Comment by bnetd
Comment by bnetd 4 days ago
Is there a somber write-up anywhere as to the future of EE in the West?
Comment by bnetd 4 days ago
Is there a somber write-up anywhere as to the future of EE in the West?
Having known several great EEs in FAANG who did exactly that job, sometimes paying Chinese income tax due to the length of their stays at the factory, that is my impression as well.
So basically fits the theme of "we gave up silicon production to cheaper countries and we're shocked those countries have surpassed us"
Chip design/semiconductors/etc. have been a dead end in the US for 30+ years, but EE is a broad field and other specialties like RF/power systems/anything defense related are still in high demand. An EE with a PE will have an infinitely easier time getting a job working at a utility or engineering firm than any software developer these days to be honest.
Limited to non existent jobs. Not much else to say, the jobs like so many others have been exported. Taiwan and China being the electronics and manufacturing centers means design has steadily moved as well. Ask any board house in the west how things are going, the ones that are left that is.
It would help if they didn't charge $50 for a single raw PCB in low quantity when I can have the same board not just made, but also assembled in China for a fraction of that, shipping included. Literally.
I've often wondered if that's some kind of industry inertia issue, or if there's some underlying additional cost to build in the US.
People here cost a little more. No one here does quite the volume jlcpcb likely does. Perhaps there’s some artificial market factor as well like CCP tends to weigh some scales. There’s board assembly machines made in china as well likely further reducing the cost to build out assembly lines. Perhaps cheaper sources of basic materials like copper.
Likely multitudes of factors at play all of them in favor of China
I could buy that to some degree, but not to the current insane level of price disparity.
PCB production should be one of those things that is or can be mostly automated if it isn't already. Assembly is definitely already a mostly automated process. This is all existing tech. Thus the cost differential doesn't seem justifiable.
I have to think that this is very much "build it and they will come" territory if you can get within 1.5x to 3x the price, so it continues to boggle my mind that nobody has managed to make it happen.
The only blocker I can truly identify is the magnitude of the initial investment. That doesn't explain why the prices at domestic board houses seem to have remained pretty much exactly the same for the last couple of decades, though.
As far as I can tell, they just don't want the business.
The personnel that swaps part dispenser blades in the USA costs more. What's there to understand? Automated assembly still has setup costs that take real humans walking around physically.
It's more likely that the Chinese companies are offering prototyping at a loss, because they know people won't switch to a different board house, once the prototyping phase is over.
I don't know if there is a somber write up. But from what I have heard from a lot of people, is that jobs designing and making say PCB boards and electronic circuits just don't exist. They are all in Shenzhen. Those American firms that have American engineers still, seem to all involve flying to those factories to help fix problems, and are dead end jobs. At least thats my impression.