I was involved in writing software for a small Fab and there is a big gap in the MES software space. If you want to start a new Fab, you need a manufacturing execution system (MES) to process wafers. This whole MES industry is ripe for innovation. For small Fabs, it’s not possible to afford MES-3000 from Applied Materials ~ multi-million $ license fees and it’s a beast of a system. I’ve had to deal with this ancient dog of a MES written in Coldfusion. Had several conversations with coworkers - “Wonder what the market is like for modern SaaS MES”. It’s a complex problem if you want to auto load recipes and control equipment with SECS/GEM, implement PCS, and run a Fab in the manner like Intel. This is one of the problems with scaling the Fab. Think automotive factory scaling but with expensive precision equipment and garbage software ecosystem.
Environmental regulations were sited without clear specification of what exactly the issue is. There is strong precedence on why we need those regulations to prevent issues that the "future" then has to deal with. How many super fund sites are there in the USA today and how many are a result from companies being able to get away with lax environmental regulations at the time? China is already dealing with this by forcing heavily polluting industries to shut down, cut off power, unbreathable air in cities, etc.. all because of lax environment regulations to begin with.
Some of the lead time to build fabs in the US is misleading. Offhand I know of at least one site that was 'under construction' for a long time, but intentionally very slow construction. The company wanted a fab there eventually, but wanted to lock in tax rates and other subsidies today. I guess the math came out ahead just making the project take forever to build.
How would someone with $XXM be able to start a semiconductor factory from zero? What are the materials and processes involved in doing it in a contemporary way? Looking for any and all guidance/resources. Thanks!
600 days to build a semiconductor plant seems quite quick! In my part of Britain just now it is not uncommon for it to take over 250 days to get permissions in place to build a 3 bedroom house.