I hope you enjoyed the video. Like and subscribe, and all that dance. And if semiconductors are your game then check out the Global Semiconductors Playlist: kzread.info/head/PLKtxx9TnH76QEYXdJx6KyycNGHePJQwWW

@shazmosushi

2 жыл бұрын

11:43 Here's a direct link to that *amazing* photo of the Queen of England wearing protective shoes while visiting this Siemens factory at Wallsend, North Tyneside: www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-queen-wears-protective-shoes-to-be-shown-around-the-new-news-photo/829922156

@davefroman4700

2 жыл бұрын

You do realize it was Seimans who lobbied the government for that rule for German production right?

@jacqdanieles

2 жыл бұрын

D-Ram NOT dram. Please & thank you.

@michaelshore2300

2 жыл бұрын

No wander it failed they used an inverse exchange rate

@PATTHECATMCD

2 жыл бұрын

Very good. Misses out a little on ICL being spun into Fujitsu Siemens in the 1980s, but that isn't really connected to the story of the North Tyneside Fab.

Manufacturing in the UK has always been neglected. It's considered far more respectable to get rich by counting the wealth that others create than by getting your hands dirty by making something that will sell for a profit.

@boggisthecat

2 жыл бұрын

There are resource limitations. During the Empire there was an inflow of cheap resources and the UK became wealthy by manufacturing using those resources. In the present world of open markets that resource model can’t work.

@1pasupaty

2 жыл бұрын

Wow that well worked for s very long time.its just too costly to make anything in England leave alone persuading others.to buy em

@peterembranch5797

2 жыл бұрын

No Sir. In fact, manufacturing was anything but neglected ever since the Industrial Revolution. It took Thatcher and her simple-minded attitude to economics to destroy British manufacturing and introduce the Benefits Culture into this country.

@brendanpells912

2 жыл бұрын

@@peterembranch5797 British manufacturing has been in decline since the British Empire started to either away. British industry thrived when you had captive overseas markets that you could to buy your products, especially when you dismantle indigenous producers. Because you give them no choice you don't have to worry too much about quality or innovation or value for money. Once the former colonies were free to make their stuff, or buy from anyone, British manufacturing was exposed as being inefficient and antiquated. Think of the British industries that died long before Thatcher came along. Shipbuilding, motor cycles, bicycles, machine tools.

@michaeldunne338

2 жыл бұрын

@@boggisthecat Actually, with iron and steel, British heavy industry did quite well tapping its domestic resources for most of the 19th century. With technological advancements, Britain was able to move beyond reliance on imports of Swedish and Russian ore that had developed in the 18th century, to exploiting iron deposits that for the most part were conveniently located near large coal deposits.

As a Brit who works in the semiconductor industry (albeit not in the north east of England) that was a seriously impressive video. Your summary at the end was spot on too! Thank you for all your hard work @asianometry.

@destinilund4771

2 жыл бұрын

Siemans should never had picked northeast wasting billions. Semiconductor is pinnacle of engineering, not for peasantry and uneducated as 1 seemingly small accidental could kill the whole building staff, equipment maintenance alone is above locals payscale knowledge. Quality control to trillions of transistors on something smaller than a library card require advance degrees. 🇬🇧 UK was trying to build northeast economy without understanding it. If educated move northeast, then its not actually helping locals much. Without a doubt, it was UK decision to encourage that location northeast.

@karenishness1

2 жыл бұрын

@@destinilund4771 Spoken like a corporate predator. have raw liver for breakfast?

@alexanderphilip1809

2 жыл бұрын

@@karenishness1 if he's right, He's right. No need to get salty about it.

@dougaltolan3017

2 жыл бұрын

@@destinilund4771 there are 5 universirits in the area offering post graduate science and technology. I doubt that local skill base was lacking.

@destinilund4771

2 жыл бұрын

@@dougaltolan3017 Analog Devices, Arm Ltd. and Wolfson dont hire anyone with a degree, they absolutely care which school you graduate from. Taiwan's TSMC overwhelming look for Singapore university grads over their own nation. If you haven't noticed Singapore is top 10, often better than Cambridge or Oxford depending which ranking table. Better start learning Mandarin-Chinese the language of both Taiwan and Singapore professionals if you want true integration. Funny enough, Singapore's founder was very anti CIA and considered the British immoral troublemaker but work with both today. A double agent James Bond style state?

I can relate to this!! Few realise but Seimens initially opened talks with nearby Northumberland County Council. The factory was planned to be built just to the East of Moor Farm Roundabout - an intersection of the A19 and A189 trunk roads. The employment base was just as big, if not bigger. It fell through at the Northumberland site due to the county council basically being idiots. The county council demanding too many conditions when Siemens simply wanted/needed to build fast. North Tyneside, a few miles south of Moor Farm was chosen instead. Coincidentally, Northumberland County Council realised their huge error and carried out yet another stupidly thought out plan - just to the north of nearby Cramlington, a new PFI fire station was built (despite a new one already being 1/2 mile away..) and beside this new PFI fire station a large industrial site was partially built between the fire station and Plessey Woods - locals will recognise the blocked off entrance to a network of roads. The industrial estate had clauses demanding that it only go to 'cleaner' types of industry such as chip production. Too little, too late!! The fact that the failed industrial estate still stands near the fire station shows that the stupid clause stood on that site for far too long and it's still empty! Northumberland County Council have a long history of failings and skullduggery but that's for another day! Anyway, the North Tyneside site. I was working between sites at the time and remember the whole event very clearly. My job saw me pass that site many times daily. I saw how all of the land there was receiving investment regardless but Siemens kicked it all off. I saw how the foundations went in rapidly and saw the steel skeleton built in weeks. The fact that actual chip production went ahead so quickly amazed me. The site was so new, so fresh. Wages were actually fair for the area and many of us knew it was a volatile market. Employees (I know of many involved) needed the jobs but also knew how fragile the market was and needed to trust their employer to get things right and capture the market ahead of others. It wasn't to be though. Initially, staff stayed quiet about job instability but that was soon in the public eye when it was realised Siemens were struggling. Few locals thought Siemens would close such a new and expensive site but they did. It sent shock waves through the region. Upon closure, councils and jobs agencies were under huge pressure to deal with the fallout. There were also shouts that the UK should be given back grants aimed at long term employment which were handed to Siemens as sweeteners. Eventually that money was clawed back - I'm unsure of it was the £25 million you mentioned. The site is indeed a mixed use one. Many many new buildings stand empty and have done since construction many years ago. Some are NHS, some are government and so on. Many buildings in use are vastly under-occupied. I personally know someone who had a whole 8 storey brand new glass fronted office block to himself, one work colleague and a team of full security. He chose the top floor and would marvel at the views out to sea! His job was menial (analyst programmer watching systems for issues) and he spent most of his day observing ships out to sea and would see what they were via the Ships AIS website lol. Yes - he worked for government.. I've no idea what the future holds for the Cobalt site. Covid and working from home is a much bigger thing now and those brand new buildings are seeing less and less use. Perhaps we might even see the land taken back to farm land. I have no idea. This was an excellent and concise video. It shows viewers just how fragile some types of manufacturing can be and went into some great detail about the region and its troubled industrial past. (coal) Thanks for sharing :)

