7 ms·

Germany squandered so much money on nonsense, when they could have simply driven the few kilometers over to Eindhoven and bought an ASML machine for "Silicon Sa

Germany squandered so much money on nonsense, when they could have simply driven the few kilometers over to Eindhoven and bought an ASML machine for "Silicon Saxony". Sure, it would have taken years and years and serious commitment by the government and private sector to make that a successful move. But instead of putting in the hard work with a clear vision for the future, we mostly spend our time whining and wailing. It's a shame.

danielbln 8mo ago
The only forward facing government that actually had a drive to change anything useful for the future broke apart with internal squabbles, with a big part of it by the market liberals torpedoing things left and right. And now we're back to a government of stand still, like we did the almost two decades before. We get what we deserve.
- Flatterer3544 8mo ago
  This standstill mostly started happening when the capitalism took hold too deep and wide, look at Sweden and its golden age that lasted until all the restrictions on capitalism were silently removed. While capitalism is a good model, it needs to be kept balanced, restricted.. Shareholder primacy is ruining everything, too much influence in politics from too many external sources.
- throwaway_20357 8mo ago
  Not sure what you're talking about. The last "forward facing" government was about 50y ago, the last one at least driving meaningful reforms almost 25y ago. To me it seems the more Europe got integrated, the more Germany lost the plot.
jorvi 8mo ago
High-end chips should be more of a EU concerted effort rather than every country for itself. The problem is that unlike Airbus, which (highly inefficiently) can be made in multiple countries, you can't really spread out parts of a fab that way. The most you can do is fab machines + chips + chip packaging. Netherlands already has fab machines and in packaging there isn't a high margin. That leaves chips, and you can be sure that whoever gets the fabs, the other EU countries will throw a shit fit and demand counter investments to compensate. And on top of that there is also regional animosity. So even if it makes logical sense to pop the fab down in the middle of the blue banana, it won't make political sense because France and all of South and East EU will be angry about "the rich getting richer".
- joe_mamba 8mo ago
  >High-end chips should be more of a EU concerted effort rather than every country for itself. And how are we gonna do that exactly? EU runs on national interests of those footing the bill, mainly France and Germany as the largest net contributors. When you're relying on national subsidies to build and run a factory and adjacent infrastructure in a country, you're tied to national interests and demands of those countries footing the bill for all that infrastructure. So the likes of France and Germany aren't gonna give billions in subsidies from their taxpayers' money to semiconductor companies so that they can incorporate in Netherlands to dodge taxes and then create jobs in low-cost Poland and Romania instead of at home, even though that's already been happening to an extent in other industries over the last 20+ years. It's the same with arms purchases now. France blocked Ukraine from using its money to buy British made weapons that are already available, since it expects that money to go back into the French economy, not to the economy of a competitor, even if the much needed weapons will arrive much later. Yeah I know, UK isn't EU anymore, but the point still stands, as EU nations are still economically competitors to each other and they're not gonna spend their tax money to fund competing economies even in the EU block.
  - bjourne 8mo ago
    Specialization takes away a lot of the competitive pressure.
    - joe_mamba 8mo ago
      What do you mean by this?
  - ffsm8 8mo ago
    > Yeah I know, UK isn't EU anymore, but the point still stands, as EU nations are still economically competitors to each other and they're not gonna spend their tax money to fund competing economies even in the EU block. Uh, no the point doesn't stand anymore if your example isn't actually a reflection of it - at least not anymore then any other unfounded opinion pieces with no collaborating evidence
15155 8mo ago
[flagged]
- virgildotcodes 8mo ago
  If every time you’re shown an inkblot you see right wing talking points materialize in front of your eyes, it may be time to take a break from social media.
  - simianparrot 8mo ago
    If you think net zero’s failures are a right wing talking point it might be you failing the Rorschach test
    - sehansen 8mo ago
      Bringing up net zero in a thread about semiconductor manufacturing is a complete non sequitur. Fabs run on electricity which is quite easy produce without emitting any CO2.
      - simianparrot 8mo ago
        Only if you ignore supply chains, manufacturing, procurement of raw materials, grid balancing, and so much more.
    - deleted 8mo ago
      [deleted]
    - virgildotcodes 8mo ago
      You're, of course, misrepresenting what I was replying to. Here it is again: > 'green everything, at all costs' and importing millions of unskilled people who don't share your values Are you in good faith attempting to argue that those sentiments are not predominantly right wing talking points?
      - simianparrot 8mo ago
roenxi 8mo ago
That seems a bit too simple. I saw one particular graph [0] once that really stuck with me illustrating just how decisively Europe was ejected from the semiconductor market. It takes more than just inaction to achieve results like that. In many ways it could be called an impressive feat that only the Europeans could achieve. 44% of production to 9% - losing a steady 1% of the market every year, largest to smallest player. No other region is even in a position to do that badly even if they tried. [0] https://www.visualcapitalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/SemiconductorswithBar.jpg https://www.visualcapitalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/...
- simgt 8mo ago
  Wow, I had no idea. Thanks for sharing!
- IsTom 8mo ago
  I wonder what that would look like on an absolute scale instead of relative %. Might be that just the market grew really big, really fast.
- ifwinterco 8mo ago
  I think it can just take inaction, because it's a market that moves so fast and requires constant enormous investment to keep up. If you just do nothing within half a decade or so you'll be far behind the cutting edge and at that point the decline gains its own momentum
  - roenxi 8mo ago
    It is possible. But that seems out of character for the Europeans, they're pretty consistent about going the distance to make absolutely sure that the next new thing doesn't happen in Europe. It seems much more likely they had a suite of environmental, social and trade policies carefully calibrated to move semiconductor manufacturing somewhere else.
    - ifwinterco 8mo ago
      Part of it is simply the Euro being too strong. Taiwan has a (deliberately) undervalued currency that makes exports a lot more competitive, the EU does not. It's a super simple strategy with profound effects but somehow still very underappreciated
joe_mamba 8mo ago
>when they could have simply driven the few kilometers over to Eindhoven and bought an ASML machine for "Silicon Saxony" That's not at all how it works. You're talking as if you're buying a plug-and-play Xerox copy machine that you can just unbox and start printing copies of your work and make money. Buying the latest EUV machines doesn't get you the latest nodes and economically viable yields. Intel, Samsung also have the latest ASML machines that TSMC has and yet they haven't caught up to TSMC because there's a lot more to semi manufacturing that just the machine itself. If Germany just buys an ASML machine it would be an expensive paperweight without the process know-how that engineers at TSMC have amassed over the decades in order to get the most economically competitive yields.
- i5heu 8mo ago
  It is so absurd to think that an investment in even the most uncompetitive fab while one has currently none is uneconomical. Even if this fab is 3 times more expensive then other ones, the result of not having one will tank the entire economy and GDP of a nation if things go bad. We speak here about trillions of damage while a fab costs only a few billions. This is like a complete non brainer.
  - joe_mamba 8mo ago
    >while one has currently none What are you talking about? There's a lot of fabs in Europe, just on much older nodes than Taiwan, US and Japan or even China have. >We speak here about trillions of damage Where did you get the trillions from? >a fab costs only a few billions Billions just to build, but then who's gonna foot the bill for running it, if the fab is not economically competitive to those from Taiwan and Japan, at EU domestic wages, EU environmental regulations and lacking knowhow supply chains that needs to be built up in the EU? The taxpayers again? The German government (meaning the taxpayers) are still subsidizing energy costs to keep manufacturing from collapsing or leaving the country altogether because it's not internationally competitive anymore. So how much more of the private sector should the taxpayers subsidize before we take a look at ourselves in the mirror that everything is FUBAR and that endless taxpayer funded subsidies(aka corporate welfare) are just disguising the endemic rot while not actually fixing the problem?
assaddayinh 8mo ago
Cultural failure on a massive scale

