Samsung considering investing billions in US chip plant
Samsung Electronics Co. is deliberating an investment into a chip-making factory that could cost up to $13 billion.
thehill.com
Samsung $13 Billion Chip Factory in the USA?
- Thread starter SubLGT
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thehill.com
How much does it cost to build 1 chip mfg line?
About $1B brick and morter (lotta stainless lines for chemicals, clean rooms, voltages).
About $3B for SEMI, Surface Prep, Deposition, Etch, CMP and Test.
And then you need people...
About $1B brick and morter (lotta stainless lines for chemicals, clean rooms, voltages).
About $3B for SEMI, Surface Prep, Deposition, Etch, CMP and Test.
And then you need people...
They already know where they want the factory at I bet. They name a few other states in order for states to fight over tax breaks, incentives and subsidies. If I was in charge of this at Samsung, I'd add Salem, Oregon to the list and remove New York.
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New York is a tease and I find it smart business. These guys are wise sharks. Cuomo will have someone offer heavy incentives to come to NY. Guessing a graduated tax break over a decade or so. He needs the positive jobs in a failed state. Samsung then uses that to strong arm the already tax light states.
Other side of the coin, with what has been done already from the executive office of the presidency, why would any business want to invest THAT kinda capital in the USA? Uncertain but definitely increased taxes are coming and unknown environmental red tape....skeptic of the move.
Other side of the coin, with what has been done already from the executive office of the presidency, why would any business want to invest THAT kinda capital in the USA? Uncertain but definitely increased taxes are coming and unknown environmental red tape....skeptic of the move.
I'm not so sure even now that there are enough votes in either the House or Senate to raise taxes like that. Republicans are only 3 shy in the House and most people don't know that, thanks to the media being silent about it. And there are a couple of Dems on shaky ground in the Senate, so it'll be hard to pass it. So I'm going to predict that the current tax structure survives. Especially if the economy slides.
I think Samsung is smart, but will change my mind on that if they actually land in NY. Even the entrances are hard to get into with all the folks flooding out.
I think Samsung is smart, but will change my mind on that if they actually land in NY. Even the entrances are hard to get into with all the folks flooding out.
They already have a pretty big chip fab in Austin TX. There is a lot of relatively cheap land (and good road access) adjacent to the current Samsung fab. Considering the tax situation, I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't expand their presence in Austin. That is why Tesla is building their new assembly plant in Austin (and talking about building a new battery plant as well), and the tax situation is why Elon is now living in Austin.
I have the feeling the Samsung US Fab will be the same cash grab as Wisconsin’s Foxcon big screen factory
I do not know the electric supply structure of the areas that are in consideration, but chip manufacturing requires a fair amount of electric power. The air cleaning equipment is a big part of it.
I'm kinda surprised, not that I follow it closely. I thought most of the manufacturing was done overseas due to labor costs. Material costs, I'm not sure if they are that different. Maybe taxes overseas are creeping up (land prices maybe?), and they are hedging bets that shipping costs are not going to be going down.
Hopefully it brings more jobs than the Foxconn failure in Wisconsin.
Which is why they are commonly located near hydro or other cheap reliable power sources.
In a few cases they have their own power plant on campus
Samsung is likely going to be tied at the hip with TSMC processes, if anything they are hoping Samsung is friendlier to US $$$ than the lesser known TSMC
Fabs are useless however without a large number of related talent and supply chain industries nearby meaning the true potential locations is like quite small.
Semiconductor design and manufacturing: Achieving leading-edge capabilities
As chips get smaller and competition increases, semiconductor companies need a new strategy for semiconductor design and manufacturing.
Add to this 9 out of 10 subsidized technology factories never materialize, foxcon has scammed at least 8 areas for cash to build without a single factory going up.
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The Foxconn con was/is more of a land grab, getting the government to kick people off of their land (primarily multi-generational farm land), and getting state/county taxpayers to pay for massive infrastructure improvements (water, sewer, roads, and electricity), increasing the land's value astronomically. Look at where this land is, right on I94 halfway between Chicago and Milwaukee, and just outside of Racine and Kenosha. This is prime real estate, ripe for development. Foxconn is going to make a killing on this investment. I personally don't think that Foxconn ever intended to build a large manufacturing facility on this land. It was/is all a con IMO.
Furthermore, anyone involved in this debacle could have done a minimum of research and found out the Foxconn has done this sort of thing in the past... in Vietnam in 2007, in Brazil in 2011, in Pennsylvania in 2013, in Indonesia in 2014, and just last year in Maharashtra, India. Wisconsin taxpayers have already spent more than $400 million on this con, largely on land and infrastructure.
4WD
$50 site donor 2023
Man, and just when I was ready to build a business in Kenosha
Geopolitical risk. Disaster Recovery.
Basically, if all your egg is in the East Asia basket, all it take is a war between country A and country B, with country C in the cross fire and country D siding with one and get hit with another, your company is wiped out.
As we can see with Fukushima and the pandemic (there is a fab in Wuhan, a few fabs near Seoul, a fab in Yokkaichi, a few fabs in Hsinchu), all it take is one area down to wipe out the world economy.
Labor cost is related to local cost of living. Shanghai and Shenzhen are getting expensive, enough that some of the manufacturing decided to go back to Taiwan or venture to Vietnam. I don't think India is ready yet but Vietnam is catching up fast.
The other thing is the local eco system though. Those low cost manufacturing build up some specialists that actually are better than the 1st world. Some people I know have been working on one thing, only one thing, for 10 years (i.e. adhesive between chips and case, or focusing on light leakage on LED screen). Practice makes perfect so they have been getting even better than the guy who taught them decades ago.
These days I heard it is between 10B to 20B. The most expensive thing is the lithography tool, ASML EUV I heard is 120M each.
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