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Comment by joelbluminator | Hacker News Reader

Why isn't Netherlands mentioned btw? What semiconductors companies did Germany , France and Spain built so far? Netherlands has ASML, NXP and ASM...

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STMicroelectronics is, according to Wikipedia, Europe's largest semiconductor chip maker based on revenue

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STMicroelectronics

ASML dwarfs it in terms of market cap.

ASML doesn't make semiconductors :)

Well even NXP is bigger lol

Without ASML, nobody will :)

Without ASML, everyone would make their own ASML.

Without TSMC, everyone would make their own TSMC.

This is what we see happening in the world right now. Previously the only consideration was, "Is it cost effective." Now there are a myriad number of other considerations up to and including geopolitical considerations. The US, for instance, has always been able to manufacture lith machines. Economic considerations obliged them to innovate elsewhere. Yet it's obvious that were the EU to threaten US access to lith machines, the US would start manufacturing those machines on their own.

Lith is not even the hard part. TSMC and Intel have the same lith machines. Why is Intel having so much trouble? Because there is so much more to this entire enterprise than doing the lithography.

Journalist or, more likely, EU press release office not very knowledgeable on the semiconductor industry choosing to mention the three largest countries by population in the headline, and the rest in a list embedded in the article. Journalist at Reuters probably just took the official press release and edited the grammar/wording a bit. I agree that the selection should probably be Germany, France, Netherlands, Italy if looking at the relative importance in semiconductors, but probably choosing by country population is a standard thing they do to avoid complaints.

>The signatories include Belgium, Croatia, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Italy, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal and Slovenia.

GER and FR are just bigger names

I think GP's point is that when you consider their output they're really not the bigger names.

Yes sure, but in the scope of geostrategic developments, opening with Germany and France totally makes sense with regards to the general public, as they won't read NL and think "oh, it's on".

Perhaps it's because at least in NXP's case the reason why headquarters are there and not somewhere else is that the Netherlands are a tax haven for IP-heavy companies.

Here is some more information about one of the schemes where Dutch law helps avoiding taxes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Sandwich

Small countries like NL and Ireland don't really have a choice. Without giving tax incentives multinationals would just choose the bigger markets (China, U.S, India, Germany maybe). Is it "fair" that the U.S and China dominate everything between themselves?

NXP originated from Philips afaik, so it is a by product of a Dutch company. Why would headquarters move elsewhere?

Are you thinking about STMicroelectronics perhaps? They are incorporated in the Netherlands.

NXP has a long history in the Netherlands. It started as a division within Philips (Dutch company) and it has done a lot of production work in the Netherlands.

Maybe true, a lot of NXP projects actually happen in Austria for example

Here is a list of semiconductor fabrication plants:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_semiconductor_fabricat...

Perhaps that's the point? If NL feels like they already have an effective domestic industry for their needs, there is no need to sign-on and invest resources here.

However, for these other countries, they have concerns that are not strictly economic, but also related to national security and economic flexibility.

I don't know their plans, but I wouldn't be surprised if a pragmatic solution wouldn't be to co-invest in domestic fab facilities with existing incumbents who agree to comply with domestic interests as relates to sourcing, labor practices, IP sharing, local hiring, training, and environment controls.

It doesn't necessarily mean "spend money to beat TSMC at the tip of the spear". I mean, at least, I hope it wouldn't. Not at first.

ST Microelectronics, merger of French and Italian nationalized semiconductor industries.

Yup! SGS from Italy and Thomson from France, in 1987 (not '88, corrected). ST in fact used to mean SGS-Thomson.

France: Thomson/Thales ($18B including software dev), STMicroelectronics ($9B). Germany: Infineon ($8B), Qimonda ($1B), XFab ($0.5B), Carl Zeiss ($1.2B). From Wikipedia. ASML ($10B), NXP ($10B), ASM ($1B).

Measuring sales isn't how you do that usually, market cap is the way to go (and then ASML dwarfs the rest). But even by sales seems like NL is leading.

> Why isn't Netherlands mentioned btw? What semiconductors companies did Germany , France and Spain built so far?

If market cap was relevant you'd be, in a parallel conversation, be able to say:

> Why isn't Telsa mentioned btw ? What cars have Ford, Toyota and Mercedes built so far ?

Well yes Tesla is currently stronger than Ford and Toyota, that's what the market decided. Is the market wrong? We'll see.

Market cap is a metric that can be influenced by teenagers on reddit. A meme department can be more effective investment than engineering.

Germany: Infineon

Don't know about the others.

ST Microelectronics from France and Italy

and Switzerland? :)

and incorporated in the Netherlands ;)

Because the Netherlands are tax haven. Nothing to be proud of.

It is mentioned: "The signatories include Belgium, Croatia, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Italy, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal and Slovenia."

>What semiconductors companies did Germany , France and Spain built so far?

German companies like Zeiss build parts for e.g. ASML.

Probably true, but that would make Tesla and Apple Chinese then...

Except they also design them, so that would be like if the iPhone was also designed in China.

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