danielbln 8mo ago

The only forward facing government that actually had a drive to change anything useful for the future broke apart with internal squabbles, with a big part of it by the market liberals torpedoing things left and right. And now we're back to a government of stand still, like we did the almost two decades before. We get what we deserve.

Flatterer3544 8mo ago
This standstill mostly started happening when the capitalism took hold too deep and wide, look at Sweden and its golden age that lasted until all the restrictions on capitalism were silently removed. While capitalism is a good model, it needs to be kept balanced, restricted.. Shareholder primacy is ruining everything, too much influence in politics from too many external sources.
throwaway_20357 8mo ago
Not sure what you're talking about. The last "forward facing" government was about 50y ago, the last one at least driving meaningful reforms almost 25y ago. To me it seems the more Europe got integrated, the more Germany lost the plot.

jorvi 8mo ago

High-end chips should be more of a EU concerted effort rather than every country for itself. The problem is that unlike Airbus, which (highly inefficiently) can be made in multiple countries, you can't really spread out parts of a fab that way. The most you can do is fab machines + chips + chip packaging. Netherlands already has fab machines and in packaging there isn't a high margin. That leaves chips, and you can be sure that whoever gets the fabs, the other EU countries will throw a shit fit and demand counter investments to compensate. And on top of that there is also regional animosity. So even if it makes logical sense to pop the fab down in the middle of the blue banana, it won't make political sense because France and all of South and East EU will be angry about "the rich getting richer".

joe_mamba 8mo ago
>High-end chips should be more of a EU concerted effort rather than every country for itself. And how are we gonna do that exactly? EU runs on national interests of those footing the bill, mainly France and Germany as the largest net contributors. When you're relying on national subsidies to build and run a factory and adjacent infrastructure in a country, you're tied to national interests and demands of those countries footing the bill for all that infrastructure. So the likes of France and Germany aren't gonna give billions in subsidies from their taxpayers' money to semiconductor companies so that they can incorporate in Netherlands to dodge taxes and then create jobs in low-cost Poland and Romania instead of at home, even though that's already been happening to an extent in other industries over the last 20+ years. It's the same with arms purchases now. France blocked Ukraine from using its money to buy British made weapons that are already available, since it expects that money to go back into the French economy, not to the economy of a competitor, even if the much needed weapons will arrive much later. Yeah I know, UK isn't EU anymore, but the point still stands, as EU nations are still economically competitors to each other and they're not gonna spend their tax money to fund competing economies even in the EU block.
- bjourne 8mo ago
  Specialization takes away a lot of the competitive pressure.
  - joe_mamba 8mo ago
    What do you mean by this?
- ffsm8 8mo ago
  > Yeah I know, UK isn't EU anymore, but the point still stands, as EU nations are still economically competitors to each other and they're not gonna spend their tax money to fund competing economies even in the EU block. Uh, no the point doesn't stand anymore if your example isn't actually a reflection of it - at least not anymore then any other unfounded opinion pieces with no collaborating evidence