@aj-lx7vb

2 жыл бұрын

the type of comments I like the most. thanks!

@pbice

2 жыл бұрын

It's nice to hear the sound from locals

@madfrosty5228

2 жыл бұрын

It’s heartbreaking to see the state of the north east of England , years of neglect and bad decisions didn’t help the situation . I was actually shocked to see how deprived and depressing some areas look . Older people still remember the days of glory when there was plenty of work and decent pay , I feel sorry for the younger generation , there is Amazon ( questionable business practices ) and Hitachi train building factory , which will not stay open forever , once the HS 2 is finished that will be the end of it . Nissan is here for now but the way things are in this world you never know , let’s hope things get better .

@JoeOvercoat

Жыл бұрын

Looking up what ships are passing or at anchor only takes a moment, and there are only so many ships, so your complaint that he was a goof off is not supported by your complaint’s content. Pro Tip: It’s not ‘the government ‘, rather it’s the size of the entity that matters. That’s why Siemens screwed up so big here, where they built a plant that they couldn’t even use.

@davidsoulsby1102

Жыл бұрын

@@madfrosty5228 Hmm have you been here lately? I think not...lol

Being a British resident and seeing the very long decline in UK manufacturing and the weakness and economic volatility that comes with that and the fuel it provides for wealth inequality, it really stood to me when you said about the lack the lack of indigenous business leaders. Yep! 100% this. Everything government do is too woo the exploiters, rather than nurture grass roots industrial entrepreneurs. We face barriers!

@neillees2115

7 ай бұрын

The UK, like Canada has branch plant syndrome, where the head offices (and higher quality R&D jobs) are often elsewhere. The local labour market is then subject to continual cost reductions, headcount reductions and other fickleness that doesn't affect the head offices.

A good report, but every time you give £/$ prices, amounts etc, you set them the wrong way round

@peterbreis5407

2 жыл бұрын

That struck me too. Unless the £ was extraordinarily low at the time. I just checked. You are right he has switched them round. He also mispronounced Deutschmark, sticking an e in the middle.

@noxious8

2 жыл бұрын

@@peterbreis5407 He spoke 'Deutsche Mark' totally right.

@trashbeansoup2467

2 жыл бұрын

@@noxious8 You are right. I only ever heard it as Deutschmark, even when I was in Germany. Wasn't paying attention! But he definitely got the US$ to £ exchange rate wrong.

@michaelkerr2005

2 жыл бұрын

Yes I've noticed this straight away I've just asked the question regarding exchange rate

@steevmsteevm

2 жыл бұрын

Bugged me too. I'm guessing they aren't so much the wrong way around as just plain wrong though, given that the source figures are sterling, not dollars. But you are right in that if the original figures were dollars and the quoted dollar figures were sterling, the conversion would be correct, i.e. the conversion rate is the inverse of what it should be. The dollar figures should be significantly higher as the pound is/was worth more than the dollar.

The UK pound has never been worth less than the US Dollar . So reversing the pound dollar values would be correct .

@michaelleiper

2 жыл бұрын

Looks more like they used the FX rate the wrong way around to get the dollar value (from the Sterling value). i.e. £60m was a quote, so the $45m was simply wrong.

@boggisthecat

2 жыл бұрын

@@michaelleiper Yes. Quite a few obvious errors in this.

@SafffOneee

2 жыл бұрын

@@michaelleiper haven't got to that yet but similar to 9:00

@SafffOneee

2 жыл бұрын

ah from 14:55 i think at the 9min mark he was talking about austria's currency but said £ by mistake

@justsayen2024

Жыл бұрын

Well this didn't age well

I worked there during 1998. Loved every minute. Nothing was mentioned about the uncertainty during that time until the day Dr. Schumacher came in and closed the place. There was continued investment and machines were still being qualified as I worked my last shift in metrology. I still work in the North East and drive past the site every day. Nothing left of the FAB, only the office building remains. Very sad indeed, still think what could have been

@E3_Kruger

Жыл бұрын

It's actually a massive data center and fiber exchange called Stellium now, i suppose it kept to its high tech roots but it's ultimately still tragic, the housing estate to the north was literally created just for this site, then it was effectively abandoned. A sad story indeed

Really like all your stuff (especially this one since I just started my apprenticeship at Siemens) but I think you made a small mistake. The "Bundesbank" is the German central bank responsible for issuing currency, while the "deutsche Post" is comparable to US postal service and was (and to a degree still is) responsible for communications infrastructure in Germany. But all that aside, I really enjoy watching your videos. I really love how the kind of give an outside view to things happening here in Europe. Keep on the good work 👏

@Asianometry

2 жыл бұрын

Thanks for pointing it out. It's my bad. If I do more Europe videos, hopefully I get better at this stuff.

@normanmacdonald9411

2 жыл бұрын

@@Asianometry thinking about it you also could have meant "Bundesbahn", which is the German federal rail service. If I remember correctly, they hab some stake in the upkeeping infrastructure as well at some point. You see I'm not expert, just noticed this detail and it seemed a bit weird to me. Everybody makes mistakes. On the other hand I really like how pronunciation of German words are always absolutely on point. Not just this video, but the one about Karl Zeiss for example. Keep on the good work

@Dear_Mr._Isaiah_Deringer

2 жыл бұрын

​​@@normanmacdonald9411 Naw you were right in the first instance. Just that _'deutsche Post'_ is a result of the privatization - before it was the 'deutsche *Bundespost'.* Later as mentioned before deutsche Post/DHL, Telekom and Postbank… which might be the reason why he accidentally conflated the bank part with it.

