9 ms·
Britain buys semiconductor factory for defence purposes
- riiii 2y agoWasn't the last British owned semiconductor factory in the UK sold to Chinese investors within the last year it so. The last steel furnace closing too?
- spacebanana7 2y agoThe last of the steel industry is Indian/Chinese owned and is in the process of closing down [1]. There’s actually 23 semiconductor fabs in the UK, presumably with a diversity of owners [2]. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/business/article/2024/sep/10/british-steel-industry-job-cuts-port-talbot-wales https://www.theguardian.com/business/article/2024/sep/10/bri... [2] tech uk report: https://pixl8-cloud-techuk.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/prod/public/ecffcd0f-c2ea-4a21-bb56715ce4d90281/0622-techUK-UK-Semiconductor-industry-BEIS-Select-Committee.pdf https://pixl8-cloud-techuk.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/prod/p...
- johnfarrelldev 2y agoIt's not closing down, from the article they are moving to newer furnace technology which requires less workers to run.
- Reason077 2y agoCorrect. There are two major steel producers still operating in the UK: British Steel's Scunthorpe steelworks in the North East of England, and Tata Steel's Port Talbot steelworks in South Wales. Both have announced plans to convert from blast furnaces to modern electric arc furnaces. This will greatly reduce emissions - they are among the largest industrial polluters in the UK (along with the Drax wood-burning power station). But conversion to arc furnaces also means that fewer workers will be required.
- musiciangames 2y agoAs I understand it, Britain will no longer be able to produce steel from iron ore, only from scrap. Which doesn’t sound good strategically.
- Reason077 2y agoIt actually makes sense strategically. Britain already has more steel than it will likely ever need, in fact it's one of the world's major exporters of scrap metals. But it depends on imports for iron ore. Why import iron ore (and coking coal, for that matter) when the resource you need to make better, more valuable steels more efficiently is already here?
- leg100 2y agoBecause it's questionable whether that's even possible.
- Reason077 2y agoOf course it is possible! Around 25% of the world's steel is already produced by electric arc furnaces. 100% in some countries, and over 70% in the USA. The UK exports 7-8 million tonnes of scrap steel every year, while producing about 5 million tonnes in blast furnaces. There's more than enough feedstock to replace all the UK blast furnace steel production with EAFs and still have some left over.
- musiciangames 2y agoDoes that apply in the case of war, which was intended by ‘strategic’? I’m reminded of Australia’s supply of iron to Japan before WWII. Which earned future prime minister Robert Menzies the nickname ‘Pig Iron Bob’. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1938_Dalfram_dispute https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1938_Dalfram_dispute
- 2y ago
- tonetegeatinst 2y agoSmart to buy a preexisting fab. From what I understand via from various blogs and YouTube research, building a Feb even if your not doing cutting edge tech like tsmc, say going with an openpdk, still requires that special infrastructure. You need seismic dampening for the fab and to be located in a low activity region preferably, you need cheap water that can be refines, you need affordable electricity, and then supporting infrastructure to get the chemicals, the water, the machines delivered. Doing all of this isn't cheap and I'd bet is a lot of paperwork. Imagine going to some rural area and trying to build a fab, chances are the town has no clue what your impact or needs are and you would be spending lots of money to basically speed up development of the area. Side not to Semiconductors fab, where do you even buy one. Sure you can buy talent or machinery and then hire engineers to help get everything working, but if you wanted to for some reason buy a fan that already exists, say just the fab location and the equipment, how do you know what company to approach that might even consider selling. Who can even afford these purchases except massive fortune 500 company's breaking a piggy bank, or some massive credit institution, which I doubt would even do this because it would probably be a massive loan to any buyer. Seems like you need to have the money to build part of a fab if you want to buy one, idk who would even consider loaning that amount of money to a third party.
- spacebanana7 2y ago> Seems like you need to have the money to build part of a fab if you want to buy one, idk who would even consider loaning that amount of money to a third party Governments are happy to subsidise fabs, and VCs are even happier to invest in AI flavoured semiconductors if you can market it that way.
- quacksilver 2y agoAlso, they bought a fab, and by extension a bunch of knowledgeable employees who can work it and are eligible for UK security clearances. Once the knowledge of the workers is gone then it would be really hard to spin something up in country, and being the UK we would likely be forced to buy stuff from the US (or go to the far east anyway). If you built a fab in country then you would probably have to get staff from an existing fab to help run it and iron out any issues and gradually switch them out for local staff.
- thebruce87m 2y ago> The acquisition is expected to secure up to 100 skilled jobs in the North East and safeguard a critical part of the UK’s defence infrastructure. The “North East” in the context of the UK and “the North East of England” are not interchangeable.
