trade” means letting everyone do what they’re best at and then exchange the goods they produce

If that were the case there would not be Plaza accords, dismemberment of Angstrom and the absolute annihilation of industry in the post-soviet states. “Free trade” is and always has been a fanciful banner for wealth extraction

electric_nan@lemmy.ml on 21 Feb 06:15 collapse

“Free trade” means big countries dominating smaller ones. In what way can a small Caribbean nation compete with the US for example? Say they have a self sustaining economy. They have farms to feed their people, and textile mills to clothe them. Free trade opens their markets up, and they are quickly overwhelmed by the mega corps and their economies of scale. Now local industry is driven out of business or subsumed by foreign competitors. Maybe tourism? Multinationals buy up all the hotels, beaches and restaurants. Locals get minimum wage jobs serving and cleaning. Any attempt at “protectionism” incurs penalties under the free trade agreements.

scarabic@lemmy.world on 21 Feb 18:05 collapse

Well, Taiwan and Singapore are able to be competitive in the world market, despite being very small and lacking major resource advantages or big militaries. They do this by developing very sophisticated expertise and pressing the few very particular advantages they have.

electric_nan@lemmy.ml on 21 Feb 18:27 collapse

There are exceptions of course, but they are often less about “finding a niche”, and more about politics. Taiwan is an important client state of the US for geopolitical strategy. Such relationships can include more favorable trade deals. I don’t know much about Singapore except that that it’s all about the finance “industry”. Seems like it’s the place where Eastern and Western billionaires can make financial transactions with each other.

scarabic@lemmy.world on 22 Feb 01:06 collapse

Taiwan absolutely found a niche. Its manufacturing capability is what makes it a strategic ally for the US.

Singapore’s niche is more like several niches from financial services to precision manufacturing and medical research. But it all runs on their skilled workforce. Not “politics.”

A niche will be based on whatever you have. If you have nothing but cheap labor, that’s not great, but it is something. To sell that labor to wealthy foreign corporations isn’t just getting dominated by them, it’s how China has raised millions out of poverty.

Being poor and undeveloped is a shitty hand to try to play, but that doesn’t change the game. Use what you have. Find what you’re best at.

electric_nan@lemmy.ml on 22 Feb 01:54 collapse

I’m saying Taiwan was able to develop its niche due to its strategic (geographic) interest to the US, not the other way around. China has raised millions out of poverty via cheap labor, yes. However, the reason is that its size allows it to maintain ownership of the profits, which are reinvested in China.

DaCrazyJamez@sh.itjust.works on 20 Feb 04:57 next collapse

For now.

buzz86us@lemmy.world on 20 Feb 05:50 next collapse

Global foundries has a fab nearby, and all they produce are those chips for the old obsolete cars put out by Ford

SkybreakerEngineer@lemmy.world on 20 Feb 11:05 collapse

Not everything has to be latest gen CPUs, there will always be a market for 555 timers and ESP32s

buzz86us@lemmy.world on 20 Feb 12:12 next collapse

Except these are the empty headed sensors that trigger the check engine light despite the engine running just fine

Flocklesscrow@lemm.ee on 20 Feb 14:12 next collapse

“Capitalism breeds innovation”

Wispy2891@lemmy.world on 20 Feb 21:22 next collapse

Isn’t the check engine light simply a timer and not an actual sensor? Programmed to light at least once a year and at least every 5k miles

sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works on 21 Feb 14:04 next collapse

The check engine light can trigger for a host of reasons, one of which is routine maintenance like oil (5k miles these days). To know what’s causing it, you need to check the codes.

On most cars, if it blinks when starting up then goes away, it’s time to change the oil. If it stays on, it’s past time and/or there’s another sensor tripping.

