Those krypton fluoride and argon fluoride lasers are exactly the lasers that use neon, even though "neon" is not in their name and their respective Wikipedia pages do not currently mention it. See for example this 2016 announcement from laser supplier Gigaphoton:

https://www.gigaphoton.com/en/news/3797

"Gigaphoton to Begin Field Evaluations for Neon Gas Recycling System “hTGM”"

In KrF and ArF excimer lasers, which are used in advanced semiconductor manufacturing processes, neon accounts for over 96% of laser gases used as the buffer gas. However, the cost of neon gas has risen sharply, reaching 5 to 20 times previous prices due to difficulty in obtaining it, a situation brought about by a worldwide neon supply shortage that has continued since 2015. In response to the situation, in July of 2015 Gigaphoton launched the "Neon Gas Rescue Program" in order to provide support to customers in sustaining stable high-volume manufacturing environments.

Of the three program options Gigaphoton previously announced plans of launching in 2016, the company has now completed development of its neon gas recycling system "hTGM," and will begin field evaluations of the system this month. hTGM makes it possible to reuse laser gas by connecting directly to the conduit of lasers in operation at semiconductor plants, collecting the used gas, removing impurities, and then re-injecting it back into the laser. This system is both eco-friendly and provides the greatest possible recycling rate without impacting the operation of laser equipment. hTGM also features an extremely efficient design that allows up to five lasers to be connected to a single unit. At present, the company has decided to begin evaluations for KrF lasers at user facilities from the end of February, after which it plans to progressively apply the system to ArF lasers as well.

Those government-run reserves always seem a bit silly to me. There's nothing special about the reserving business that normal private sector companies can't do.

(Especially if you abolish anti price gouging laws.)

> Scale and geographic concentration tend to push prices lower

Neon is extracted from the atmosphere. There is no geographic concentration to exploit (well, I guess technically Antarctica is coldest and so has a volumetric advantage). If Ukraine had the bulk of the supply it's simply because someone decided to invest in a bunch of manufacturing infrastructure there.

It not really a byproduct per say of oxygen and nitrogen, but the byproduct of that process has a higher amount of neon than air by about 99 times. Still, the gas that we got is about 93% argon, and then you got to remove the carbon dioxide, but then its mostly neon left I think.

That's what a monopoly is... They've entirely cornered the market for a good...

No. But if you're Air Liquide or somebody in the US, and you're distilling the air anyway, adding the capability to extract the neon might make sense.

> So, apparently the reason neon comes from Ukraine is some pretty smart Ukrainians wanted it that way, for the good of Ukraine, and specifically for Ukrainian sovereignty to matter to the rest of the world.

Nope. See the other comments here, that explain that the Soviet Union overinvested in this technology because they wanted to build weapons with it.

It would probably have been better for the people of the Soviet Union (or Ukraine now) to have invested these billions into something else, or even just consumed them.

> and specifically for Ukrainian sovereignty to matter to the rest of the world.

Probably not, since it appears that this capacity dates back to a Soviet laser-defence project.

We’re seeing this with lithium. Canada and the US have significant amounts in the ground but the mining and refining infra simply isn’t there.

Neon distillation does seem much simpler and cleaner, from my layman perspective.

> Semiconductor industry is extremely fragile.

Not sure that's true. After all, it doesn't break down all the time, does it?

Good point!

My main point still stands though.

Edit:

BTW I wish I could edit my previous comment to rectify my mistake but I can't.

> My Ukrainian colleague was terrified for his family today.

I am willing to host up to 10 Ukrainians at my farm in the very south west corner of Poland until further decisions can be made. Only 2 takers so far. Please email my username at gmail if this is interesting to your colleague or to anyone else reading this.

Poland has dropped visa requirements. I can provide some initial legal assistance via a generous family member's donation. I was once a refugee as well. We expect nothing in return.

edit: now at 60% occupancy (maybe) Good luck everyone!

You think a global increase of food prices will not have an effect on human lives?

I agree completely. I feel shocked, I can't quite yet comprehend, what has happened. Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be the same for most of my peers in my country, i.e. germany.

Edit: Slight mistake.

I think the "missiles on civilians" narrative has been exaggerated.

There are up to 10 civilian casualties so far, so it would have been easier to die of covid or even pollution than bombs in Ukraine in the past 2 days.

In general, if you want to help, have a look at https://www.givewell.org/ and just pick any one of their top charities.

(Yes, their top charities don't necessarily have anything to do with whatever cause is currently in the news. They go by 'greatest improvement in human lives per buck' regardless of where those people are.)

It's kind of funny how many people either don't know or pretend to not know about some obscure thing that happened in 1989.

If they hedge before it happens, they don't benefit from the rise: the hedging locks in the prices.

Also hearing about shortages (and huge price increases) in fertilizer.

Corn is less of an issue -- US has a massive surplus of corn.

What does ZC=F mean?

It's not a non-issue. You can't extract it from air with tweezers, you need to build a lot of equipment. It takes a long time to build a chemical plant, and if Intel is sitting idle until that plant is built... well, that's an enormous problem.

