91–100 of 303 posts
12 hour days. Sounds pretty dystopian. Guess there's a reason Taiwan has the lowest birthrate in the world. Working themselves into oblivion.
What is the cost fraction of humans in this? Chip foundries are so ridiculously capital intensive I can’t imagine it to be a huge part of the operating costs.
None of this makes sense. 1. Long shifts are normal for fab operators in the U.S., eg Intel. 2. Certain engineers are always on call if an emergency happens, also true at Intel. 3. Samsung, not exactly the “live slow and enjoy life” type of culture as an employer operates fabs just fine in the U.S.
There are long hours, and there are long hours. I consider my self a fairly hard working person, in my first job I've seen situations where people came in on a Monday and would go to their homes next Monday. I've done a full time start up with a day job, quite literally coding every waking hour of my life(like 2 - 4 hours sleep a day) for years. And then I relocated from Bangalore to Bay Area for a while, and met a f…
I am much more productive coding than 99% of the people around me. One of my secrets is I sleep well. Probably your definition of coding is different from mine because of your working area. People make stupid mistakes when they are sleepy, including me, and it is way more expensive to fix(finding bugs in a big codebase) than not making then in the first place.
I have met lots of Chinese people working and had the opposite experience. China is so big that outliers that represent one in a thousand are more common but most people are that, average at most, way worse than European trained workers.
The fact that they sleep on their shops and workshops does not make them super human. Quite the opposite, they are human and working more hours make them work less intense.
I don't believe the Story that Chinese can run at Marathon pace all day, because they are similar mental limits for humans as they are physical ones. And Chinese people get burnout like everybody else or worse. Apathy on workers is the normal state.
I work at another semiconductor manufacturer in the US. You could find and replace TSMC with my employer and write the exact same article. Re: giving PhDs menial tasks and working a lot/odd hours I've spent a lot of time thinking about it and it actually makes a certain kind of sense. From an engineering standpoint, there can be a lot variability in the amount of work needed. Some days you are on fire solving issues…
Being programmer/sysadmin, I've never ever encountered such a day. A day with very low productivity? Yes. But not that the task list is short. Are there really days when you have nothing to do within any engineering job? Ofcourse, different jobs etc, but I suspect when everything is working, you still have to do maintenance. If not, you may fill your time by learning new/effective ways of doing your work, etc.
> Better to hire one PhD... rather than 2-4 bachelors...
Speculation? Having PhD in title really makes you more effective? For sure, it's a proof you had research in some niche topic. Good if they can utilize that at work and be more effective. Non-PhDs can also do research that brings fruits to your labor.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The working requirements in 24/7 manufacturing facilities is different than most 8-5 jobs. When you have $30B invested into a facility you have to maximize output and that means keeping all of the equipment up and running.
Downtime in one of these EUV fabs is going to cost in excess of ~$1m worth of product per hour. So yeah, you keep it staffed full of very talented maintenance technicians 24/7.
Looks like there is a lot of budget flexibility to properly pay their staff then.
None of this makes sense. 1. Long shifts are normal for fab operators in the U.S., eg Intel. 2. Certain engineers are always on call if an emergency happens, also true at Intel. 3. Samsung, not exactly the “live slow and enjoy life” type of culture as an employer operates fabs just fine in the U.S.
A big part of why this didnt bother me was the scale/impact of what I was doing - I was responsible for the primary business interface used across the entire factory floor.
Once you see a modern fab with your own eyes, it will change you in a deep way. I felt a sense of compassion for this incredibly complex and valuable thing that humanity is just barely able to scrape together. Nothing you see in media can prepare you for the real thing.
Definitely not a job for everyone, but its really easy for me to see how a lot of us were able to otherwise deal with the stress.
I work at another semiconductor manufacturer in the US. You could find and replace TSMC with my employer and write the exact same article. Re: giving PhDs menial tasks and working a lot/odd hours I've spent a lot of time thinking about it and it actually makes a certain kind of sense. From an engineering standpoint, there can be a lot variability in the amount of work needed. Some days you are on fire solving issues…
> Some days you are on fire solving issues with the tools and some days there is almost nothing to do Being programmer/sysadmin, I've never ever encountered such a day. A day with very low productivity? Yes. But not that the task list is short. Are there really days when you have nothing to do within any engineering job? Ofcourse, different jobs etc, but I suspect when everything is working, you still have to do main…
So it really depends on the job and individual skills, indeed. For software dev (which is what I know best) I would definitely choose to hire several smart, down to Earth bachelors rather than one PhD.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are long hours, and there are long hours. I consider my self a fairly hard working person, in my first job I've seen situations where people came in on a Monday and would go to their homes next Monday. I've done a full time start up with a day job, quite literally coding every waking hour of my life(like 2 - 4 hours sleep a day) for years. And then I relocated from Bangalore to Bay Area for a while, and met a f…
>> I knew several Chinese colleagues and friends like these. They are all good people wanting to make a good life by working hard, nothing to blame them. But it was kind of an unwritten rule that if you had two Chinese working in your team, you had no chance beating them. I've had the opposite experience. Most of the ones I knew were work evasive, and spent substantial time craming for leet code. I think there might…
None of this makes sense. 1. Long shifts are normal for fab operators in the U.S., eg Intel. 2. Certain engineers are always on call if an emergency happens, also true at Intel. 3. Samsung, not exactly the “live slow and enjoy life” type of culture as an employer operates fabs just fine in the U.S.
> “If you are a process engineer, it will be more stable. Maybe you can start work at 8:30 a.m.and leave before 7:30 p.m. If there are some urgent matters, you may have to stay later.”
This doesn't sound like long shifts, but regular 60+ hour weeks. If a 13 hour shift (8 to 9) is "not normal" but happens 2 to 3 days a week, it doesn't sound like they are just working 3 days a week. A "more stable" position works 11 hours.
As an European these hours would be completely unacceptable to me unless it's 3 days on 4 days off, which it doesn't seem to be.
None of this makes sense. 1. Long shifts are normal for fab operators in the U.S., eg Intel. 2. Certain engineers are always on call if an emergency happens, also true at Intel. 3. Samsung, not exactly the “live slow and enjoy life” type of culture as an employer operates fabs just fine in the U.S.
I work at another semiconductor manufacturer in the US. You could find and replace TSMC with my employer and write the exact same article. Re: giving PhDs menial tasks and working a lot/odd hours I've spent a lot of time thinking about it and it actually makes a certain kind of sense. From an engineering standpoint, there can be a lot variability in the amount of work needed. Some days you are on fire solving issues…
> Some days you are on fire solving issues with the tools and some days there is almost nothing to do Being programmer/sysadmin, I've never ever encountered such a day. A day with very low productivity? Yes. But not that the task list is short. Are there really days when you have nothing to do within any engineering job? Ofcourse, different jobs etc, but I suspect when everything is working, you still have to do main…
I think _ht0b means: If a machine needs 24/7 expert support, having a single PhD paid $$$$ to be on call 24/7 might be cheaper than having a rota of 4 non-PhDs, even if the latter are cheaper per head.
Of course, in my experience it depends on the details; if the system is so needy the people doing support can't even go to the supermarket or on a date or drink a glass of beer? That's a job for a rota of people, not a single person.