Don’t ignore the check engine light. It takes like 30 sec to diagnose at any auto parts store, so just drop by and ask for a free scan if you don’t have a reader or don’t want to take it to a mechanic.

lka1988@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 21 Feb 19:51 collapse

one of which is routine maintenance like oil (5k miles these days) […] On most cars, if it blinks when starting up then goes away, it’s time to change the oil. If it stays on, it’s past time and/or there’s another sensor tripping.

The “check engine” light will never illuminate for an oil change reminder. If the vehicle is equipped as such, it’ll have a separate “maintenance reminder” light.

It takes like 30 sec to diagnose at any auto parts store,

Pulling codes ≠ diagnosing

If you’re taking it to a parts store to pull the codes, get the specific codes and nothing else. Don’t listen to the parts store guys, they are there to sell you parts.

sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works on 21 Feb 20:02 collapse

One of my older cars (2006) did trip the check engine light for oil changes IIRC. I could be mistaken though.

Regardless, checking the codes is always a good idea, never assume.

Don’t listen to the parts store guys, they are there to sell you parts.

Absolutely. But pulling the code is absolutely the first step to figuring out what went wrong. Sometimes it directly indicates the issue, and sometimes it trips due to another issue. I take the code, do a little research, and if I’m not confident in my own diagnosis (or it’ll be a costly repair), I’ll take it to a mechanic.

But don’t just sit on the check engine light. Figure out what it is and address it. In my state, you can’t pass emissions testing w/o having a clear check engine light (and yes, they check if you cleared it) or apply for an exemption, so we at least need to take care of it by then.

lka1988@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 21 Feb 20:30 collapse

100% on all points. I used to be a mechanic, and I DIY 99% of my vehicle’s needs (except windshields, tires, and full alignments - simply for lack of equipment). Very important to get the codes, because, for example, a P0456 could be caused by something as simple as a loose gas cap (95% of the time), or something could be wrong with the evap system.

Though I’m curious what car you had that tripped the check engine light like that… 🤔

sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works on 21 Feb 20:35 collapse

Again, I could be mistaken, but I thought it was my Toyota minivan. My other Toyota (2007 Prius) definitely has a “maintenance” light, and the minivan also occasionally threw check engine lights due to the fuel sensor (often tripped with low fuel in the tank), so I could honestly just be misremembering.

lka1988@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 21 Feb 22:08 collapse

Was it a Sienna, by chance? I have a 2008 Sienna with an ominous-looking maintenance reminder light.

sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works on 21 Feb 22:23 collapse

Yup, Sienna.

lka1988@sh.itjust.works on 22 Feb 00:15 collapse

Nice. Appears mine is currently illuminated 😅

<img alt="" src="https://sh.itjust.works/pictrs/image/8f83e651-f80a-4f00-8945-cb2b74b87e47.jpeg">

lka1988@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 21 Feb 19:45 collapse

No… That’s the oil change indicator. Different lights.

JordanZ@lemmy.world on 21 Feb 06:34 collapse

A lot of modern cars can appear to be ‘running just fine’ but underneath the covers it’s pulled timing, altered fuel trims, etc. to appear normal and/or avoid damage but the computer stills knows that’s not a normal situation and alerts you to the problem. Unless you hook a scanner up and actually find out what the idiot light I telling you then you can’t be sure if it’s a false positive or not.

sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works on 21 Feb 13:59 collapse

Exactly. Modern cars are great at compensating for poor maintenance, but that doesn’t solve the problem.

Maintain your cars properly and they won’t need to compensate like this, meaning you’ll get better fuel economy and largely avoid costly repairs.

dance_ninja@lemmy.world on 21 Feb 04:27 collapse

Plus, these have to be automotive grade, which requires a higher tier of durability. Not a lot of profit margin to be made on those sorts of devices.

PanArab@lemm.ee on 21 Feb 06:48 next collapse

If you thought GPUs were pricey now. At least the rest of the world can still buy from Taiwan.

BastingChemina@slrpnk.net on 21 Feb 13:30 collapse

“A country with experience in fab construction can build one faster and cheaper than a country with no experience”

Yeah, not really surprising