4 ms·

Closure of 3M chip coolant plant could upset semiconductor sector

63 points by tomohawk 5y ago

DSingularity 5y ago
Is out true that this one factory is the source of 80% of all semiconductor manufacturing coolant? This sounds horrendous.
- javajosh 5y ago
  Sure, but I bet there are a lot of things like that. It's probably even a "reverse power law", and something that neoliberal capitalism is actually really good at dealing with. I bet right now this minute there is a lot of money talking about what it would take to spin up an alternative, not because they're nice, but because there are big profits available when demand is high, and supply low.
  - wonnage 5y ago
    I remember reading something similar with China’s dominance of rare earth elements - the US has plenty of mines but it costs too much to mine them and the entire rest of the supply chain is in China, so there’s not much domestic demand
    - Borrible 5y ago
      Rare earths aren't rare, they're dirty. But the Chinese don't care. One reason why they can offer them cheaper. No one cares how the stuff is produced there. Expendable environment, expendable worker. https://www.heritage.org/defense/commentary/rare-earth-elements-arent-rare-theyre-vital-national-security https://www.heritage.org/defense/commentary/rare-earth-eleme...
  - arrosenberg 5y ago
    You did a great job of making the case against neoliberal capitalism. Why should anyone tolerate a system that incentivizes hostage taking? It makes far more sense to have a working government that goes "hey, we need to diversify this sector" and creates the proper incentives for capital to chase.
    - csdvrx 5y ago
      > It makes far more sense to have a working government that goes "hey, we need to diversify this sector" and creates the proper incentives for capital to chase. Except governments have no incentive to look at such opportunities in advances. A capitalist company has a profit motive to look at everything that can go wrong, and react accordingly and quickly. See the MTT GPU as an example of such response: they bought PowerVR when it made sense to. Now GPUs are in shortage because there are priced too low, because they have only 2 manufacturers who don't want to get a bad reputation of "predatory pricing". New entrants may care less, and even a GPU that's only competitive to the 1070 may sell if it's more easily available. I do not think a bailout of PowerVR would have had such results. It may also have come with strings attached, reducing the flexibility needed.
      - arrosenberg 5y ago
        > A capitalist company has a profit motive to look at everything that can go wrong, and react accordingly and quickly. My suggestion also involved capitalist companies. If what you are saying us true, why is the supply chain so messed up? Why didn’t the laissez faire proponents foresee this and react? There is plenty of profit to be made, where are the new entrants? Im not familiar with the specific company mentioned, but GPUs are in shortage because the market became concentrated (the end result of neoliberal economics) and a supply shock inevitably broke it. Everything you mention about pricing is a post hoc effect of that. A more interventionist government would see that and use antitrust laws and subsidies to create a more robust marketplace, while neoliberals go “this is fine” while the room is in fire.
sschueller 5y ago
You can't tell me they didn't have enough time to switch to an alternative. Such environmental regulations takes time and don't just show out of the blue. Maybe we should be asking how toxic is this coolant that such a plant was forced closed by new regulations?
- ceejayoz 5y ago
  “If we refuse to do anything, they’ll have to back down.”
- tomohawk 5y ago
  It would be great if you could dig up more information to back up this assertion instead of just assuming motives and facts not in evidence.
- nickff 5y ago
  Creating a new option, certifying it for different processes, and getting it into full production takes a long time and costs a lot of money. The semiconductor industry has made a variety of inconvenient changes (I.e. photoresists) in the past for the purpose of reducing toxicity. I suspect that this is a more challenging problem than you think.
  - madengr 5y ago
    Yep, I know of a microwave laminate (i.e. Teflon PCBs) whose yield dropped to 10% after a certain solvent was banned. The substitute does not work worth a shit.
- gopalv 5y ago
  > Maybe we should be asking how toxic is this coolant that such a plant was forced closed by new regulations? The article says PFAS, but I'm going to guess it is Flourinert[1]. The whole thing about fluorinated hydrocarbons is that it can't burn through oxidation. Probably a very hard thing to swap out without compromises on fire hazard or corrosion. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluorinert https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluorinert
BaseballPhysics 5y ago
For context, this has been going on for quite some time. As this article notes, the problem itself has been known for 4-5 years now: June 2021: https://www.brusselstimes.com/news/belgium-all-news/175007/pfos-clean-up-agreement-with-3m-is-not-legal-says-mp https://www.brusselstimes.com/news/belgium-all-news/175007/p... > Flashback: In 2017, a chemical known as PFOS was found to have been discharged from the 3M plant into the soil. The discovery was made when works started on the Oosterweel project, a massive public works project designed to complete the Antwerp ring-road on the western side, to link the port to the motorways network. > The discovery was made by the contractor BAM, now known as Lantis, and an agreement was reached with 3M on how to proceed. Goodness knows how they could go 4-5 years only to discover that the planned remediation, which they were only set to start putting in place in July of last year, was not allowed under their environmental regulations. Next, September 2021: https://www.startribune.com/3m-under-fire-in-belgium-over-company-s-handling-of-pfas-pollution/600097157/ https://www.startribune.com/3m-under-fire-in-belgium-over-co... > The notice essentially warns 3M that Flanders deems the company to be violating its environmental regulations, and demands that 3M engage with its regulators to discuss remediation, abatement and the creation of a fund to pay for environmental damages and potential health damages. November 2021: https://www.morningstar.com/news/dow-jones/202111014178/3m-suspends-some-belgium-production-after-pfas-emission-ban https://www.morningstar.com/news/dow-jones/202111014178/3m-s... > 3M Co. on Monday said it has idled some production at a plant in Belgium after the Flemish environmental agency issued a safety measure barring emissions of certain toxic chemicals from the facility.
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  >Goodness knows how they could go 4-5 years only to discover that the planned remediation, which they were only set to start putting in place in July of last year, was not allowed under their environmental regulations. Because what is and isn't allowed depends a lot on whether your paperwork crosses the bureaucrat's desk just before lunch on Monday or just after lunch on Friday. They probably had all sorts of preliminary oks and then got denied at the 11th hour because internal political winds changed in whatever office they were dealing with.
  - deleted 5y ago
laydn 5y ago
At this point, it feels like chipmakers are just eager to find yet another excuse to slow down production. This plant closure appears to have been in the works for several years so it is unfathomable that the chipmakers are not prepared for this.
- BaseballPhysics 5y ago
  I would not underestimate the power of denial mixed with a healthy dose of arrogance and stupidity. Based on what I've seen in the corporate world, I think it's far more likely that chip makers convinced themselves that, given how critical this plant is to the chip supply chain, either 3M would finally address the issue or the Belgium government would blink, and so continued to operate as usual. Frankly, I expect 3M thought the same, hence their half-assed and illegal attempt to fix the issue.

