| ▲ | throw_m239339 11 hours ago |
| > I think Europe should invest into manufacturing RAM. RAM isn't going anywhere, all of modern compute uses it. This would be an opportunity to create domestic supply of it. It's easy to build factories, much more difficult to train the engineers required to run them... and let's not even talk about all the crazy regulations & environmental rules at the EU level that make that task even more difficult, because yes, chip factories do pollute... a lot. Countries like South Korea or Taiwan have adapted all their legislations and tax, environmental regulations to allow such factories to operate easily. The EU and EU countries will never do that... better outsource pollution and claim they care about the planet... |
|
| ▲ | SolubleSnake 11 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| I am a CAD engineer and software developer who has worked in manufacturing a lot in the UK in various industries - products as big as superyachts and as small as peristaltic pumps. I think if the UK and EU are to try and defend their weakening and shrinking manufacturing sectors (these industries have been disappearing for my entire adult life) then it is possible but difficult...In 10 to 20 years it will be impossible. The reason is as you have described. We are getting close to where the numbers of people with practical experience working in, managing, and designing things like the work processes and factory layouts in industries that build physical products are disappearing. We're losing a lot of capable practical engineers with hands on experience. We can keep the universities going teaching the physical subjects but those lecturers wouldn't know even where to begin on designing and building efficient factories unfortunately. We'd probably end up having to get Chinese and Taiwanese businesses to outsource their 'experts' back to us in order to actually do this and pay them a fortune - basically the reverse of what was happening in the manufacturing sector in the 80s and 90s! |
| |
| ▲ | throwaway_20357 28 minutes ago | parent [-] | | This is going on for decades and I wonder what the actual business model for the EU economy is in the future. With all factories soon gone, will Europe rely on agriculture, tourism and some services only? Back to a "developing country" economy? |
|
|
| ▲ | trollbridge 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Doesn’t the EU have an excellent education system? |
| |
| ▲ | nine_k 11 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Even the most excellent education system takes several yeas to educate a high-schooler to a level of a junior engineer. Then several more years are needed for the best of them to become senior engineers, with the knowledge and experience that a university alone cannot provide. So, we're looking at a decade-long project at least, even if everything goes as planned, and crazy fast, in the technical and administrative departments. | | |
| ▲ | autoexec 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | All the more reason to start now I guess. Putting it off isn't going to get them that knowledge and experience any sooner. If something happens over the next 10 years that eliminates our need for memory chips things will probably be either too messed up or too wonderful for anyone to cry over the years they needlessly spent trying to secure a domestic source of RAM. |
| |
| ▲ | TacticalCoder 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > Doesn’t the EU have an excellent education system? Excellent universities, overall. But results from primary and secondary schools are nose diving at a more than alarming rate in several EU countries. Literacy rates are falling, math grades are falling. There's IMO only so much time before universities begin to be affected as well. | | | |
| ▲ | Ray20 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | [flagged] | | | |
| ▲ | throw_m239339 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > Doesn’t the EU have an excellent education system? Well, the EU has not manufactured a whole lot of chips in the last 30 years, where do you get the people with the professional experience to teach new engineers... Oh you mean you have to import the teachers from South Asia too? /s and it takes what, 5 years at the minimum to train an engineer? France and UK used to produce entire home computers... in the 80's... | | |
| ▲ | nine_k 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | Come on, STM, Nordic, Infineon, NXP are all European. There is a bunch of chip-making installations in Dresden, Germany (Global Foundries, Bosch, etc), and there's Intel Fab 34 in Ireland. BTW TSMC is planning to open a production facility in Europe in 2027. This is not comparable to Taiwan or the Shenzen area, but it's definitely not nothing. Some local expertise exists, even though it may be not the most cutting-edge. | | |
| ▲ | kgeist 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | ASML, which is based in the Netherlands, produces chip-making machines which TSMC and everyone else use to produce said chips. I think they got some expertise too :) | | |
| ▲ | nine_k 9 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | This is so, but ASML does not produce chips. There's a difference between e.g. building an airplane and piloting an airplane. | |
| ▲ | joe_mamba 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | ASML doesn't make chips, they make the machines. |
|
|
|
|
|
| ▲ | throwaway2037 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| A parallel reply from me: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47162226 The same applies to your comment. |
