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by i5heu 135 days 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.
2 comments
raincole 135 days ago
> 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.

That's hogwash. Sorry. Human society won't simply stop working just due to the lack of 2nm chips.

There are plenty of chip manufacturers around the world, including EU ones. Taiwan only has the quasi-monopoly over the cutting edge process.

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alephnerd 135 days ago
> Taiwan only has the quasi-monopoly over the cutting edge process

Not really. Taiwan has commanding market share in legacy process nodes (28nm and above) as well.

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joe_mamba 135 days 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?

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