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If i were TCMS, i would not invest in Germany. But as a german, living in Germany, i am happy that they consider an investment in Germany.
by alexanderklein 5y ago
If i were TCMS, i would not invest in Germany. But as a german, living in Germany, i am happy that they consider an investment in Germany.
- cpach 5y agoWhy not? From my POV Germany seems good at manufacturing. E.g. Siemens. And cars.
- RicoElectrico 5y agoProbably red tape?
- 988747 5y agoIn general investment in the "old" EU countries is less profitable due to higher taxes, salaries, and other costs. That's why most of the European companies choose to build their new factories in Central Europe: Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania, etc. TSMC should do the same.
- RicoElectrico 5y agoI wish :) There's no infrastructure or know-how in Poland regarding microelectronics. The only related field is ASIC design - a few offices of American companies like Synopsys (>100 employees), Silicon Creations (a few dozen employees), Cadence (a few dozen as well). Intel has a massive R&D site but they don't do hardware design here, maybe except FPGA.
- tester34 5y agoI'd bet that if they were opening actual edge fab in Poland, then the priest would appear to sprinkle EUV machine
- cromka 5y agoSomewhat related though, that Poland has the only memory module fab in EU: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilk_Elektronik https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilk_Elektronik https://www.goodram.com/en/ https://www.goodram.com/en/
- adrian_b 5y agoIn the more distant past, i.e. up to 1990, all the Eastern European countries, including Poland, had semiconductor plants and many people, both engineers and workers, with good know-how. However, after 1990, the plants have been closed and most of the skilled people have gone to USA, Canada or Western Europe. So for the present time you might be right, it could be difficult to find enough experienced workforce, unlike many years ago.
- bserge 5y agoYou can find it in the west... But then you have to pay them a lot heh
- raverbashing 5y agoThis is more relevant when you're building lower technology items (toasters, gasoline engines, etc) Personal cost in semi factories is much less relevant (and you actually want the higher-cost employees because they know how to drive the multi-billion dollar machines)
- lispm 5y agoTSMC would go to Dresden if it decides to invest in Germany. Bosch just opened a new chip fatory in Dresden. https://www.bosch.com/stories/bosch-chip-factory-dresden/ https://www.bosch.com/stories/bosch-chip-factory-dresden/ Globafoundries and Infinion are there, too. https://gfdresden.de https://gfdresden.de https://www.infineon.com/cms/dresden/en/ https://www.infineon.com/cms/dresden/en/ The Dresden/Saxony area is said to have in semiconductor manufacturing "2,300 companies with roughly 60,000 employees active in the industry in Saxony and generating revenues of some €16.5 billion last year." Apple invests heavily in a Chip design center in Munich. https://www.apple.com/uk/newsroom/2021/03/apple-to-invest-over-1-billion-euros-in-germany-with-new-munich-campus/ https://www.apple.com/uk/newsroom/2021/03/apple-to-invest-ov... Customers for the TSMC chips would be in the automotive industry. Tesla builds a new EV factory in Brandenburg near Berlin... Volkswagen has several factories working on current and future EVs, ... for example the ID.3 is being manufactured in Dresden, too. https://www.volkswagen-newsroom.com/en/press-releases/id3-starts-series-production-the-transparent-factory-in-dresden-to-become-the-home-of-the-volkswagen-id-6788 https://www.volkswagen-newsroom.com/en/press-releases/id3-st...
- thrwyoilarticle 5y agoGerman engineering gave us BER
- DangerousPie 5y agoWhat does the (mis)management of a public infrastructure project have to do with Germany's attractiveness as a base for manufacturing?
- zorked 5y agoEverything?
- thrwyoilarticle 5y agoPlants don't pop up overnight to the obliviousness of the state. This proposal brings into consideration vast amounts of money, tax revenue, and employment opportunities that the government will care about. All with unique infrastructure requirements and long roadplans. To flip the question around: what does the ability to produce executive cars have to do with Germany's ability to fix the problem Intel have been stuck on for the better part of a decade?
- ng55QPSK 5y agoThe lead of construction for BER was a dutch company
- thrwyoilarticle 5y agoImtech? It was their German branch. Regardless, at least they could rely on Siemens and Bosch to nail the fire system, PG BBI to do the planning, and GMP for the architecture.