As a German who studied at Durham University in the north east of England this was very sad to watch. It is a nice place and I felt at home there, but the lack of Jobs and the overall poverty are a huge problem. And btw. my das did his apprenticeship at Simens, so I have both a connection to Simens and to the Tyneside

@compsciorbust9562

Жыл бұрын

Yooo. I'm at Durham University right now. What college were you part of?

@AntonFetzer

Жыл бұрын

@@compsciorbust9562 I was at Grey, but that was back in 2017. Actually went back to Durham last summer for our 5 year reunion. At which are you?

@compsciorbust9562

Жыл бұрын

@@AntonFetzer I'm at Butler. I'm graduating next year.

As a native of this area I would like to say thank you for that well made and informative video

Thank you for the very interesting and informative video. One tiny point, you got the GBP to USD conversions inverted I think. £1 billion is more than US$1 billion, not less.

@ab-ky2rj

2 жыл бұрын

in 1995 the rate was: 1000 pound = 1550 US$ ( maybe he mixed up multiply and divide ? )

@ironfist7789

Жыл бұрын

On a side note, before 1975 the British billion was one million million instead of 1000 million like some other countries today.

I’m from Hartlepool but left when I was 19 for a more prosperous region with better potential. The Siemens story is very similar to the Samsung CRT TV and Microwave plant that was built just outside Hartlepool in the late 90’s to much fanfare, subsidies and benefits. I think it lasted 5 years before they realised no one wanted CRT TV’s anymore and price of microwaves dropped 80%. Cue: Redundancies, Government clawback of grants, and incriminations..

@hatbabe

2 жыл бұрын

At least the councils and government were learning about clawback clauses by that point, the previous years in several british and irish regions saw the local governments dazzled by huge, blue-chip companies seemingly willing to splash amazing amounts of cash, but they all started with a huge cheque from the taxypayer first. Much fanfare at the news, then it all evaporates (at best) 1-2 product cycles down the line, when it's cheaper to start afresh in a new region.

@MeiinUK

Жыл бұрын

Cos people started to import cheap items in from China then ? So why weren't they blocked ? You see how we kick ourselves in the foot sometimes? Is this why our exchanges collapsed in and of itself ? And then the commonodities market went with it as well ? And now, here we are, a single mega round circle. And now, if only we had a commodities market again. But oh no... it is China this time round talking about building a commodities' exchange.. Isn't this why they created things like bitcoins ? Or digital exchanges? Sorry... but I am not touching the East European digital coins and what nots.. We brexited. So be it. If they want to be china's extra province, then let them be. Ireland wanted to create their own digital coin.... Laughable. In this lockdown, wasn't the US stock exchange paused ? Cos it was frying itself ? Obviously China exporting isn't working so well then...

@mountaindewmartin7204

Жыл бұрын

Up the pools. No where more prosperous than the mighty Hartlepool.

Thanks for the trip down memory lane. I was part of the process engineering team back in 96/97 that set the place up and then shut it down in 99. Some good friends and memories made along the way.

I got screwed by Siemens also. They purchased the factory I worked at. Shortly after we celebrated our 100th year in business and we were told things would continue as they had. Two years later they announced that they would be closing the facility.

I helped to build it worked on an effluent treatment plant on the roof treating the wash from the ultra clean rooms filtration system. Graphite pencils were banned an a molecule could cause a chip to fail. Great video 👍

Thank you for making this video, I’m from the north east of England and I didn’t even know that we ever had any kind of semiconductor industry of any kind whatsoever. Hearing about how poor we are compared to the rest of the country is always interesting because it’s never really talked about with real data in the UK. I’m glad I got out.

as a colombian, im fascinated with this industry, even thought there is not a company of semiconductor in my country

@zunzwak4482

2 жыл бұрын

then try and make one :)

@afelias

2 жыл бұрын

Computer engineer here, the largest reason very few countries even have semiconductor fabs is very much a geographical problem of logistics - the very first hurdle is electric power cheap and plentiful enough to power lasers for lithography. That's potentially really great for Continental Europe and China, then secondarily other places like the US (one of the times having control over oil supply becoming really useful), and then other countries like Taiwan that can at least bring in resources (but are incredibly dependent on coal and gas imports). If your country still finds it hard to make electricity cheap and plentiful enough for other industries, especially existing manufacturing plants, then it's still way too big a jump to even plan a fab. You may as well plan for a fab and a next-gen nuclear reactor at the same time.

@alexanderphilip1809

2 жыл бұрын

Colombia surely has thr geographic proximity to get in the game, if one were to start laying the foundations now.

@Mavendow

2 жыл бұрын

@John Ashtone Well said, and thank you for providing that information. Colombia has been known to the world as "that drug nexus" for too long; I have read about their recent political changes and industrialization. The things you mentioned are exactly what people like Deske need to hear to set himself on the path to entrepreneurship.

@gatoloco1873

2 жыл бұрын

Is beacause in Latin American countries the idiot goverments actually believe that you country can become in a "Sillicon Valley" just training programmers, but those morons have not idea what in the world is a "semiconductor". Such retards. By the way, I'm also from Bogota Colombia.

I'm from this part of the UK, and I've had more than one interview at Cobalt Business Park! I never knew the backstory to the failure of the Siemens plant until now. Also worth remembering is that ship building and armaments manufacture also floundered in the region around the same time.

@davidsoulsby1102

Жыл бұрын

Siemens got huge subsidies from the local authorities, once that period was over they left. Thats from the horses mouth, ie a senior manager, German national, working there at the time.

@fossrocket

Жыл бұрын

Sounds familiar.

@fossrocket

Жыл бұрын

Exactly the same is happening with that battery plant now.

Did a few installs @ Atmel, the steel structure was always prone to vibrations, setting up tools was not always easy.