Although it is still an issue. While the resource is everywhere, the technology for extraction is still in a specific vulnerable position.

Once we have the extraction capabilities elsewhere - then is is a non-issue. The turn around time on that? I have no idea. It could be days, months or years.

How long does it take to establish that generation and supply chain?

Yes, but who will have the money to buy your 'overproduction', for what will he buy it and how will it be 'pretty easily' shipped?

https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/05/20/food-price-spikes-and-s...

https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2021/12/bread-prices-ri...

https://www.skuld.com/topics/cargo/solid-bulk/agricultural-c...

Filter the chart to 'All' to have a wider scope. On it and things as a whole:

https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/future/w00

In the olden times some considered it a good measure to secure food production by subsidies. You know, hungry people get restless. If that is your intent or you don't have to face the consequences, it's fine. But for the most part to keep the masses fed is a basic measure.

Of course with time, things get complicated for governments:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-03/egypt-s-p...

But you always have to consider the angry rabble will string you up at the next streetlight.In the aforementioned parts of the world gladly with an 'Allāhu akbar' on the lips.

Admitted, in many parts of the world they, the masses that is, are quite overfed by now and appropriate measures should be taken. But that can change quite fast.

Two.

Putin is very rational and predictive. The nuclear option is not relevant.

He moved troops to the borders, waited for a response. And this response was what he expected to be: just sanctions. This gave him the "ok" to invade.

Sending troops would be a clear signal. Costly, but you can also see it as a good exercise.

> There probably is decisive action being implemented behind the scenes right now

Many, many strongly worded letters will go out.

I’m sure Putin will cry himself to sleep tonight.

I dunno, Putins behavior reminds me of my 3 year old son. When he does something he knows he’s not supposed to do, he checks your reaction, and if you don’t respond he’ll see how far he can push it.

The Russian fascist state runs mostly on taxpayer money. Hence, as an individual, you can contribute by not funding them.

Less money spent on Russian products = less money going to modern Nazis. It's that simple.

Most people don't really care, but if you do, there are plenty of non-Russian alternatives (which should be quite obvious).

What about my brand new Lada!

The developer and his brother are from Russia. Also WinRAR is free in Russia.

In part, because Taiwan's ADIZ extends over mainland China.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:JADIZ_and_CADIZ_and_...

(ADIZs are also unilateral and not something set up in international law; they're basically a request)

"We saved some money" is how economics works in price competitive markets. This is a result of many players doing what keeps each one competitive, but without collaborating on what the large scale effects are down the road.

Yeah that's your answer right there. American management, at least those who go to business school, like how can I put it fairly to the people I know who've studied business...They just fucking hate paying wages. It's a huge business school teaching to treat wages and taxes as counterproductive. Are you really going to propose American management likes paying taxes? The fair thing to say is they fucking hate paying taxes. Those words carry the real emphasis of the negative emotion, I'm not trying to be pejorative, that's just how they actually feel about that matter. I've seen businesses decline quite profitable opportunities because they'd produce too much in taxes in the process, from some double taxation effect.

So then, the MBA just has to hate the factory. After all, that was where everybody used to get their wage.

At least in terms of semi manufacturing, we tried our hardest (visit Gilbert and Chandler AZ), we just were worse than Taiwan.

Believe it or not, that's often the real reason we shut down, people just blame it on cost savings for pride.

Oh no. We didn't do that. They just beat us. We kept our fabs and we kept our fab engineers and we built and we built, but they just beat us.

This technology isn't easy. Notice how far China is behind despite massive investments. Sometimes we just don't have the tech. But it's okay, TSMC and friends will bring it here.

I'm constantly thinking about this old HN comment, and how it applies not only to Agile but most of the modern JIT wisdom: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18448602

> You saved some sprints but invalidated the purpose of the project. Very agile.

On the other hand without globalization, there is no way the relatively tiny island of Taiwan could have become the world leader in chip manufacturing, and the US would have less incentive to invest in their security.

How do you identify all the vital components for not just what you need to manufacture, but the components of those components? How many people here knew Ukraine was a major producer of neon prior to this, and its importance to semiconductor manufacturing?

You could try to become totally autarkic, but then you have to support a national semiconductor industry along with every industry it relies upon indefinitely, while foreign semiconductor companies won't be encumbered by restrictions to purchase every component for their process from within your country; they, at least, will have the option to go with the cheapest or the best options. And so, if you want your national semiconductor industry's chips to actually be used, you have to provide incentives for that, too, and/or require domestic electronics companies to use their chips. Then, since you're making domestic electronics companies uncompetitive, you have to incent consumers to purchase those electronics, ban or heavily tax foreign electronics...

In a modern, globalised economy, it seems to me the only way to have a semiconductor industry that isn't vulnerable to these sorts of problems is full top-down control of a substantial chunk of the economy.

And when the orange man came and said we should bring it back, I laughed at home and call him an idiot!

Perhaps not as important but the humble helium neon laser is also still an important practical standard for position measurement at submicron accuracy.

I've heard that repeatedly and I used to believe it to; however I have been recently studying WW1 and found out there were many people back then who said pretty much the same thing. They said that no one would want a war things were too profitable and there was too much trade, they were terribly terribly wrong.