- moomin 2y agoIt makes no sense but it’s common parlance. It’s like “Northern Rivers” in Australia meaning “an area on the east coast south of Queensland”. Similarly “The North East” rarely means an area containing Aberdeen, which would make more sense.
- thebruce87m 2y agoMy experience is that only people in England think it is common parlance. If you are taking to someone in Scotland about the uk and mention the “north east” with no further context, they are not thinking about England.
- dboreham 2y agoNorth East of London, obviously.
- mmoskal 2y agoDon't get me started on Midwest in the US...
- SllX 2y agoComing from the Best Coast I’d call it the Mideast if that wasn’t already taken. I begrudgingly accept calling it the Midwest for only that reason.
- gpjt 2y agoI'd love to know more about what you mean by that -- is it that the North East of England (which this factory is certainly in, it being in County Durham) is not the same as the North East of the UK (which I guess would be Aberdeen)? Or is there more to it than that?
- Havoc 2y agoWhat lith node is that?
- 6SixTy 2y agoAll I can find is that the plant works with 6 inch Gallium Arsenide wafers.
- osnium123 2y agoThe most advanced optical lithography for 6 inch wafers is I-line (365 nm wavelength). For compound semiconductor fabs, they can use e-beam lithography which allows for shorter gate lengths. Some companies are also clever about taking I line lithography and patterning tricks to make smaller features for gates.
- Dylan16807 2y ago> Some companies are also clever about taking I line lithography and patterning tricks to make smaller features for gates. Well that's the critical question. Is that being used? Lithography using 193nm light varies from 130nm down to 10nm, if not wider. 365nm probably doesn't vary as much, but just saying the wavelength doesn't give a clear answer about the node size.
- osnium123 2y agoA lot of the tricks used on 193 immersion tools for lithography scaling requires sophisticated deposition and etch processes which are not available on old 6 inch tools. Given that this factory was used for faceID parts, I suspect it was making VCSELs or other optoelectronics. These components don’t require fine lithography so it’s probably a 0.35 um capable fab.
- dboreham 2y agoEveryone who worked for Inmos rolls their eyes..
- tonyedgecombe 2y agoYes, it's difficult to see how this won't end up needing constant infusions of cash whilst delivering very little to nothing.
- LinuxAmbulance 2y agoWhy is that?
- tonyedgecombe 2y agoLack of competitive pressure. Management by civil servants who have no stake in the business nor real understanding of the sector. Interference from politicians.
- momoschili 2y agoSeems like it was previously owned by Coherent, like some kind of III-V (specifically GaAs mentioned) photonics processes there in the past. This kind of technology is typically quite useful for lasers, LEDs, or potentially image sensors as well. Many LIDAR sensors and even light sources can notably depend on III-V semiconductor sensors. Also widely used by the telecom industry. Outside photonics definitely useful for high speed electronics, but that would probably take more process development to get going.
- RyJones 2y agoGen III night vision relies on it; I don't know if they ever made it there, tho.
- momoschili 2y agoI didn't realize that! That seems like the most practical application from a defense perspective.
- hx833001 2y agoThey were closing because their major contract had been with Apple for FaceID components https://www.euronews.com/business/2024/05/27/apple-changes-leaves-uk-microchip-plant-facing-bleak-future https://www.euronews.com/business/2024/05/27/apple-changes-l...
- zombiwoof 2y agoHere come the warm jets
- librasteve 2y agoIt’s hardly gonna be mass production with 100 staff, hardly worth mentioning. I think Motorola had a fab in the South West once upon a time. And Inmos in Newport in the South East.
- leg100 2y agoNewport is in South Wales.
- librasteve 2y agoYeah, Newport is in the South East of Wales.
- youngtaff 2y agoMotorola’s plant was in Swindon, not sure what’s there now Newport, South Wales has a fab that specialises in silicon for power electronics
- neximo64 2y agoso it wasnt to save them from insolvency?
- kragen 2y agowhat a load of crap 'With global semiconductor demand rising, this move positions the UK to meet future technological needs, including advancements in artificial intelligence, quantum technologies, and 6G'? advancements in artificial intelligence depend on mass production of 4nm silicon cmos, not 100 people doing gallium arsenide for high-speed analog. 'quantum technologies' is vague enough to not be literally a lie (transistors depend on quantum physics to work, as do wires) but in this context it's clearly designed to trick people into thinking 'quantum computing' which is also unrelated to what these guys are doing
- adastra22 2y agoQuantum sensors rely on very precise control of doping conditions. Also these kinds of alloys are used in photonics computing, which is used to interact with qubits. Sounds like that’s what they’re talking about here.
- kragen 2y agosure, photonics could make sense. what do you mean by 'quantum sensors'? are there any sensors which are not quantum?