I live in North East England and this guy has got his facts on the situation here bang on the nail. It's a sad fact that since Margaaret Thatchers government our are of England has been on a downward spiral. Fro being one of the driving forces in Britain's industrial might starting in the Industrial revolution. With ship building and heavy steel industry as described in this video being the biggest employers. Thank you for your video

@riveness

2 жыл бұрын

Can only speak for steel industry but Thatcher had very little influence on steel. The consolidation of steel was already ongoing before that her and the drive to privatisation prevent funds being available to made port Talbot a three furnace site of real long term European importance. Thatcher didn't help manufacturing, rather continued the already ongoing, unpopular but much needed consolidation while pointing always to the past "harm" of said consolidation. She essentially got a free pass of consolidation while not carrying through the needed changes to their much needed fruition.

Excellent. Great research, delivery and sensitive commentary.

I remember as a child being in the back of my grandmas car driving up the A19 road and seeing through the trees the queen and the crowds gathered outside the Siemens plant at the opening ceremony, I couldnt believe my luck. Dont think my grandma who was driving really believed me either despite my excitement lol

Very close to the home town of my youth, every time I visit relatives in the area I wonder why Siemens simply disappeared after clearly a huge investment. Many thanks for clearing up this mystery, for the beautiful photographs of Tynemouth, and for the rekindled memories of tough times during the 1970s and 80s.

As someone who's lived in the north east and grew up there. I haven't ever heard of this, and surprised as anyone who read the title.

@nikolaynikolaev7957

2 жыл бұрын

did masters in newcastle heard about the plant several times from locals and professors

@Rar9866

2 жыл бұрын

I Live across road from place, it's open now but used as offices, it's quite nice and has a nice cafe inside.

@fannyalbi9040

2 жыл бұрын

it is an embarrassing project perhaps

@Rar9866

2 жыл бұрын

@@fannyalbi9040 nah just think it occurred several years ago, both the opening and closure was big at the time but life goes on

Thanks for an interesting and very well-researched video. On behalf of the few northeasterners that I know, thank you also for a sympathetic and unsentimental portrait of the region. It's slightly embarrassing that a foreign filmmaker can do a better job of reporting on Tyneside than the UK press.

Great quality content, as usual. Thank you!

A reasonable account of the history of the north Tyneside fab. The main reason for closure was that the development but sister plant was always going to be kept, I.e. the Dresden facility. The timing of the Asian economic crisis and the effect this had on particular Korean DRAM producers ability to produce at scale and price (government backed) was profound. It was not just western fabs that got hit for six, most Japanese memory producers had to abandon the memory market as the losses became huge. Indeed the IMF insisted that Hyundai and LG merge their memory units in order to get IMF money, Hynix semiconductor was born. For your info I worked in the industry in these years throughout the world and still do. The video mentions that north Tyneside perhaps should have looked at logic devices rather than memory, Siemens focus at the time was memory and that is where they needed the capacity. As for some commenting that the North East did not have the skill set, give me a break, the failure was purely down to timing of the fab startup, global memory price hit and lack of government support …. The latter is all too often the case in the U.K., too much short term thinking….

@favesongslist

Жыл бұрын

Wish I could give more than 1 upvote to you.

I live in North Tyneside, never did I expect you to do a video on us, blown away. thanks!

Thanks for the interesting video. However, the German Bundesbank is the German Central Bank. What you refer to was the Bundespost which no longer exists the way it used to be, it was split into the Post, DHL and Telekom.

Miners: "We demand you keep the mines open and until you do that, we'll close it ourselves!" Maggie: "Deal."

A nice short video about the risks of semiconductor manufacturing. Thanks. On a lighter note they might have had far too many drams while doing a risk analysis of the fab.

Great research. I learned a couple of things and I'm a UK resident of 60 years.

In my career I have worked in capacities where we used Siemens industrial products and services. I have also interfaced with GE, Westinghouse and several other companies offering industrial services. My least favorite by far is Siemens. In my view are a cold company, sell an inferior product and and treat their customers terribly with what seemed like a hint of disdain. Just one old man's opinion based off years of experience.

@suunto61

2 жыл бұрын

Wait… didn’t Siemens tell you why you were wrong??

@docvolt5214

2 жыл бұрын

I both fix their products, ( new and obsoletes) , and use them (I'm also a plc programmer) and by God you just hit the nail straight on the head. Siemens is good and all but it's not a customer-seller relationship, it's more of a "ahah you want help? It's a miracle we even ALLOW you to buy our stuff!" I like to think of Siemens as the Apple of the industrial electronics. At least I make € fixing their old stuff

Interesting overview. It's worth noting that the problem of decline of the NE and midlands of England goes right back to the end of the British Empire in the early 1900's. The huge historical industrial base of these areas in coal, steel, shipbuilding, railways, cloth, pottery, footware, furniture and many other sectors was built up in the days of the Empire due to the very deliberate 'Imperial Preferences' policy whereby the far flung empire was forced (by gunboat if needed) to exclusively supply raw materials cheaply to the mother country and then in turn to buy finishing goods exclusively from GB and in turn industrial development in the empire was suppressed. A good example being Indian cotton where a centuries old (family based) industry of growing and then spinning cotton and weaving cloth was suppressed and the raw cotton had to be sold cheaply to mills in the north of England and then India had to buy British made cloth! The rise of Gandhi and the Indian independence movement was triggered by this. Even in far away Australia industrial development was suppressed and the country forced to buy steel from GB and not build capacity to do it locally. So the huge industrial and mining base in the midlands and north of England that started off the industrial revolution in the Georgian era and was continued to its apogee in the Victorian era was based on supplying a captive world wide market. It was the time of big power mercantilism. The French did the same in their empire. With the end of Empire and especially post WW1 this model ended quite abruptly. An example of what happened is Jarrow where the huge shipbuilding works closed putting thousands into poverty. In the 1890' 90% of ship building in the British Empire was in the UK (and much of that in the NE England) but by the 1920's this had fallen off a cliff as other nations now free of Imperial dictates started to do it themselves and the UK had far too many shipbuilders. Jarrow is famous because its inhabitants organised a March in 1936 against unemployment and poverty to protest the closure of the shipyard in 1934. When Thatcher came to power there had been decades of unrest in the midlands and north due to the decline and she is often blamed for ending British industry. She certainly gave much of it a push off the cliff but it was in terminal decline long before. Thatcher was right that the old model and old industries could not kept limping along via huge subsidies, but where she and the Tories were unforgivably wrong was that they never tried to mitigate the job losses in these communities via a massive program of such things as 1.) early full pensions for those near retirement (within 10yrs) in specific industries 2.) fully funded education, and retraining in other skills for those younger persons - including funding to cover their families whilst they are training 3.) grants, subsidies, loans to new industry to relocate to the area including big spending on the needed infrastructure (power, water, waste, transport) 4.) subsidised resettlement of those (esp younger) persons wanting to move to another area of the UK where there was work. (many are trapped in north because house prices compared to the south are so low that if they sold up they could never afford to buy a new place elsewhere). The money was available as it was the high days of the North Sea oil boom - but instead Thatcher and her cronies spaffed those billions on cutting taxes for the middle class and especially the rich and building a giant casino in London called the financial sector. Contrast this with Germany which in the 1990's was the 'sick man of Europe' with a sclerotic inefficient economy based on out of date industry and lots of labour union unrest in the west and in the newly absorbed east Germany a polluted wasteland of post communist central planning. They came up with the Hartz reform program which is still running (Hartz IV) and undertook a root and branch reform and overhaul of the economy and social-welfare systems and today Germany while not without problems is a powerhouse and much fairer and more prosperous than the UK. Brexit was/is almost totally an English driven tragedy and had many fathers but I'm convinced that a major one was a protest vote by the millions in the midlands and north of England. Just after the referendum result was announced the Guardian sent a journalist to Sunderland to ask around why they voted Leave and she interviewed a man who said 'we have nothing and care nothing and we wanted to give Cameron a kick in the nads'. This video about Siemens and the reasons why it left is book ended by the recent decision by Intel not to build a 90 billion euro semiconductor plant in the UK because of Brexit.