63 points by tomohawk 5y ago

Is out true that this one factory is the source of 80% of all semiconductor manufacturing coolant? This sounds horrendous.

javajosh 5y ago
Sure, but I bet there are a lot of things like that. It's probably even a "reverse power law", and something that neoliberal capitalism is actually really good at dealing with. I bet right now this minute there is a lot of money talking about what it would take to spin up an alternative, not because they're nice, but because there are big profits available when demand is high, and supply low.
- wonnage 5y ago
  I remember reading something similar with China’s dominance of rare earth elements - the US has plenty of mines but it costs too much to mine them and the entire rest of the supply chain is in China, so there’s not much domestic demand
  - Borrible 5y ago
    Rare earths aren't rare, they're dirty. But the Chinese don't care. One reason why they can offer them cheaper. No one cares how the stuff is produced there. Expendable environment, expendable worker. https://www.heritage.org/defense/commentary/rare-earth-elements-arent-rare-theyre-vital-national-security https://www.heritage.org/defense/commentary/rare-earth-eleme...
- arrosenberg 5y ago
  You did a great job of making the case against neoliberal capitalism. Why should anyone tolerate a system that incentivizes hostage taking? It makes far more sense to have a working government that goes "hey, we need to diversify this sector" and creates the proper incentives for capital to chase.
  - csdvrx 5y ago
    > It makes far more sense to have a working government that goes "hey, we need to diversify this sector" and creates the proper incentives for capital to chase. Except governments have no incentive to look at such opportunities in advances. A capitalist company has a profit motive to look at everything that can go wrong, and react accordingly and quickly. See the MTT GPU as an example of such response: they bought PowerVR when it made sense to. Now GPUs are in shortage because there are priced too low, because they have only 2 manufacturers who don't want to get a bad reputation of "predatory pricing". New entrants may care less, and even a GPU that's only competitive to the 1070 may sell if it's more easily available. I do not think a bailout of PowerVR would have had such results. It may also have come with strings attached, reducing the flexibility needed.
    - arrosenberg 5y ago
      > A capitalist company has a profit motive to look at everything that can go wrong, and react accordingly and quickly. My suggestion also involved capitalist companies. If what you are saying us true, why is the supply chain so messed up? Why didn’t the laissez faire proponents foresee this and react? There is plenty of profit to be made, where are the new entrants? Im not familiar with the specific company mentioned, but GPUs are in shortage because the market became concentrated (the end result of neoliberal economics) and a supply shock inevitably broke it. Everything you mention about pricing is a post hoc effect of that. A more interventionist government would see that and use antitrust laws and subsidies to create a more robust marketplace, while neoliberals go “this is fine” while the room is in fire.

