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It costs over $5 billion dollars to build a single fab. I can only assume the more complicated chips costs 3-4 times more. It also takes over three years to bu
by azemetre 5y ago
It costs over $5 billion dollars to build a single fab. I can only assume the more complicated chips costs 3-4 times more.
It also takes over three years to build the plant itself. We aren't even talking about the people you'd even need to employ, design, and run the place (highly specialized labor).
This is such a huge burdensome cost. It's not even a guarantee that that such an investment would even make sense once 5-years pass.
I do think there should be more fabs and having them located in one area of the world is already playing out to be a geopolitical nightmare. It's obviously going to become a national security issue for nearly every industrialized country on earth over the next decade if not sooner.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- lovich 5y agoIn the article it says they are committing to buying the entire production lines output. Isn't that just committing to spending as much money as building the factories + the profit of the vendor, but with no control over the actual production ?
- andrewxdiamond 5y agoIt’s very unlikely that the deal says “we will buy everything you sell us no matter what.” It’s probably a typical purchasing agreement with tolerances and QA, just paid in advance. Thus there is still a lot of risk being taken on by the fabs. The production could go sour, geopolitics could change, resources might be unavailable, etc. The purchasing companies are externalizing all of this risk by purchasing the products instead of the company.