@Deepthought-42

2 жыл бұрын

An excellent footnote summarising of what continues to ail Britain today. A further example in 2021 of Brexit fall out is the 20% fall of the pound after the Brexit vote in 2016 resulted in the (sometimes hostile) take over of British companies. A prime example was ARM - a jewel in the crown of the British semiconductor industry designing and supplying software and chips for mobile phones. ARM was taken over by a Japanese investment bank in 2016 which was later sold in 2021 and is now US owened. An example of inward investment for the wrong reasons. Withdrawal of multinationals from UK will continue because there is no longer a tariff free market into EU to justify an investment base in Britain - far easier to set up in the EU without the red tape.

@jaredgarbo3679

2 жыл бұрын

I don't think it was a £90 billion factory.

And I thought GB is only short of lorry drivers to move products around these days..

@grimgoreironhide9985

2 жыл бұрын

It’s short on Eastern European drivers who were the only ones to accept low wages and terrible work conditions. It is thanks to Brexit, bad working conditions and greedy lorry companies that England is self inflicted disaster.

@NorfolkSceptic

2 жыл бұрын

@@grimgoreironhide9985 And some petrol tanker drivers have gone to work for the supermarkets, for higher pay and better conditions.

@kingofracism

2 жыл бұрын

@@grimgoreironhide9985 tbh though this disaster is a good thing. Britain is white priviliged and needs to come back to reality. I voted brexit in hopes of a recession and break down of GDP in hopes of Britain becoming a poorer nation. It's less attractive to outsiders

@Deepthought-42

2 жыл бұрын

UK (not GB) is short of good honest government and industrial and financial leaders that are prepared to invest in its population. Instead we are lumbered selfless interested populists and cronyism. Comparing the past altruistic industrial leaders in the North East such as William Armstrong to someone like James Dyson today highlights the extent of the problem.

UK also had InMOS with their Transputers 'back in the good old days' and we used thousands of them. Paralleling them blew the doors off any 386 PC at the time. Was a shame to see ST take over that product line and run it into the ground.

I was part of the product diversification plan of George Perlegos who want to skip out of the flash memory cycle. Tyneside's equipment was out of the memory scale run but pretty good for mixed-signal chips. The same equipment now used for the same purpose by TSMC bought in 2006 to run 130nm there. The plan was to bring up an unified process from Colorado/Heilbron and fab them economic in Tynside. But the shareholder takeover by Steven Laub and short time profit direction make the equipment more valuable than a long time business plan. Now Tyneside, Rousset, Heilbron and Nantes are all closed. I see it as the age of the IDM model comes to an end. Fabless could provide even better product differentiation without fab allocation. The key is that the manufacturing equipment define more or less the process, its getting a commodity and it is named fabless.

@blardymunggas6884

2 жыл бұрын

Wow so much technical details that are alien to me. I only know about Fap

Excellent summary of recent history. Thank you.

This channel has got to be one of the finest channels on KZread. Thank you, Sir, I have learnt so much from your work!

Great presentation. There’s always hope, when needs become a possibility. Power and energy are long term potentials.

Good research and presentation. Lots of photos and the narration is good.

You should do a video about MOS Technology. Most people don't even know that the northeastern USA, specifically, Pennsylvania, had a native semiconductor fabrication heritage. MOS ended up being bought out by Commodore. The Pennsylvania plant was declared a superfund site, survived Commodore's liquidation, and ceased operations at the superfund site plant in 2000.

I worked on that site during all its construction phase (parsons engineering and plastics). It was my first job after leaving school only 2 weeks prior, I started as a labourer but due to my hard working attitude and best time keeper out of all the labourers I was taken on as a trainee pipe fitter and loved it. I was kept on in a ghost squad after it was finished due to me being a local and I remember sitting in a big leather office chair playing golf on the bosses computer and getting a really good wage while doing so, but once a week i had to go to certain floors and check/adjust dampers. The good old days 😄

“They took them on nights out in Newcastle” Are you sure they were not trying to put them off? 😂😂😂

Very good. I grew up next to Lambton colliery site (the photo at 1:52), and later worked on Middle Engine Lane near where the Siemens factory was built. Have you seen it today? In front of the original Siemens office building is an Aston Martin dealership, across the road there are Ferrari and Bentley dealerships, they are all doing good business. North East England has come a long way from its history.

There's that globalization at work; sounds like the USA offshoring. Eventually, the locals will figure out that they need to make what other people can't; comparatively better and not rely on cost advantage alone.

