(I don't need anymore toys, though... :D )
Does not compute, please explain this concept... ;-)
2864 publicly visible posts • joined 25 Jul 2008
There is a "rumour" within the industry that arrangements have been considered for a "scorched earth" policy if China did invade - that the fabs would be deliberately destroyed rather than be allowed to fall into Chinese hands.
Whether this is actually true or not is very much open for debate (although given the chemicals around in fabs, it would have at least some plausibility) but it does put a slightly different slant on the scenario (although would still be a massive disaster for the industry and for electronics in general).
From a quick search for more substance - https://asiatimes.com/2022/12/us-mulls-scorched-earth-strategy-for-taiwan/
In our business, the swear word/phrase is "BKM" (best known method).
Customer managers seem to love using it, without ever qualifying it. So the usual response is "best known method to do what exactly?"
It's amazing how often that seems to throw them off kilter, leading to the standard response of "everything".
Most often it leads to the quiet lesson in the fact they can't have everything.
And the usual example I counter with is "what's the best vehicle?" without qualifying whether you want to drive very fast around a track, move a wardrobe with it or to park it safely in a city-centre location.
The "BKM" for each is of course rather different, and as it's an at least semi-real world example, it does usually get the point across.
Based on what's happened in Ireland, a lot of middle management (which is mostly not a huge loss, from the feedback of some who are remaining) but indeed there are a fair wedge of good and experienced engineers and tool owners who are taking the opportunity.
From what I've heard from on-site colleagues the place is currently like a ghost town (empty and the fab not running much).
Those who remain are varying between nervous, depressed or just utterly fed up.
The other problem of course is the knock-on effect for suppliers and vendors. On the one hand they need us more due to that loss of experience, but on the other they haven't got the cash available to fund the contacts etc, so our lads and lasses are on dodgy ground too (or on flights to Germany or further afield).
ESMC (the TSMC plant in Dresden) broke ground a few weeks ago.
It's mostly TSMC, but there are partner inputs there from NXP, Bosch and especially Infineon. Hence the E (European) rather than T (Taiwan) in the name.
ESMC is literally next door to Bosch, and just down the road from Infineon (and GlobalFoundries). Plus both of them are also investing in their own Dresden fabs.
Indeed Intel were the somewhat outlier with their foundry fab in Magdeburg (an hour or so away from Dresden, about half way up towards Berlin), but that is now looking on even more dodgy ground than when the newts were actually found on the ground and got somewhat in the way of the initial investigative work.
Oh and there is already a TSMC fab in America as well. It's just outside Phoenix, again just down the road from the Intel one there in Chandler.
I still have several Intellimice - for me they're one of the best for general use with the 5-button design.
Have found that over an extended period the microswitches do wear out, but given such extended periods for some of mine are 10-15 years I don't think that's too bad, and it's not that difficult to swap them out for new ones (even a klutz like me can do it).
So somewhat sad to read they won't get resurrected as a product line, although a second MS keyboard might be nice for my home office set-up to match the one on my "play" PC that has equally been doing strong for many years but is now out of production too.
Doubly so if aforementioned someone is your boss, or even better someone higher up the tree who is wise enough to know exactly what their role should be in such circumstances (ie support, facilitating and tea-boy - generally getting behind you and not in your way).
Brings on horrible memories of "wireless" displays at many customers (and indeed some of our own) offices. Invariably have to hunt down the dongle-thing, plus in the USB (on the mandatory 3rd attempt) and then go through all the hoops to get a connection that drops after 2 minutes, freezes or just doesn't work at all.
To their credit, our IT department does have our laptops set up to allow the most common dongles to install their required drivers etc (software install generally is locked down to admin-only, not for minions) although once or twice that's screwed up due to esoteric, weird or just plain Chinese-knockoff equipment.
Many is a time you just yearn for a simple HDMI cable that "just works".
Pass the brain bleach (or several cold pints) please nurse...
Reminds me of a time I pulled into a service station to fill up the car, and noted several military vehicles about (fueling up, plus presumably having a general convoy pitstop) surrounded by various guys and gals all in their regulation camo gear, but with high-vis vests on over the top of the kit.
Gave me a wry smile of conflicting attire...
Always a good tactic to be on the good side of (and preferably owed a few favours by) the secretariat. Both within industry and even more so in academia.
They are one quarter of the holy quartet (secretaries, storesmen, technician and security).
If you can be on good terms with those, you can get absolutely anything done (or alternatively get away with anything) as they are the ones who *actually* run the place...
Our place was similar, if not quite so bad.
Two sheds at the far end of the garden, with wire coming out from somewhere underneath the eaves of the conservatory (wire being standard cabling, think what you'd find coming out of a table lamp) and then cleated onto the fence (without any protection) up to the first shed. It then went in there, out again and down into a sunken piece of plastic pipework under the paved area between the sheds and up into the second one.
Pipework wasn't at all sealed, and of course was full of water, leaf mush and general muddy crud. Alarm bells rang when I first saw it, heightened when I heard previous owner mention that breakers had been tripping over the winter for that part of the house...
Needless to say it was the first thing that got disconnected, and as the sheds were both fairly much rotten anyway they didn't last much longer.
Said previous owner was I believe a school headmaster, and over the years we've been in the place, we've uncovered all sorts of other delights that he's similarly bodged.
His enthusiasm for DIY far outstripped his ability, but that particular one had to be the worst offender (at least so far)
I never saw these plugs in the usual shops so I imagined there were specialist boutiques for this clientele: Dotty Old Dears 'R' Us.
If you mean what I think you do, they're actually from the other end of the age range.
Places like Mothercare, Ikea and similar stores sell them and they're to stop wandering toddlers and crawlers from sticking their fingers (or anything else) into sockets.
Edited to add - as I see you've realised yourself as well...
They are still around in industry. Some of our older tools which customers still run in daily production have floppy drives, but being able to source actual discs for them is becoming quite a challenge.
Hence I've got quite a large plastic crate full of them in the bottom of my cupboard at work that I've scavenged over the years during office moves and from less foresighted people who've "had a clear-out". These I share with colleagues supporting those tools when needed and if their own stocks are exhausted.
It's amazing how many pints of beer you can earn in exchange for a simple box of discs, or in some cases even from single discs.
Along similar lines, but more heavy iron rather than electronics - wheeltappers.
Similar story from the University of Nottingham Physics Dept, with their MBE machines and other chunky bits of kit.
Back in the day, the area of the building for them was on the ground floor, but didn't have suitable access to get the kit actually into it. So queue walls being removed and stuff being hoisted in from the car park on at least 3 occasions.
Went back there last year (youngest offspring looking at UniNotts for 1st degree, not in Physics but as we were there I took the liberty of touring the department anyway for nostalgia reasons) and they've now finally redesigned things so there is a suitable goods entry for such kit. But it was fun listening to the lad taking us around on the tour talking about it, and then being able to add more details having actually witnessed one or two of said events personally.
Now there's at least another area upstairs (where the old machine shop used to be, which I actually found quite sad) in addition to the original one, hence the expanded and improved access.
And it wasn't 30 years ago, honest guv'nor! WTAF indeed...!