10 ms·
What’s harder to find than microchips? The equipment that makes them
- nanomonkey 5y agoThe equipment also requires folks that know the in's and out's of engineering for the equipment. This can be as much of a bottle neck as finding the equipment itself. There are many Universities that are running old equipment for the EE departments.
- xxpor 5y agoAnd yet we're complaining about having to know git internals in order to use it :)
- analog31 5y agoWhy bother learning how to make hardware when you can make a better living writing software? </s>
- Spooky23 5y agoPeople don’t realize until it’s too late. A good friend from high school was a top engineer for some manufacturing process, which was abandoned after a buyout. He was laid off and now runs a Dunkin franchise.
- mfg4u 5y agoI don't think the /s is necessary. Many EE's go through much of the same coursework as CS students. For young EE's why would they go into the HW world when they could make so much more money working in SW. I am an EE and I am considering making the jump to SW as my daily workflow is already about 60% SW work.
- analognoise 5y agoYeah I was thinking the same, no /s is necessary.
- ghaff 5y agoAt the moment at least, you could probably say the same thing about all branches of engineering. Of course, some people just prefer doing non-software things but, as you say, they'll probably end up doing quite a bit of software anyway. (Which suggests that some sort of leveling almost has to take place unless we're OK just doing without new people going into other branches of engineering and science.
- intricatedetail 5y agoHeh I was looking at EE jobs as I have experience, but pretty much every job pays pittance totally not adequate to what you have to invest to learn this stuff.
- waiseristy 5y agoAnd all the consumables that were specially manufactured for the processes used by each specific machine. Good luck finding whatever esoteric solutions you have to dump into the thing to get it to work
- sevensor 5y agoI am way late to this thread, but I want to address a big point of confusion -- just because you have equipment capable of very fine resolution, doesn't mean you actually have to use it to produce features that small. You can keep on making 103nm gates even with equipment that can resolve 27nm features. The biggest problem with designs that have larger features is if they also specify much thicker film stacks. You can put a pretty thick layer of just about anything on a 4 inch wafer before it turns into a taco. Your ability to do that with a 12 inch wafer is pretty limited. Also, just because you have a fab set up for a given process node, it doesn't mean that all of your photolithography equipment has the same capabilities. Some layers have more relaxed dimensions and can use less expensive optics, masks, and resists. A fab will have a mix of equipment suited to its process needs.
- ur-whale 5y agohttps://archive.md/rJ21X https://archive.md/rJ21X
- chuckSu 5y agoThank you :-)
- j_walter 5y agoMany 20+ year old fabs are still expanding and the old machines are very hard to come by. We have recently even started converting 300mm machines to run 200mm wafers because those machines are easier to find. Not every chip runs on the latest and greatest technology. For instance there is no need for a 5nm power management chip...180nm is perfectly capable of handling it efficiently.
- xxpor 5y agoI assume this is a non starter since no one (that I know of) is doing it, but is there a reason you can't "just" apply a 200mm mask on top of a 300mm wafer? If the limitation is the 300mm wafer costs more and makes the chips too expensive, how much would the cost have to increase in order to make it worth it? ((300mm^2pi) - (200mm^2pi))/(300mm^2*pi) % roughly?
- haneefmubarak 5y agoThe kind of precision and accuracy tolerances you need in these machines basically make it so that everything has to be exactly right. The 200mm mask won't have a place to "fit correctly" in the 300mm machine and so you won't be able to get the precision and accuracy you need. Remember: a silicon chip is actually made of many layers, which means many masks (1 mask per layer). Additionally, the method by which 200mm masks and 300mm masks are actually used in the etching process can vary significantly because of physics that I honestly don't have a phenomenal insight into. Making larger wafers drives prices up, because the process of making a monocrystal larger and larger, but I don't think that's a major cost factor except for super cheap chips. The minimum cost of a 200mm wafer is about $2/in^2 and the minimum cost for a 300mm wafer is about $3/in^2, in case that's helpful.
- mjevans 5y agoThe pad size for external wires might dominate the design for extremely simple designs, however couldn't a combination of these factors help? * Shrink the average node size 1-2 times (E.G. 180nm to 90 or 45nm) * Combine popular combinations of products into a single package that can have interlinks cut by laser or skipped at the metal traces stage? * Generally consolidate similar products within fewer variations? The slightly greater cost of the physical wafer is supposed to be offset by the increased machine throughput and the die shrinks possible, as well as ideally fewer defects by using newer processes. An extremely inexpensive set of processes for 300mm wafers would also be a good target for long term bulk semiconductor production.
- ksec 5y agoYes, but The Equipment That Makes Them also requires chips to function as well :) AFAIK There are at least five members on HN working in those equipment company.
- Dylan16807 5y agoEh, The Equipment That Makes Them could pay 1000x for those because they'll make it back right away.
- dehrmann 5y agoI wonder what I should buy in the microchip glut of 2023.