Excellent video. Thanks. That detail about the Ministry of Fuel and Power banning new manufacturing industries in the north east was particularly interesting. It seems bizarre that Siemens opened a new plant that wasn’t making the latest technology DRAM. Surely the equivalent of Moore’s Law in memory would have told them not to do that? The collapse in memory prices by half an order of magnitude in such a short space of time is remarkable. Where the Asian plants just selling chips at a loss to get some cash flow AND because they saw an opportunity to clear out their high cost competitors? Short term loss for long term gain. (pity about the currency conversion errors. You should fix those and repost.)

Thanks for a very informative video. I think everyone can understand why this crashed,if the price per unit is shrinking from $27 to less than $2 in a matter of months the company is doomed, it's just a pity they didn't know that before building the fab.

Interesting to hear a different perspective on Siemens. Where I grew up in the Midwest of the US, the local FAG bearing plant was one of the premier employers in a 50 mile radius. It'd been there forever, and generally once you got in you were a lifer. The backlog of applicants was months if not years long. FAG and Siemens by extention were seen as the pinnacle of stability and gainful employment. The thought of that plant ever shutting down was basically inconceivable.

@miaya3898

Жыл бұрын

So did it?

@yoyobeerman1289

Жыл бұрын

@@miaya3898 Nah, as far as I know it's still going strong. I've moved away since, but it was still there when I visited last year

This channel's ideas and views on why the UK in general has not been good at nurturing business leadership - and it's not just a problem in NE England - would be very interesting. It's been an issue for at least the last 80 years since WW2, and probably since the start of the 20thC. Masked by the UK's relative wealth 120 years ago - so a long way to fall.

@Google_Does_Evil_Now

Жыл бұрын

Looks like UK Government allow banking to be major employer without much thought for other areas? If we can get percentages from everyone else's deals, then we can ride on their success. But also when there's a downturn we will go silent.

Well done. Very interesting. Thank you. It is appreciated.

30 years ago Australia imposed import duties on products that competed with domestic production. Bosch set up a semiconductor plant in Melbourne to manufacture alternator power diodes for the local car industry. Consequently, every local had to pay higher prices for ALL their semiconductor based imports for all purposes.

@boggisthecat

2 жыл бұрын

Australia maintained protections for local industry while New Zealand didn’t. Wages here were about ninety percent what you could get in Oz, and they’re now closer to sixty percent. ‘Open borders’ for money and big business is a bad idea when there are not open borders for people.

@sarangawalimuni4955

2 жыл бұрын

Australia is stuck in real-estate and raw material $$$ hardly any companies are investing research anymore West let Taiwan and South Korea along with China to master in anything electronic

@greywolf271

2 жыл бұрын

I worked at the Bosch automotive electrical manufacturing factory in Clayton in the 80's. When I started there, spark plug manufacture was on its way out to India. Lucky for me, I bucked the trend and have always been able to stay in work and have a great job in electronics maintenance now. But I see the decline over the years of investment in R&D in this country and total devastation of our manufacturing base. Technicians coming out of TAFE training are totally clueless. TAFE has mostly been a disaster.

@robertgregory8964

2 жыл бұрын

@@greywolf271 Worked in R&D as a Physicist/Electronics engineer at Varian in Mulgrave until manufacturing was being shipped O/S. The only engineering Australia seems to want is civil or agricultural engineering. Sadly, I got out and started teaching at uni as I did not want to leave the country. One day designing mas spectrometers, the next teaching maths to uni business students LOL. Australia *used* to have very good TAFE students who made great technicians, I used to enjoy mentoring them better than graduates. The TAFE system has now been dismantled. I found US service technicians were all military trained to do it by the numbers and you had to talk them through any remote site diagnosis of complex systems.

@cacwgm

Жыл бұрын

@@boggisthecat I got into a mild spat with an Australian who was outraged at the tariff barriers Australian companies faced exporting to the EU, whilst being proud of Australia's protectionism...

An excellent video, thank you for posting

The Siemens case is not the only one. Fujitsu had a similar 100,000 sq.ft. plant to manufacture 16MB DRAMs in Newton Aycliffe, which they shut down around the same time. UK company Filtronic bought the plant for a song to turn it into RF semiconductor fab but almost went bust just maintaining the plant at 1M pounds a month. Filtronic shares dropped from 25 pounds to less than a pound. Filtronic sold the plant to RFMD, which later sold it to Compound Photonics which sold it to Kaiam.

It's nice to see videos like this because it helps me learn history of my own are from times before I was born or at a young age 18:00 I was wondering where this was based, thanks for clarification

I'll always have a thing for Atmel, who made the ATMega328P, and started the whole Arduino thing. Probably not very big in dollar amount, but I think they'll always be historically significant because of that. If wonder what would have happened if, in an alternate reality, ARM would have been able to get ahold of the fab and started making it's own chips. Great video btw!

@marcowen1506

2 жыл бұрын

One of the founders of ARM took part in a documentary where he said that the reason why they were so successful was that they *didn't* make chips. The company was focussed on the high-value end of the supply chain and could make money through licensing without the enormous capital investment and huge exposure of a manufacturing wing.

@MeiinUK

Жыл бұрын

@@marcowen1506 : What, even A15 like the Apple chips ??? Well..... The video did state that they could've made the computer chips, Intel or AMDs... but they did not. And that is their downfall really. Cos if they did, and then we slowly pivoted as well... Instead, it is Netherlands that did high end chips, like the NX conductors ? Well.... By then, a lot of people are not even interested in working for them then. Although quite a lot of computer fairs at that time, and then most people that I know, went straight into softwares... and left semi conductors behind. Imagine if it was the other way around. UK made high value chips. And the softwares were outsourced to China, say...

@miaya3898

Жыл бұрын

@@MeiinUK designing is 1 thing. Making is another. Only Taiwan and Korea can make highend chips now. America 🇺🇸 just designs. They're like a fashion designer that draws clothes 👕 but doesn't know how to actually sew

@MeiinUK

Жыл бұрын

@@miaya3898 : By UK standard, this video is insider info... cos I should not be able to access this knowledge, at all.... Cos my previous mobile phones, would've blocked me from seeing such videos... And these so called "youtubers" often.. violates... international laws and deals.. in their pursuit to sell data and infos....Such that, they indirectly discriminate as well.. without even knowing....

