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$100million per lithography machine! A bit of a side topic, but can you imagine if there were fewer people in the world? Computing power would never improve be

by ars 7y ago

$100million per lithography machine! A bit of a side topic, but can you imagine if there were fewer people in the world? Computing power would never improve because it would be too expensive. I wonder what other technology could be done, if only there were more people (i.e. larger market), but is too expensive right now. People always like to talk about the downsides of population, but the high tech world we live in now could not exist otherwise.

dfrage 7y ago
And there wouldn't be enough smart people. These lithography machines are completely wild: the part that fails the most spits out a tiny droplet of molten tin. That's hit with a laser, and the excited electrons emit what's called extreme ultraviolet (EUV) which is very close to the softest of X-rays. Most of the power released is wasted bouncing off a series of mirrors, and then wild stuff happens as these energetic photons hit the semi-optional mask cover (pellicle), mask, and then chip: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EUV_lithography https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EUV_lithography