- Bigpet 5y agoLabor laws would still be sort of OK for a high-tech factory like TSMC. But I think environmental policy would be really hostile to a large fab. Politics seems really fickle about it too. For "old school" industries like coal they try to bend over backwards to make exceptions, but when it comes to new players especially local politics will have little reservations to tanking your multi million dollar projects. This can obviously be a huge benefit to the population, but if I were in the position to choose a location I'd factor that in heavily.
- corty 5y agoProblem with new players imho is the high level of corruption in certain parts of government and industry. While you cannot usually bribe a policeman in Germany, construction, permitting and industry subsidies and politics are heavily corrupt. Old-school industries are propped up by an old-boys-network and revolving doors between political parties, unions, administration and industry. Many politicians who did well by the coal industry for example got their comfortable retirement position in the boards of energy giants. Same for the car industry. Parts of those industries are even still owned by the state or federal government, e.g. Volkswagen is partially owned by the state of Lower Saxony and Germany. That is also possibly the reason Tesla is in such trouble over their new factory. While they are a car manufacturer, and a modern, hip and green one at that, which politics openly hails as good, secretly they are damaging established interests by the traditional German car manufacturers and their allies in high positions. So the administration will nod and smile, but try to find ways to hinder them.
- LeanderK 5y agoI think Tesla is just in such trouble because they were building their factory without having all permits. They were allowed to do that, but had to get all the permits in the end. As I understood it Tesla then build stuff that are not usually allowed, I suspect Tesla was trying to establish facts and thereby trying circumvent regulation. I don't really see the german government here at fault. They were eager to get the factory up and running and were working with Tesla to get it built quickly. If Tesla wants to build first and get the permits later, it also has to retroactively improve things when they were not up to code. You can't just get permits because you've built something.
- lazyjones 5y agoSiemens was good 30 years ago. More recently, they seem a little bit too tied up with politics, hiring ex politicians, getting caught bribing (e.g. in Greece). It's not a pretty sight IMO and I wouldn't want to work there.
- martin_a 5y agoAs a German myself: Why would you not invest? Infrastructure, state of mind? I'd really love to see more high-tech companies invest here, after we've managed to kill the solar companies... :-/
- gallexme 5y agoAs a German Permits, the government is V slow. And labor is expensive. Also sounds expensive to use all the water they need, since they would need to clean it up very good and align the temperature with the rest of the attached rivers or what they use. And other climate relevant regulations.
- ChemSpider 5y agoGermany has plenty of water. Certainly more than Taiwan.
- sabjut 5y agoThat's what Elon Musk said too about the Brandenburg Facory ("Doesn't look like a desert so it must be ok") But environment groups are saying that ground water levels have been decreasing for years and the factory would demand too much from the water network. So who is in the right here?
- bildung 5y agoI assume Tesla was just trying to be cheap. As soon as the water supplier said Teslas expected demand (372 m³ per hour) wouldn't be possible, the demand suddenly shrank to 243 m³ per hour. So my guess is that Tesla tried to reduce capex by employing more wasteful water usage but now has to work more efficiently. https://www.quarks.de/umwelt/wie-problematisch-ist-der-bau-von-teslas-gigafabrik/ https://www.quarks.de/umwelt/wie-problematisch-ist-der-bau-v...
- tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago
- hans1729 5y agoGermany is positioned excellently for chip production, why would you consider that a bad investment?
- sichtlinkair 5y agoGenuinely curious why Germany's position is excellent for chip production?
- lispm 5y agoBecause it has one of the two largest clusters for that industry in Europe: Dresden/Saxony. The other one is Grenoble, France. https://www.dw.com/en/bosch-is-the-new-star-in-silicon-saxony-microchip-cluster/a-57767731 https://www.dw.com/en/bosch-is-the-new-star-in-silicon-saxon...
- bildung 5y agoThere are already quite a few plants (Globalfoundries, Bosch, Infineon, TI, Osram, ...) so the qualified work force is there. Germany is also pretty heavy on high tech production, so there's a big existing supplier network. Key suppliers like ASML are nearby (Both the Netherlands and Germany are part of the Schengen Agreement, so logistics-wise almost as open as cross-state transports within the US).
- samus 5y agoMinor nitpick: Schengen does not matter, membership in the customs union does. For shipping, availability and quality of infrastructure is more important.
- rsynnott 5y agoSchengen and in the customs union is still a little better than non-Schengen and in the customs union (eg Ireland), but yeah, the customs union is the main thing.