I appreciate the perspective on the north east which this gave me. Top notch, apart from the pronunciation of DRAM (I notice you didn't try to pronounce the pictured SDRAM..) and confusing megabytes with megabits.

@Col_Crunch

2 жыл бұрын

The bits vs bytes issue is understandable though as the chips they made were used in the pictured RAM modules which had the same number of bytes as the modules had bits. So the module pictured when he said 64 MegaBytes for example had 8x64Mb chips for a 64MB capacity. So with Seimens making both the module and the dram chips I can see where the confusion came in.

My late friend gave notice to his company having served them for over twenty years to take up a position at Siemens in late 1997. He never even set foot in the factory as he was informed by telephone that they no longer needed him. His former company refused to cancel his notice to leave as they had already recruited his replacement. I still feel gutted for him and his circumstances as he killed himself just after Christmas 1997 leaving behind his wife and two young Daughters. It does make me feel that maybe, just maybe that these companies consider the full impact of their decisions before making them. I feel that Siemens should have paid my friend redundancy money given that they had agreed to employ him and he had given notice to his employer. Had they done so I believe that he would have been present at and made mark upon his Daughter's weddings in 2018 and 2022.

It's pretty impressive you have managed to do these topics in detail so regularly. A lot of research must go into each video. Really enjoy your content. I saw your recent video on Evergrande. I know you are based in Taiwan and it's Covid, but i'd be really interested to see you have a go with interviewing some ppl on the street in the future. I think a topic of interest to international viewers may be Taiwanese perceptions on China and geopolitics. I guess the downside of choosing to feature a topic like that is you might get trolled. Another topic that might interest international viewers is how Taiwan manages housing (like Singapore it has policies in place to balance property prices), unlike Australia where I am which has few or unlike more comparable countries like HK. I'll subscribe to your Patreon. Thanks for the good content

"If you close the mines, we will refuse to work the mines!" um... I don't think that's going to work.

@jgdooley2003

2 жыл бұрын

Several factors militate against reviving the coal industry. Underground working conditions for humans would not be allowed under current health and safety rules, all the work would be done by robots in a highly automated and jobs poor manner. The demand for coal is going downwards as carbon based power sources are being replaced by wind, solar and other power sources. Even if Thatcher had not closed down the coal mines in the 1980's they would eventually be closed by the pressures against using coal and the dangers of direct underground working by people for health and safety reasons.

@SMlFFY85

2 жыл бұрын

Yeah, the Unions were run by morons more interested in their ego than the people they were supposed to represent. They killed UK owned industry, not Thatcher. But you can't say that because that's not nice.

@clarkeysam

2 жыл бұрын

@@jgdooley2003 if that was true (conditions for humans underground not being allowed today) what about those who currently work in mines today?

@jgdooley2003

2 жыл бұрын

@@clarkeysam I do not know about countries outside the UK or US but I would imagine that the rules do not apply worldwide. I just know that humans working underground is so regulated that you will not see a return to conditions that existed in the 1980's. Health and safety would not allow it. Similar restrictions apply to many labouring jobs in industry and construction, the practices once allowed are no longer tolerated in todays world.

@clarkeysam

2 жыл бұрын

@@jgdooley2003 I understand that health and safety considerations have changed, but there's mines operating now in the North East of England, with numerous people working underground.

Nice informative video. All these are not known to many British residents like me. Now I know why there is no chance in near future for any new electronic industries in England! A sad realisation 😥

At the time I was working on Intel Fab 14 in Ireland. I got an emergency call to go to this plant, then under construction. I was amazed how poorly managed the project was compared to the Intel site. The contractors didn't seem to understand how you built a plant like this. It was filthy, with poorly trained fitters. I wasn't surprised that it ended up being a disaster.

Call centres really are the mould that grows on rotting infra stucture.

You should do a video on the Newport Wafer Fab/Nexperia decision. Lots of interesting geopolitics at play!

Also ATMEL never produced FLASH at North Tyneside. The Irving, TX facility was almost exclusively FLASH, but was closed some years prior to North Tyneside in 2002.

I think you got the dollar and pound conversion mixed up a couple of time earlier in video.... Either brilliant as always

yet another amazing research/history video !

Great video, very detailed! Could you consider covering the Qimonda spin-off from Infineon and their eventual bankruptcy in one of your next videos?

At around the same time LG was planning a massive investment in Newport South Wales, they had moved roads to make way for the new Fab, to make, yes DRAMs.....they pulled out of making the Fab for the same reasons but at least converted some plants to manufacture the new flat screen tv's (Plasma) I think they are still running today with the new updated tech of OLEd etc. I have worked in the semiconductor business from test/assembly, Litho & MOCVD as an engineer. It's been very rewarding, now today as there is a glut on spares with extenuated delivery times I am contracting to repair systems (electronics) around the globe to aid businesses to continue. As you may imagine the costs of rare spares has more than quadrupled and suppliers are being mercenary due to demand. In comes little old me with meter in hand lol. Nice niche to have with all my 40 years of experience.

Nice Video. Hate to nitpick, but you got the exchange rate backwards whenever converting Pounds Sterling to U.S. Dollars. The value of GBP > USD. I'm not sure if this affected their business since the currency was relatively stable in the mid-90s, as opposed to other parts of the world then and macroeconomic conditions in the UK now. However, having an expensive currency is often detrimental to exports, generally speaking, even if cost of labor is competitive.

"Not many local industry leaders", well that bit is true. There are some decent sized businesses in Software (Sage etc), but nothing much in hardware. Ironically, just before all of this was going on, a certain Jony Ive was at college in Newcastle learning to be an Industrial Designer.....

I live in Newcastle. Siemens does still have a factory in Byker. I'm not sure what it makes but I do know it has a large vacuum chamber visible from the road. Love driving past the big succ for Siemens.

It's nice to see that the Dresden Röntgenwerk building, shown in the very beginning, stil stands and is still used for its purpose. Been there in the 1980s, well before Siemens took it over...

Great video! What would we do now without ASML? One of the best companies in the world.

I work in an office near the Cobalt business park and can see this building from my home, never knew the history of it though. Really sad but at least the usage has been increasing as of late with many of the large buildings being picked up by other companies.

