75
US Govt's sluggish Chips Act payouts slam the brakes on Samsung's fab, delayed to 2025
(www.tomshardware.com)
this post was submitted on 28 Dec 2023
75 points (96.3% liked)
World News
32300 readers
461 users here now
News from around the world!
Rules:
-
Please only post links to actual news sources, no tabloid sites, etc
-
No NSFW content
-
No hate speech, bigotry, propaganda, etc
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Sounds like they're delaying because their Exynos chip is wildly unpopular compared to Snapdragon and simply blaming it on the CHIPS Act as cover. They're claiming it's because they need this couple billion in subsidies while also claiming they plan to invest $200 billion here? Seems like Samsung should be able to cover the tab in the interim if they really wanted to build here. This bill is already signed into law so why wouldn't they receive the funds at some point? Is this 1% of their total investment really that critical?
This is just like Walgreens and RiteAid claiming they have to close stores due to theft, only to later admit that was a complete fabrication.
Samsung fab is different from Samsung's Exynos team
TSMC has also not received a cent. Their chairman got kicked a few weeks ago for being stupid enough to trust American promises of money.
TSMC can't get their fab build because they think US workers should be receiving Chinese wages. Everyone is entitled to a share of the money of they build a US fab. Intel is already in the middle of building a completely new campus in Ohio even though they've had a terrible couple years financially and haven't received their subsidies either. You'd think TSMC, the company that makes virtually every other companies chips, would be able to front a few billion on their own facility.
Would you rather it end up like Foxconn's Wisconsin deal where the city demolishes an entire neighborhood of homes, kicks the residents out, and gives billions in subsidies only for them to scale back the plant and only hire a couple hundred people to build outdated products? These companies are already absolutely massive and can afford this stuff on their own. The subsidies are just supposed to be a small incentive for doing so, not their primary source of funding.
A fab can fabricate designs by others.
Even if it's not due to Exynos, the rest of my comment holds true. These subsidies are just a drop in the bucket in terms of total cost. Samsung and it's subsidiaries account for 1/5 of the GDP for the entire nation of South Korea while TSMC already produces leading edge chips for nearly every major manufacturer on the planet, including Intel. They have plenty of funds to begin production here in the US even if they have to wait a little longer for these subsidies.
How is the size of Samsung relative to South Korea’s GDP relevant? Apple is a bigger company and it wouldn’t open a factory in the US without subsidies.
Apples chips are made by TSMC and Samsungs size reflects how deep their pockets are. They aren't holding back because they haven't received 1% of funding from the US government.
Samsung isn’t a charity and Samsung Electronics has its own books independently from other companies in the chaebol. The US needs to give Samsung a reason to manufacture in the US. Make it attractive vs. all the other countries.
Samsung have made SoCs for Apple before and Apple does its own manufacturing and whatnot in the US that it does receive subsidies for.
https://www.macobserver.com/analysis/apple-receive-subsidies-from-us-states/
Seems none of this went toward any sort of manufacturing capacity. Furthermore, the article mentions Samsung received $1.2B in subsidies already from state and local governments, roughly in line with what they'd be receiving from the CHIPS Act. Of course they're not a charity, but how is 1% of funding holding back the entire project if they're paying the other 99% out of their own pocket? As I said originally, this is just a convenient cover to deflect away from their own poor performance as a company and put the onus on the government.
Then explain TSMC doing the same. It is more believable that the subsidies aren’t enough to make manufacturing attractive and more needs to be done.
I already explained that TSMC can't get their fab running because they don't want to pay US wages to contractors and employees. This has been widely reported on already.
There you go. So for Samsung too a similar reason is more likely. A Fab would require workers, land, supply chain, and so on. Subsidies are only one part of the equation, and if any other part is unattractive then more subsidies would be needed.
You need to understand that the reason CHIPS Act exists in the first place is to make it attractive for companies to set up fabs in the US. If the US was already attractive, the CHIPS Act wouldn't be necessary.
Samsung already has facilities here in the US unlike TSMC, so labor costs should be no surprise to them.
I do realize the reasoning behind the CHIPS Act and I also understand that it has already been signed into law, which is why I call BS on Samsung's claimed reasoning.
The money is there and whether it gets paid out today or 6 months from now, they'll be eligible all the same. To claim that they can't afford to continue on with their plans because they don't have the money in their pocket right now doesn't make sense as Samsung has a ton of money already and this subsidy represents a miniscule fraction of their total investment.
My point all along is that their claimed excuse here is bullshit. If they can't afford it without subsidizing 1/100th of their investment immediately, they can't afford it with the subsidy either and that has nothing to do with the government. It'd be like claiming you can totally afford a $20,000 car but a $20,200 car is too far out of reach.
Samsung Electronics does not make up 20% of South Korea's GDP lol
I never said they did, but as a corporation, they make up 20% of South Korea's economy.
That's the whole point. Samsung and TSMC never wanted to build American plants due to their history of stealing IPs, but the US government strong-armed them into building them. The subsidies were meant to smooth things over but now it's not being doled out.
Thought this was interesting, so I tried looking for more information. Didn't find anything other than people speculating. If you have a link or search terms I could use to find of an article of these or similar companies saying the closings were actually because of something else, I'd appreciate it.
Did you try 'walgreens theft'?
https://www.businessinsider.com/walgreens-shrink-rate-50-higher-retail-theft-2022-1
https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/06/business/walgreens-shoplifting-retail
I did, yes. The second link has the relevant quote from the CFO - "We're probably -- you know, maybe we cried too much last year when we were hitting numbers that were 3.5% of sales".
Though looking at the context, it looks like he regrets the actions (specifically increased security hired) that came from that. There doesn't seem to be anything about the link to store closures.
The actual link came from an article Shepard Pie below you provided here (Is Shoplifting Really Surging?). Apparently nationwide, shoplifting is down - except in certain cities
I'm guessing the 7 remaining cities are where the stores were closed.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/06/business/walgreens-shoplifting.html
https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/06/business/walgreens-shoplifting-retail/index.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/08/business/organized-shoplifting-retail-crime-theft-retraction.html