sschueller 5y ago

You can't tell me they didn't have enough time to switch to an alternative. Such environmental regulations takes time and don't just show out of the blue. Maybe we should be asking how toxic is this coolant that such a plant was forced closed by new regulations?

ceejayoz 5y ago
“If we refuse to do anything, they’ll have to back down.”
tomohawk 5y ago
It would be great if you could dig up more information to back up this assertion instead of just assuming motives and facts not in evidence.
nickff 5y ago
Creating a new option, certifying it for different processes, and getting it into full production takes a long time and costs a lot of money. The semiconductor industry has made a variety of inconvenient changes (I.e. photoresists) in the past for the purpose of reducing toxicity. I suspect that this is a more challenging problem than you think.
- madengr 5y ago
  Yep, I know of a microwave laminate (i.e. Teflon PCBs) whose yield dropped to 10% after a certain solvent was banned. The substitute does not work worth a shit.
gopalv 5y ago
> Maybe we should be asking how toxic is this coolant that such a plant was forced closed by new regulations? The article says PFAS, but I'm going to guess it is Flourinert[1]. The whole thing about fluorinated hydrocarbons is that it can't burn through oxidation. Probably a very hard thing to swap out without compromises on fire hazard or corrosion. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluorinert https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluorinert

BaseballPhysics 5y ago

For context, this has been going on for quite some time. As this article notes, the problem itself has been known for 4-5 years now: June 2021: https://www.brusselstimes.com/news/belgium-all-news/175007/pfos-clean-up-agreement-with-3m-is-not-legal-says-mp https://www.brusselstimes.com/news/belgium-all-news/175007/p... > Flashback: In 2017, a chemical known as PFOS was found to have been discharged from the 3M plant into the soil. The discovery was made when works started on the Oosterweel project, a massive public works project designed to complete the Antwerp ring-road on the western side, to link the port to the motorways network. > The discovery was made by the contractor BAM, now known as Lantis, and an agreement was reached with 3M on how to proceed. Goodness knows how they could go 4-5 years only to discover that the planned remediation, which they were only set to start putting in place in July of last year, was not allowed under their environmental regulations. Next, September 2021: https://www.startribune.com/3m-under-fire-in-belgium-over-company-s-handling-of-pfas-pollution/600097157/ https://www.startribune.com/3m-under-fire-in-belgium-over-co... > The notice essentially warns 3M that Flanders deems the company to be violating its environmental regulations, and demands that 3M engage with its regulators to discuss remediation, abatement and the creation of a fund to pay for environmental damages and potential health damages. November 2021: https://www.morningstar.com/news/dow-jones/202111014178/3m-suspends-some-belgium-production-after-pfas-emission-ban https://www.morningstar.com/news/dow-jones/202111014178/3m-s... > 3M Co. on Monday said it has idled some production at a plant in Belgium after the Flemish environmental agency issued a safety measure barring emissions of certain toxic chemicals from the facility.

throwaway0a5e 5y ago
>Goodness knows how they could go 4-5 years only to discover that the planned remediation, which they were only set to start putting in place in July of last year, was not allowed under their environmental regulations. Because what is and isn't allowed depends a lot on whether your paperwork crosses the bureaucrat's desk just before lunch on Monday or just after lunch on Friday. They probably had all sorts of preliminary oks and then got denied at the 11th hour because internal political winds changed in whatever office they were dealing with.
- deleted 5y ago

laydn 5y ago

At this point, it feels like chipmakers are just eager to find yet another excuse to slow down production. This plant closure appears to have been in the works for several years so it is unfathomable that the chipmakers are not prepared for this.

BaseballPhysics 5y ago
I would not underestimate the power of denial mixed with a healthy dose of arrogance and stupidity. Based on what I've seen in the corporate world, I think it's far more likely that chip makers convinced themselves that, given how critical this plant is to the chip supply chain, either 3M would finally address the issue or the Belgium government would blink, and so continued to operate as usual. Frankly, I expect 3M thought the same, hence their half-assed and illegal attempt to fix the issue.