The problem is WW1 wasn't one big "let's go to war" like Hitler and WW2, WW1 was the effects of hundreds of little consequences, edge cases, and constraints upon individuals and nations that interacted in a way no one could see. I believe the same thing will happen again, and it will probably come as a result of a Pakistani-Indian conflict or something from Iran. It isn't something anyone can see right now, but its coming, just like no one would've guessed the assassination of an Archduke would lead to 10 million dead across Europe, in the same way it will be something we can't determine right now that will push upon the constraints, agreements and edge cases to push us towards another global war.

My non-expert POV says the problem isn't global trade it's unbalanced global trade. Everyone depends on China, so Xi has little incentive to fear economical reprisals.

This was I believe one of the major goals of TSMC. Even if it wasn't (and my memory isn't serving me with a link) it certainly has that effect now.

Yes, why does it still happen on a weekly basis?

Neon purification and leading edge chip manufacturing concentrating in Ukraine and Taiwan respectively have nothing to do with neoliberalism. The former is a historical accident rooted in soviet space laser initiatives, and the latter is because TSMC executed technology development better than western, Japanese, and Korean competitors

But China is too much coupled with the western economy to even sanction effectively. I think CCP must be watching this to see the cost and benefits Russia gets for invading Ukraine, which would definitely influence their decision even more than Afghanistan would have. If the cost for Russia is too low, then they wouldn't be risking much.

> I don’t think Winnie the Pooh has big balls to attack Taiwan in recent future.

Not disagreeing with you, but I think people generally incorrectly assume that a dictator with absolute power thinks and acts rationally.

Wasn't that what people were saying about Russia's aggression too? Yet here we are.

Yeah Chinese people place commerce over patriotism first. It's just the general attitude we have... unlikely Pooh bear will conduct an attack.

We should only be worried about an attack if the the effects on commerce and military retaliation becomes negligible. That's when China will strike.

I think they'll be watching what happens in Ukraine very carefully. Then they'll be calibrating their predictions about what would happen if they invaded Taiwan with Russia's experience in Ukraine.

You can't assume dictators are rational. Xi Jinping thinks he is singularly entitled to run the lives of billions of human beings.

if I may, "recent future" implies some time travel to make sense, you might instead say immediate or forseeable future

Has China ever sent their army into another country post their independence ?

The western world's economy is dependent on china - any sanction immediately hurts the local economy. That's why every country is happy to fund the Chinese government's genocide.

> Because the economics literature is quite clear that international trade is beneficial to all involved.

If you narrowly focus on economics, yes. But what are other consequences, outside of economics? By outsourcing everything, you lose control. You allow uncontrollable external factors to affect you. You open yourself to be blackmailed.

So in a way yes, those principles are weak because they are incomplete. They do not take into account the full range of possibilities that can happen in the real world.

This entire theory has been disproved by modern China essentially becoming a Singapore writ large with a very bustling economy not only tied to but pivotal to the international trade system, but managing to remain authoritarian without liberalizing much.

Economics is clear on nothing. The curve maximizing behaviors for international trade have a few assumptions built in, e.g. that Taiwan does not get annexed by China and suddenly the trade incentives change horribly.

> Are these principles so weak that we would allow a dictator who doesn't even have the support of his own people to shake them?

In practice the principles don't matter too much. The reality is that industry has optimized for cost and converged on a small set of suppliers. The single points of failure introduced as a side-effect of this could certainly be exploited by a bad actor.

> international trade is beneficial to all involved

But what kind of trade? Not unrestricted - Taiwan itself used protectionism to grow its industries when they were not yet able to compete on the global market:

James K. Galbraith has stated that [..] " ... none of the world's most successful trading regions, including Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and now mainland China, reached their current status by adopting neoliberal trading rules." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage#Criticis...

I would say that the economics literature is very clear that international trade is frequently not beneficial to all involved. Haiti would be a clear example of a case when it was not.

> Because the economics literature is quite clear that international trade is beneficial to all involved.

Maybe the literature is wrong?

> economics/capitalism

lmao

Chinese Hostility Intervention Plan?

You need a strong services based economy to support an aged population, this is not what russia has by a long shot.

Russia has few choices to fix this in timeline they'd have to work with. Population demographics take a long time to solve peacefully.

There is no lack of people in the world. This is only an issue if you have some sort of deep-set racist need to only be around people of a particular skin colour.

Now you're thinkin! It's strange that this would fool anyone. The US has been transparent and accurate with stories, and it doesn't seem that USS... er Russia is firewalling off the internet just yet. Although I think that is soon to follow so that western stories will be limited except to those who tunnel through. I had hope Putin was just doing some dick swinging before April elections but it looks like I'm 100% wrong. it's not like he was going to lose anyway or that he's anything other than a dictator.

I always think that's a weird comparison when it's made; the U.S. has a long history of hiding 'true-black' project budgets in non-military (usually scientific) ledgers.

Interesting. I wonder if China has the same amount of waste and overspending in their military industrial complex.

Why not? Seems like a great time. Buy low

You are assuming that they won’t stay.