Earlier quoted context omitted.
Normal Accidents is a terrific book on inevitable failures of complex systems — it was written before Chernobyl which makes it prophetic as well.
How is it prophetic? Does it predict a nuclear catastrophe?
Yes
ASML reports fire at its Berlin factory
41–50 of 319 posts
Re: ASML reports fire at its Berlin factory
#42Tech giants seem to have fire problems in Germany lately
I‘m not quite sure, which other incidents you are referring too, as the only recent one I can remember was on OHB a few days ago.
News article (only in German): https://www.n-tv.de/regionales/niedersachsen-und-bremen/Bran...
Re: ASML reports fire at its Berlin factory
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ok, in WWII a big part of Allied victory was the US mobilizing a vertically integrated industrial base to build war materiel. You can look at the history of the Defense Production Act (1950) to see it in action several times building up local industries with lots of cheap money.
Right, if the US wanted it done it could be done.
[deleted]
Re: ASML reports fire at its Berlin factory
#44Berlin news (rbb) say that Many things are still unclear including: - how big the damage is - how long it takes to operate again - how it was possible to happen/how it happend The linked article basically says the same.
Doesn't litography use some pretty wild chemicals. Like Chlorine Trifloride? Thing that when burned emits hydrochloric acid and hydrofluoric acid. Aka thing that burns ashes. Again.
I assume making those machines is pretty crazy as well.
Re: ASML reports fire at its Berlin factory
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ok, in WWII a big part of Allied victory was the US mobilizing a vertically integrated industrial base to build war materiel. You can look at the history of the Defense Production Act (1950) to see it in action several times building up local industries with lots of cheap money.
Right, if the US wanted it done it could be done.
Is there a reason to assume the ability to ramp up in WW2 has any bearing on the ability to ramp up an operation like ASML today?
You cannot just throw any bodies at a problem like creating ASML. You have to throw very specific bodies with each one having at least a decade or more of very specific expertise (it seems like, based on the comments and articles I have read). That is just ASML, not even getting into the deep expertise TSMC must need to execute, or even Apple in designing.
Knowledge itself has expanded tremendously since WW2 such that to be top of the field in WW2 required much less time than to be top of the field today.
Re: ASML reports fire at its Berlin factory
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is absolutely no capacity to replace ASML on any sort of short timeframe. EUV step and scan systems are roughly the size of a bus, fractal system complexity and sophistication that rivals the LHC, and mirrors with a roughness two orders of magnitude finer than what the JWST space telescope has to work with (namely .2nm compared to 20nm). Please do not underestimate the difficulty of manufacturing EUV systems, A…
If the DoD got scared and threw a few billion at a competition to build this tech locally, I’m betting it could be done relatively quickly, but then what is and is not “quick” Just call the three or four companies you think would be the closest and tell them they’ll be competing to build the capacity paid for by the defense department.
You know, expertise does not grow on trees. It was not an accident the manhattan project and moon landings were led by specialists from Germany.
You can't suddenly create experts by throwing money at random business people.
Re: ASML reports fire at its Berlin factory
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ok, in WWII a big part of Allied victory was the US mobilizing a vertically integrated industrial base to build war materiel. You can look at the history of the Defense Production Act (1950) to see it in action several times building up local industries with lots of cheap money.
Right, if the US wanted it done it could be done.
Do you have any evidence of required expertiese existing in US, youbare only offering tautologies so far
Re: ASML reports fire at its Berlin factory
#48Berlin news (rbb) say that Many things are still unclear including: - how big the damage is - how long it takes to operate again - how it was possible to happen/how it happend The linked article basically says the same.
Doesn't litography use some pretty wild chemicals. Like Chlorine Trifloride? Thing that when burned emits hydrochloric acid and hydrofluoric acid. Aka thing that burns ashes. Again. I assume making those machines is pretty crazy as well.
The one of the widely used light sources for EUV lithography uses a laser to zap molten tin to get the tin plasma to ionize and emit EUV light. It's fairly exotic and really inefficient but is needed for the smaller node sizes.
Re: ASML reports fire at its Berlin factory
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
China has been pouring high order of millions into domestic lithography. Eventually the market will shift. We're still a bit far away. Edit: funny that people here think that this is statement is somehow something that could be considered a contentious topic. semiengineering has a startup section with investments for people that are more interested in facts than emotions: https://semiengineering.com/startup-corner/
Well EUV alone cost many billions of dollars to develop. It's also not clear that China is particularly good at leading high tech innovation. If you just look at the dollars and cents, they should be inventing new technology at a similar rate as the US. Doesn't seem like they're pulling their weight.
"If you just look at the dollars and cents, they should be inventing new technology at a similar rate as the US"
That's very debatable. Maybe you are taking all the improvements China has made in construction, manufacturing and nuclear industry, and assigning them an 'innovation value' of zero. Maybe you are assigning non-zero innovation to exploiters of gig economy like Deliveroo.
Re: ASML reports fire at its Berlin factory
#50Berlin news (rbb) say that Many things are still unclear including: - how big the damage is - how long it takes to operate again - how it was possible to happen/how it happend The linked article basically says the same.
Doesn't litography use some pretty wild chemicals. Like Chlorine Trifloride? Thing that when burned emits hydrochloric acid and hydrofluoric acid. Aka thing that burns ashes. Again. I assume making those machines is pretty crazy as well.
I worked at a facility with experimental lithography machines. One of the
nasties looked like water, but would pass through your skin and melt your bones. Fun.