Can I suggest that instead of mentioning different currencies, you only mention the directly relevant one and display it and conversions on screen? I would help me understand the data and I feel it would improve the flow of your script.

well analysed. Thanks

Good video, I was working at their French plant near Paris at that time, also producing memory chips, and the North Tyneside closure came as a big shock. One correction though, the chips produced then were 16 and 64 MegaBITS, not MegaBYTES.

@cdl0

Жыл бұрын

Yes, 16 Mbit chips, but with eight chips per memory module, making 16 Mbytes.

Interesting video, rings true of many Industries right across the UK. There are a lack of industrial leaders due to inward investment, investment comes in, profit comes out, the investment leaders when the market changes look after their core business/nation and you lose employment. If you become the subject of inward investment its wise to look for new employment as at some point you are in risk of losing yours.

@jgdooley2003

2 жыл бұрын

I was not wise and this personally cost me in terms of job satisfaction and career advancement. Ireland depends far too much on FDI for its seemingly high economic performance. The real truth is that most of its private jobs depend on the will of foreign companies and the jobs can be lost very quickly. This is why many highly educated workers, especially those in publically funded jobs such as health and security, emigrate at the first available opportunity to other more hospitable countries and then the Irish employers have to backfill these positions with nationalities from 3rd world countries. Statistics show Ireland as one of the richest per capita in the world. Trouble is that much of that wealth is held by MNC's in order to avoid tax in their home countries, it is not reflected in the actual wages of the workers who also suffer high costs and high overall taxes in the toxic mix. This is also reflected in the increasing difficulty faced by many underpaid private sector employees on temp contracts and precarious employment terms who cannot raise finance to buy their own houses. Many are forced to emigrate due to high rents and impossible living conditions here at home.

@lesatkins42

2 жыл бұрын

Yes, I know someone who was made redundant from the same job in the same factory three times, each time under a different owner.

I was raised in the North East, so was completely astounded to see this video. Good work!

@fannyalbi9040

2 жыл бұрын

have you heard of this news?

Really interesting subject thanks

Do a video about Qimonda.. also another tragic semiconductor story of one of siemen's derivatives.

Amazing video. Do you have a source for 2:00-2:11? It would be extremely helpful to some research I’m doing if you did or if anyone else knows where to find one.

As someone whose grown up (and still lives in) in one of the old North East mining towns (Collierys) Thanks for bringing this story to light. EDIT: No really, thank you. I don't think I can properly articulate how deep the scars left behind by the mining town closures and migration of heavy industry left a generation of people growing up with no idea where to go in life or where to turn. Truth be told, at the time, I suspect the smartest of us left.

Thanks for the upload! You have a very slight high pitched noise in the video that's likely coming from your microphone. I don't know how to remove such noise, but maybe your editing program has a tool for that.

@user-qh8bm4nv9w

2 жыл бұрын

My CPU or RAM in an old notebook makes the same sound when it is in low-power state.

@caleballen4721

2 жыл бұрын

It sounds like interference from a nearby Bluetooth device (or artifacts if the mic is wireless)

@hks-lion

2 жыл бұрын

Sounds like some interference from some unhappy “draaaam” to me

Excellent video, but just one minor point. You mentioned that Siemens achieved 100% margin on sales to Bundesbank, I think what you meant was 100% mark-up. I.e. Cost is £100 which you sell for £200…that’s 100% markup, but 50% margin. For you to achieve 100% margin the product must have a zero cost. As said a small point but you might need this in further videos.

@ez45

Жыл бұрын

Also almost certainly didn't mean the Bundesbank, which is the central bank. That'd be a strange contract for a central bank for sure

Excellent analysis! Was the UK£ really so low back in the 1990's?

@peterbreis5407

2 жыл бұрын

Just checked. The answer is no. The rates have been inverted and are way off.

@paddydunne774

2 жыл бұрын

They were all the place. One moment you’d be competitive against the DM and FF we used to be paid in Dutch Guilders and then next week/month the Spanish or Portuguese would be flavour of the week. You just had to get used to reacting to what was happening.

Correction: The Bundesbank is the German central bank. It still exists and is now part of the ECB. You might mean the Bundespost (federal postal service) which was privatised from 1989 to 1996, forming Deutsche Post and Deutsche Telekom (T-Mobile etc.) as a company. I don't know where you got 1985 from, though. Also, memory isn't served in drams. It's "Dee-RAM".

This is an excellent history. Could you do one of the Scottish Semiconductor industry from silicon glen to now?

@philiptaylor2366

Жыл бұрын

I second this! I used to work for NEC Semiconductors in Livingston and still feel a sense of loss over what might have been had things worked out differently there.

Renesas bought Dialog, a good UK chip designner this year.

Like to see a video explanation as to why IBM had to pay Global Foundries $1.5B to take their semiconductoy business off their hands!

FYI it's pronounced "dee-ram"

@hu-ry

2 жыл бұрын

Yeah lmao. I was so confused when he initially called it dr-am 🤣 didnt realize he meant dynamic random access memory in the first few seconds

Amazing detail. Im from the North West of England and admire the Northeast and their residents. They have always been dealt a bad hand from the people in power but i know they will fight until things turn around. Its in there DNA

I was the last team to operate those legacy tools from Atmel in Taiwan back then in this video,they're 0.15u process capable in 8" fabs

What a fantastic video!

You've used the USD/GBP exchange rate backwards. As a mark of its age, "cable" (the first exchange rate to be synchronized by Transatlantic cable) is quoted as USD per GBP. Back then GBP was still the reserve currency.

@macicoinc9363

2 жыл бұрын

The USD has been the reserve currency since about the end of WW2. However, I do agree that the rates were flipped.

@FlorinArjocu

2 жыл бұрын

I wondered if the exchange was reversed, too.

Cool. I've worked on software for the C167CR shown @5:12 within the last year. Originally an Infineon part, I think.

@mog068

Жыл бұрын

Ahh I guess I had it backwards. I've only ever seen the Infineon parts.

I remember it as I was involved in construction of it, just another case of the NE being left behind, to SE England,and it's still continues to this day!!

The subtle laugh at the beginning of the video mentioning the queen showing up and closing just after 10 months of operation got me giggle lol