6 ms·

I'm in digital physical design and part of that 99% of the army. The schedule is king. If we make a mistake it is another $30 million for mask costs and 4 mon

I'm in digital physical design and part of that 99% of the army. The schedule is king. If we make a mistake it is another $30 million for mask costs and 4 months in the fab to get a new chip to test. Contrast with software where you can change 1 line of code and recompile and test in seconds. We do so much to minimize risk by reusing existing blocks, licensing third party IP that has already been validated in silicon, and armies of verification engineers.

vlovich123 3y ago
Yeah but that speed also means we can go from idea to broad release quickly which both means quicker to market to deliver value but can also mean that a screw up scales quickly too.
bombolo 3y ago
> recompile and test in seconds i wish
- ponector 3y ago
  And you don't need to compile in many cases..
- junon 3y ago
  Compare that to the lead time of electronics, though. I just started in PCB design which is leagues more time forgiving than silicon design and fab, and even then if a non-generic component I'm designing for goes out of stock, the lead time for a new batch is anywhere from a month to a few years, on average around 4-6 months. Thinking about the design process, testing and revisions, all the way to fab and then market, we're probably talking years just to see a single design reach your test bench (I'm speculating). Oh and millions, because the major chip fabs only do things in large batches. Compare this to software. It is, indeed, seconds in comparison. I'd love for semiconductor fabrication to get fragmented out like it sounds like it will.
  - MichaelZuo 3y ago
    > I'd love for semiconductor fabrication to get fragmented out like it sounds like it will. Why does it matter for lead times? If 2 fabs with a lead time of X turn into 5 with a lead time of X... your still waiting.
    - junon 3y ago
      Lead time isn't because of some magical bottleneck. It's because of demand and batch size. If university students can somehow decimate the batch size needed per design, and enough groups do this (or find new ways to reduce the process size in order for more firms to do this), and enough of them do it at once to help demand, then the lead time goes down, and so do costs.
      - MichaelZuo 3y ago
        Do you understand what lead times are? For example, 9 women can't have a baby in 1 month, because there is a series of necessary processes that has to be undergone and can't be accelerated.
        marcosdumay 3y ago
        You seem to not get the GP's point at all. The bottleneck in the lead time of semiconductors is not physics at all.
        MichaelZuo 3y ago
        Those are called supply chain shortages. I'm fairly certain the actual lead times to procure semi-custom chips are indeed 1 month+. And a fully custom chip is 1 year+.
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vlovich123 3y ago

Yeah but that speed also means we can go from idea to broad release quickly which both means quicker to market to deliver value but can also mean that a screw up scales quickly too.

bombolo 3y ago

> recompile and test in seconds i wish

ponector 3y ago
And you don't need to compile in many cases..
junon 3y ago
Compare that to the lead time of electronics, though. I just started in PCB design which is leagues more time forgiving than silicon design and fab, and even then if a non-generic component I'm designing for goes out of stock, the lead time for a new batch is anywhere from a month to a few years, on average around 4-6 months. Thinking about the design process, testing and revisions, all the way to fab and then market, we're probably talking years just to see a single design reach your test bench (I'm speculating). Oh and millions, because the major chip fabs only do things in large batches. Compare this to software. It is, indeed, seconds in comparison. I'd love for semiconductor fabrication to get fragmented out like it sounds like it will.
- MichaelZuo 3y ago
  > I'd love for semiconductor fabrication to get fragmented out like it sounds like it will. Why does it matter for lead times? If 2 fabs with a lead time of X turn into 5 with a lead time of X... your still waiting.
  - junon 3y ago
    Lead time isn't because of some magical bottleneck. It's because of demand and batch size. If university students can somehow decimate the batch size needed per design, and enough groups do this (or find new ways to reduce the process size in order for more firms to do this), and enough of them do it at once to help demand, then the lead time goes down, and so do costs.
    - MichaelZuo 3y ago
      Do you understand what lead times are? For example, 9 women can't have a baby in 1 month, because there is a series of necessary processes that has to be undergone and can't be accelerated.
      - marcosdumay 3y ago
        You seem to not get the GP's point at all. The bottleneck in the lead time of semiconductors is not physics at all.
        MichaelZuo 3y ago
        Those are called supply chain shortages. I'm fairly certain the actual lead times to procure semi-custom chips are indeed 1 month+. And a fully custom chip is 1 year+.
        deleted 3y ago
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        3y ago
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