- 0898 5y agoDumb question: how do chip makers predict their roadmap? If they know they’ll be able to do still finer etching in 4 years, what’s stopping them from doing it now? How can you not be able to do something today, but still know fairly accurately you’ll be able to do it in future?
- petra 5y agoTo create a chip requires machines from many vendors and integrating them. So there's a collaborative roadmap for the industry. A single vendor couldn't speed this process by much, because he won't have those missing tools.
- ISL 5y agoThrough product-management and estimation. At scale, R&D can, to a limited extent, be commoditized. Companies/organizations (think particle-accelerators, etc.) have substantial experience bringing new technologies into production. If a new process has been proven in the lab and estimates exist for the speed with which each technology-demonstration milestone can be reached, one can credibly estimate when a new technology can reach the market. It is an inexact science, but all science is inexact. With sufficiently accurate estimates and conservative allowances for uncertainty and schedule-slippage, one can reliably do this. Intel did so for decades, using Moore's Law as a roadmap.
- ghaff 5y agoMoore's Law has been sort of a special case in that it arguably functioned as sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy. "What do we need to do so that, in two years or so, we'll hit what Moore's Law would predict?" But, as you suggest, the same general patterns apply to a lot of things. You know what you want to do. You have some idea of what you need to do to get there and how hard it's going to be. So people who have experience in such matters can make (usually) reasonable estimates of how quickly they can get there--even if they're (also usually) often optimistic. Because you're more likely to run into hiccups than unexpected breakthroughs.
- avs733 5y agoBecause you can’t/don’t integrate major process changes at individual steps. You introduce entirely new or revised processes with many steps updated or new technology introduce in tandem …so called nodes. When you move to suv, for example, you need finer etching and better cleans and many other things. Until you introduce Euclid if you don’t need the finer etch and your process “yields” well don’t fix it if it ain’t broke. An analogy would be…star drive screws are better overall than philips screws. But I probably wouldn’t switch my car assembly line over to star drive screws by doing it one assembly station at a time. I’d shut the line down for a weekend and change them all, or I might change them all as part of switching production over to next years model.
- bserge 5y agoIt's amazing how wasteful the whole industry is. Now you have soldered CPUs in laptops - a great way to ensure they get replaced often ($$$ for Intel/etc) and end up in a dump in Africa somewhere, where no one will see or use the vast majority of it, ever again. What a waste.
- cgb223 5y agoHas any startup attempted to solve this problem by creating new chip making hardware? I know it takes years to even get one out the door but crazier moonshots have been funded and the ROI potential to break up a relative monopoly must be huge
- hugh-avherald 5y agoIt's hard to think of any enterprise that would be less suitable for a startup.
- theli0nheart 5y agoIf a startup can build nuclear fission reactors or supersonic jets, it’s likely that a startup could do this too.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- q-big 5y ago> If a startup can build nuclear fission reactors or supersonic jets It still has to be proven that this can be done by a startup.
- theli0nheart 5y ago> It still has to be proven that this can be done by a startup. I am confused. What, exactly, has to be proven? Startups have already done both things [1] [2]. (also, correction from my op: s/fission/fusion) [1]: https://www.helionenergy.com https://www.helionenergy.com [2]: https://boomsupersonic.com https://boomsupersonic.com
- q-big 5y ago> Startups have already done both things Startups intend to do both things. ;-)
- intricatedetail 5y agoI think this industry essentially gatekeeped itself into slow extinction. Greedy CEOs and severly underpaid engineers is a recipe for disaster.
- matmatmatmat 5y agoASML recently sent out a memo about "low retention."
- dlsa 5y agoI wonder how many people it takes to enable the production of one IC. From absolute raw materials to device ready to place into a product. Machines with parts made using other machines and so on. Including the parts and processes and people's experience operating across all of it. It would be interesting to see this whole thing mapped out. It seems to me that this might be helpful in understanding which parts of this ecosystem might be low hanging fruit.
- leptoniscool 5y agoOne way to encourage companies to build more of these equipment is to make them open-source. This way any one who's passionate and smart can improve and lower the cost or increase the supply. The end result is more chips for all.
- DeathArrow 5y agoSince the US ban, the Chinese are hard at work at cracking the technology required for lithography. They got it until 32nm. After they succeed and they fill their internal demands, I think we will see cheaper machines for sale. I wouldn't wonder if in 5 years we can buy 5nm machines from Alibaba website.
- RF_Savage 5y agoThe hard things start below 28nm. Before that you can get away with more traditional optics and optical litho. I fully expect there to be domestic chinese fab equipment companies competing head on with Japanese and American suppliers in processes larger than 28nm. But 5nm has taken more than a decade of R&D and is likely not easily copied. I'd rather dream about garage scale processes with "green" less poisonous chemicals for artisanal IC production.
- systemvoltage 5y agoThere is so much interest here in semiconductors. If there were a Fab start up in SV, it would be a huge hit and would bring SV back to its roots!