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- raverbashing 5y agoCountries that have semi factories in Europe: Germany, Italy, France, Ireland, Netherlands, UK, Austria, Belgium, and Hungary (with different capabilities and sizes) So it would be natural that it ends on the countries with existing factories and expertise. The German (or even we might say, "north-european") self-deprecation gets old sometimes...
- mejutoco 5y agoI have never heard of german self-deprecation. Do you have any examples of it?
- kome 5y agoGerman self-deprecation? I wish! My impression is that Germans feel to be top notch no matter what. I rarely heard self-deprecation from them, humble brag is what come closer.
- raverbashing 5y agoYeah it's not so obvious or evident. What you're mentioning do happen. But there's a bit of a cultural theme to "play it low" and "be humble"
- odiroot 5y agoI wouldn't be as harsh, but indeed that decision is a bit weird. They cannot really count on cheap labour, or "friendly" economic incentives. And seeing the case of Tesla factory, it's not so easy and fast. One great thing about Germany is the central location within EU with good logistics overall. Not sure it matters for semiconductor manufacturing.
- bildung 5y agoI wouldn't say Teslas Brandenburg factory shows a problem with red tape per se, but it does show that ignoring it won't save you time in Germany. Also, salaries usually only account for low single digit percentages of opex in high tech production, so ready availabilty of the needed specialists is probably more important.
- Heliosmaster 5y agoFor those companies involved in semiconductor industry, where machines cost 100M usd EACH... People are just a rounding error. Should we hire 100 more? 1000 more? Whatever
- suction 5y agoKeep in mind that for a high-profile engineer or lead who expects to make 400k at least per year, the company would actually have to pay him 800k to make that much net. Labor cost in Germany is sky high. That times a thousand is not insignificant.
- lentil_soup 5y agoAccording to [1] if you make 400k a year your employer has to pay 413k in total [1] https://www.brutto-netto-rechner.info/gehalt/gehaltsrechner-arbeitgeber.php https://www.brutto-netto-rechner.info/gehalt/gehaltsrechner-...
- datenarsch 5y ago
- ChemSpider 5y agoGermany is a great place to invest. So is most of Western Europe. The #1 thing you are looking for is _stability_ and a good engineering job market. Both is available. For this kind of automated high-tech manufacturing, nobody cares about salaries. They are <<1% of the cost.
- reader_mode 5y agoIs Germany really stable considering Tesla story ? Chip making isn't clean by any standard.
- suction 5y agoThe Tesla story had two sides - Tesla was aware about the high standards that would be applied to their factory, but somehow thought "we're Tesla so they'll create all kinds of exceptions for us if we pay the right politicians". Turns out not every country is as corrupt as Tesla's home country.
- corty 5y agoMaybe. But I think all the politicians Tesla could have bought are already owned by their German competitors.
- detaro 5y agoThere aren't any competitors in the state, and there has been basically no politically influential pushback, so that line of argument doesn't really make sense.
- corty 5y agoThere is no overt pushback. That doesn't mean that there is none. And the presence and activity of the usual environmental NIMBY organisations like Deutsche Umwelthilfe, NABU, BUND, etc. point to at least some covert opposition, since those organisations happily serve as fronts for non-environmental interests. And state politics, especially in the east, is rife with people using it as a stepping stone to the federal level. Famously there once were more prime ministers from the west governing the east than eastern-born ones.
- emsy 5y agoAnother German here, I agree. The regulatory hurdles are insane, the sentiment among the population is anti-business and I see the chance that the Green Party will be in the Next government as another negative point for businesses.
- DaedPsyker 5y agoWhile I get the sentiment, regulatory issues would be only one factor to decide and in some cases not that big (medical for example is heavily regulated the world over). The fact that you guys have a large pool of talent for advanced manufacturing (for this kind of thing probably the biggest consideration), and central location with easy access to all other parts of Europe were the likely elements to win out. Don't sell yourself short.
- Leherenn 5y agoIt's not like it's very different in the rest of western Europe, and eastern Europe probably doesn't have the know-how to do it. If you want to be in the EU, Germany is far from the worst place.
- sveme 5y agoAah, the self-deprecating German, so common it's almost a meme now. Remember, grass is always greener on the other side.
- nt2h9uh238h 5y agoGermany is hands-off the best country to invest in all of Europe.
- lazyjones 5y agoAs a German, you'll pay for the subsidies with your taxes.
- RustyConsul 5y agoTesla has had a million issues come up with attempting to build a factory in Germany. It's a regulation nightmare; Latest issue; snakes and trees.