5 ms·

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

by 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
      [deleted]
  - sweetjuly 3y ago
    The months long lead time is not purely a scheduling/capacity issue though. Producing the masks for these modern processes is very complex and slow. Adding more fabs won't help because because its a latency issue, not a throughput issue.
    - marcosdumay 3y ago
      The OP is talking about years-long lead times. AFAIK (but never studied the latest processes), making a mask takes weeks. That means that the minimum lead-time on making masks is weeks long, because there is no interdependence between them. But I'm sure this is one of the steps that add up to years on practice, because of production limitations. Actually making the chips has a higher floor, because every step is interdependent. With a hundred steps, each one taking half a day, we are talking about 2 months here. There are probably more than a hundred, and a few take more than half a day (but many take less than it), so yeah, I'd easily expect a 4 months minimum. What doesn't compare to years at all.

by junon 3y ago

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
    [deleted]
- sweetjuly 3y ago
  The months long lead time is not purely a scheduling/capacity issue though. Producing the masks for these modern processes is very complex and slow. Adding more fabs won't help because because its a latency issue, not a throughput issue.
  - marcosdumay 3y ago
    The OP is talking about years-long lead times. AFAIK (but never studied the latest processes), making a mask takes weeks. That means that the minimum lead-time on making masks is weeks long, because there is no interdependence between them. But I'm sure this is one of the steps that add up to years on practice, because of production limitations. Actually making the chips has a higher floor, because every step is interdependent. With a hundred steps, each one taking half a day, we are talking about 2 months here. There are probably more than a hundred, and a few take more than half a day (but many take less than it), so yeah, I'd easily expect a 4 months minimum. What doesn't compare to years at all.