- adastra22 2y agoIn the sense in that literally everything in the world is quantum, sure. But no, I mean sensors which derive their input channel from explicitly quantum effects. Gravometers, magnometers, atomic clocks, etc. are often quantum sensors.
- kragen 2y agopossibly you meant 'gravimeters'; a gravometer is evidently a 19th-century density measurement instrument. plenty of gravimeters are as purely classical as anything electrical is, and those that prominently feature quantum effects are superconducting gravimeters. i don't see how a gaas fab is relevant to either mems gravimeters or superconducting gravimeters! similarly 'magnometers' are not a thing, and magnetometers are generally either superconducting or pretty classical, so i am getting the feeling you are just trolling me to see if you can get a reaction by posting stuff without any consideration for whether it is true or not
- stainablesteel 2y agomicrochips aren't going to do much in a fire fight, they should probably re-industrialize
- ineedasername 2y agoSmall arms dumb weapons aren’t going to do much by themselves either. Anything more than a rifle? Chips
- jldugger 2y agoI think it's the [artillery shells](https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/ukraine-crisis-artillery/ https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/ukraine-...) that's been a bottleneck thus far in Ukraine. It's like NATO keeps around 3 serious war days worth of ammunition on stock.
- whimsicalism 2y agoin an actual great power conflict, it will be more about cruise missiles and drones - at least initially
- rightbyte 2y agoThey estimate that radiation poisoning and starvation will prevent the armed forces from running out of shells.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- _heimdall 2y agoThis sure feels like yet another sign that major global powers are all gearing up for war. This could be as benign as a government ensuring that the 100 jobs aren't lost, but given everything going in in both Europe and the Middle East it sure seems like more than saving such a comparatively small number of jobs. They could have just signed large(r) contracts with the company to financially secure the company, acquisition is a stronger play when the government needs more direct (and more private/secure) control.
- rappatic 2y agoOff-topic as far as the article above goes, but do you think it's more likely for global(-ish?) war to erupt because of Europe/Middle East compared to Taiwan? A lot of the discussion around global war pre-2022 was for the late 2020s when China attempts to invade Taiwan. I personally doubt the major global powers will allow the conflicts in Israel and Ukraine to escalate to Western countries actually engaging in combat (but they do seem to want to personally defend Taiwan).
- sudjdkdn 2y agoThe most likely reason for war is to move the competition with China onto a military footing rather than an economic one. The US would win the first, and that result would help the second. If you’re seeing western powers gear up for war, it might be to secure their economic future rather than a just intervention
- FpUser 2y agoSo they would start a war and kill people for economy's sake? In this case what make them any different from any other war criminals?
- knodi 2y agoYa just don’t buy EU or UK would start ww3. There are much smarter and better economics and influence strategies to play out that are much less bloody to its own population.
- chasil 2y agoWhy gallium arsenide? It's quite fussy. "This facility is the only secure site in the UK capable of manufacturing gallium arsenide semiconductors, a vital component in military platforms such as fighter jets."
- pstrateman 2y agoIt's much more effective at extremely high frequencies used in compact radars, like the kind used on fighter jets. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallium_arsenide#GaAs_advantages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallium_arsenide#GaAs_advantag...
- amy-petrik-214 2y agoYea fo sho', and it was the Cray 3 supercomputer actually based on gallium arsenide at the time, meaning faaasssttt clock rates, about 6x faster than compeititors in terms of Hz. So that would be something like a 50 ghz processor today, wild
- chasil 2y agoMy phone is faster.
- heeton 2y agoYour phone operates roughly 10x slower in terms of Hz.
- ben_w 2y agoAccording to page 10, the Cray 3's clock speed was 500 MHz: https://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/2010/02/102685990-05-01-acc.pdf https://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/20... Phones beat that by a factor of x2-x4. And has 1-16 processors of 1 gigaflop each; depending on how much precision you want, a phone can beat that by a factor of just over x2000.
- 2y ago
- zx8080 2y agoIsn't it not how market works, by paying good price and allowing fabs to compete for it?
- zx8080 2y agoAnyone care to share why downvoting?
- PHGamer 2y agowhats the process node it can do. im suprised a fab built in 1991 is stil valuable. the us is trying to build a 5nm fab in arizona and by the time its done well be at 1 or less. granted still probably worth it since it would only be about 7 years old process but 1991. thats gotta be old unless they kept upgrading it
- nine_k 2y agoMaybe it's not about processors at all, but about camera sensors, lasers, high-speed analog electronics, high-power semiconductor devices, etc. These are also really important parts of military gear.
- pjmlp 2y agoThe way things are going having any kind of chips is more valuable than whatever build process they use. Same applies to maybe starting having again some kind of national OSes, and programming languages, not subject to export regulations.