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If you haven't watched it, there was a fantastic 2009 talk (given during HOPE09) on what goes into fabrication called "Indistinguishable From Magic: Manufacturi
by xoa 8y ago
If you haven't watched it, there was a fantastic 2009 talk (given during HOPE09) on what goes into fabrication called "Indistinguishable From Magic: Manufacturing Modern Computer Chips" [1]. Keeping in mind things have advanced even farther over the subsequent decade, even at that point it was mind blowing what goes into the hardware at the core of what we all do. The level of purity and consistency needed for a lot of basic inputs is measured in atoms, really digging into the details it's amazing some of this works at all let alone with high yields. Helps give some context of how an incident like this can happen and how easily the cost could rapidly rise to eye watering levels.
I think Andor has posted on HN since too with some other high level talk, though not further updates per se since unsurprisingly details around fabrications are very heavily guarded trade secrets. I still rewatch it every year or two, it remains a real source of wonder to me what we've pulled off there.
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1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGFhc8R_uO4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGFhc8R_uO4
- downer52 8y agoThe best part is the brief addendum about some of the bunny suit inhabitants of the chip fabs (~20 minute mark), and how they are weird, but that the gender distribution of their children is, in fact, "normal" or at last not specifically a product of their occupation.
- Joona 8y agoDefinitely one of my favorite talks. I believe this is a higher quality version of the same talk a few years later: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KL-I3-C-KBk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KL-I3-C-KBk
- drbawb 8y agoThank you so much for posting that video. I watched it a long time ago and have been wanting to revisit it, but was never able to find it again.
- tecleandor 8y agoHi, Andor here. I'm the uploader of the video. I'm not the Todd Fernandez, the speaker for that HOPE09 talk. I happened to give a talk at the same congress (Digital Security in Healthcare Institutions, pretty outdated as of today), watched Todd talk, and loved it. My upload is published every once in a while in HN or Reddit, but I'm not the author, just a, ahem, freeloader. I uploaded the talk with intention of subtitle it for my deaf teacher in particular and Spanish speaking people in general, but I lost control of the account, I think it was related of some sort of Google+ problem. So here are my explanations