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AMD Receives $683M for Dresden Plant
Cocooner writes "Infoworld has an article explaining how AMD received $683 million in grants from Germany and the state of Saxony for its next-generation microprocessor wafer facility. The new plant will be located in Dresden, adjacent to Fab 30 and will be called Fab 36. It will be the first AMD 300mm manufacturing facility."
How there are never stories titled:
"Huge new manufacturing facility to be constructed in $US_STATE?"
or
"$BLOATED_CORPORATION to hire 12,000 new workers?"
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
I STRONGLY disagree! In a truly free society, one is given equal opportunity to improve his OWN (and family's) life. Whether or not he succeeds at that is in his own hands, not the government's.
The only role government should play in that is ensuring opportunity remain equally available to its citizens. It is not the job of government to force successful citizens to pick up the slack for those who aren't as successful.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
Just be glad that they are easy on corporations. The German economy is headed for a slow, eventual decline due to deep seated structural problems. It will wind up much like Japan. Taxes are too high, and that discourages investment. Productivity isn't that high.
Worse, to help offset the massive government debt, there is talk about raising pension contributions and corporate taxes. These will hurt the economy further, making the country less competitive and decreasing investment.
Germany is falling into a trap. The people have been erroneously led to believe that the state can provide everything, which it cannot, at least in the long term. I don't quite think giving Athlon $683 million for a fab that will only be in operation for a few years is a good idea. But be glad that Siemans pays very little in corporate taxes. It keeps the jobs in Germany rather than in the U.K. or the U.S. You sure as hell don't need more people on the dole.
If you don't understand any of my sayings, come to me in private and I shall take you in my German mouth.
The die size for an FX-51 or Athlon64 is stupid-big, because of larger registers/extra registers, the on-board memory controller, and the extra circuitry to accomadate 64 bits. So each individual AMD processor is larger than its Intel cousin. Check out a wafer comparison here. As I understand it, AMD is doing this becasue it has to. Without 300mm wagers and 90nm or 65nm technology, their chips will cost too much and be produced in too little quantity for AMD to survive. It's not about whether or not AMD chips will become cheaper, its about whether or not AMD will still exist a couple of years from now.
If my answers frighten you, stop asking scary questions.