15155 8mo ago

[flagged]

virgildotcodes 8mo ago
If every time you’re shown an inkblot you see right wing talking points materialize in front of your eyes, it may be time to take a break from social media.
- simianparrot 8mo ago
  If you think net zero’s failures are a right wing talking point it might be you failing the Rorschach test
  - sehansen 8mo ago
    Bringing up net zero in a thread about semiconductor manufacturing is a complete non sequitur. Fabs run on electricity which is quite easy produce without emitting any CO2.
    - simianparrot 8mo ago
      Only if you ignore supply chains, manufacturing, procurement of raw materials, grid balancing, and so much more.
  - deleted 8mo ago
    [deleted]
  - virgildotcodes 8mo ago
    You're, of course, misrepresenting what I was replying to. Here it is again: > 'green everything, at all costs' and importing millions of unskilled people who don't share your values Are you in good faith attempting to argue that those sentiments are not predominantly right wing talking points?
    - simianparrot 8mo ago

roenxi 8mo ago

That seems a bit too simple. I saw one particular graph [0] once that really stuck with me illustrating just how decisively Europe was ejected from the semiconductor market. It takes more than just inaction to achieve results like that. In many ways it could be called an impressive feat that only the Europeans could achieve. 44% of production to 9% - losing a steady 1% of the market every year, largest to smallest player. No other region is even in a position to do that badly even if they tried. [0] https://www.visualcapitalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/SemiconductorswithBar.jpg https://www.visualcapitalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/...

simgt 8mo ago
Wow, I had no idea. Thanks for sharing!
IsTom 8mo ago
I wonder what that would look like on an absolute scale instead of relative %. Might be that just the market grew really big, really fast.
ifwinterco 8mo ago
I think it can just take inaction, because it's a market that moves so fast and requires constant enormous investment to keep up. If you just do nothing within half a decade or so you'll be far behind the cutting edge and at that point the decline gains its own momentum
- roenxi 8mo ago
  It is possible. But that seems out of character for the Europeans, they're pretty consistent about going the distance to make absolutely sure that the next new thing doesn't happen in Europe. It seems much more likely they had a suite of environmental, social and trade policies carefully calibrated to move semiconductor manufacturing somewhere else.
  - ifwinterco 8mo ago
    Part of it is simply the Euro being too strong. Taiwan has a (deliberately) undervalued currency that makes exports a lot more competitive, the EU does not. It's a super simple strategy with profound effects but somehow still very underappreciated

joe_mamba 8mo ago

>when they could have simply driven the few kilometers over to Eindhoven and bought an ASML machine for "Silicon Saxony" That's not at all how it works. You're talking as if you're buying a plug-and-play Xerox copy machine that you can just unbox and start printing copies of your work and make money. Buying the latest EUV machines doesn't get you the latest nodes and economically viable yields. Intel, Samsung also have the latest ASML machines that TSMC has and yet they haven't caught up to TSMC because there's a lot more to semi manufacturing that just the machine itself. If Germany just buys an ASML machine it would be an expensive paperweight without the process know-how that engineers at TSMC have amassed over the decades in order to get the most economically competitive yields.

i5heu 8mo ago
It is so absurd to think that an investment in even the most uncompetitive fab while one has currently none is uneconomical. Even if this fab is 3 times more expensive then other ones, the result of not having one will tank the entire economy and GDP of a nation if things go bad. We speak here about trillions of damage while a fab costs only a few billions. This is like a complete non brainer.
- joe_mamba 8mo ago
  >while one has currently none What are you talking about? There's a lot of fabs in Europe, just on much older nodes than Taiwan, US and Japan or even China have. >We speak here about trillions of damage Where did you get the trillions from? >a fab costs only a few billions Billions just to build, but then who's gonna foot the bill for running it, if the fab is not economically competitive to those from Taiwan and Japan, at EU domestic wages, EU environmental regulations and lacking knowhow supply chains that needs to be built up in the EU? The taxpayers again? The German government (meaning the taxpayers) are still subsidizing energy costs to keep manufacturing from collapsing or leaving the country altogether because it's not internationally competitive anymore. So how much more of the private sector should the taxpayers subsidize before we take a look at ourselves in the mirror that everything is FUBAR and that endless taxpayer funded subsidies(aka corporate welfare) are just disguising the endemic rot while not actually fixing the problem?

assaddayinh 8mo ago

Cultural failure on a massive scale