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There is a bit of an issue that almost all the know how exists within a couple of private companies and if the industry down turned, such as from a crash in an
by PaulKeeble 1y ago
There is a bit of an issue that almost all the know how exists within a couple of private companies and if the industry down turned, such as from a crash in an AI bubble causing a many year lull, giant companies could fail and take that knowledge and scale with them. Some other business would presumably buy the facilities and hire the people but maybe not. It's one of the issues of so much of science and engineering happening privately we can't replicate the results easily.
- bsder 1y agoThis isn't unique to semiconductors. If you turn off any manufacturing line, your company forgets really quickly how to make what that line made. GE discovered this when they tried to restart a water heater line in Appliance Park.
- to11mtm 1y agoHeck, the US had this problem when they needed to renew/refurbish nuclear weapons due to more or less 'forgetting' how to make Fogbank.
- AlotOfReading 1y agoFOGBANK was a little more complicated. The process that was written down just didn't work as expected. That was partially lost institutional knowledge that had never been recorded, but the original manufacturing just didn't understand their process. The process had contaminants improving the final product that they were unaware of. When the process was restarted, that didn't happen until it was investigated.
- silisili 1y agoYup. Remington apparently has no idea what the blueing formula was they used in their original 1911s. Colt lost the ability to handfit revolvers.
- bitwize 1y agoWe as a global civilization are close to forgetting how to make CRTs. There's like one company that still makes them, but only for military or major industrial applications (fighter jet HUDs and the like), at call-for-pricing prices. The major manufacturers, like Sony etc. all shut down their production lines, never to be restarted again because the knowledge of how to make them dissipated with those production lines. If you're an enthusiast who wants to experience retro video games as they appeared back in the day, your only option is to scavenge an old TV from somewhere.
- LargoLasskhyfv 1y agoWhy would a HUD need a CRT? They are old, maybe to replace failed ones in old systems. But not how they are made today.
- wmf 1y agoAlso since Sony shut down Walkman/Discman production it's now impossible to make good portable tape or CD players. The ones made now are huge and low quality.