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Two startups tried to catch up to makers of advanced computer chips, and failed

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Re: Two startups tried to catch up to makers of advanced computer chips, and failed

#91

Post by lifeisstillgood »

jl2718 wrote: post #90
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #30

I have a theory. Not a good one but it's a theory Any one organisation can only be efficient if the whole organisation can fit in one persons head. It must be possible to reason about changes in one area affecting another. This anecdotally applies to every software system i have worked on - once you don't understand how another part works decisions you make become divorced from reality As such organisations must eith…

I think this is largely correct, although it helps to have many people understand it. When I worked at Micron, the training on the “Traveller Process” was mandatory and you could go very deep in it. There were a lot of people with at least a passing understanding of what everybody else was doing and in what order. The depth was not always there, especially about what could go wrong, and what that would look like. I s…

It feels that an open source system (not too sure how you precisely define that) at least forces the "replication" problem. If no-one else can build your code there is a problem. If no-one else can contribute to your open-fab then there isa complexity boundary passed?

Re: Two startups tried to catch up to makers of advanced computer chips, and failed

#92

Post by codeulike »

chx wrote: post #80
codeulike wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the EUV machines that ASML build are the most complex machines ever built by humans and getting all the bits to work properly takes decades of R+D e.g. watch this about the light source, its completely bonkers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ge2RcvDlgw

Wasn't the atomic bomb the most complex machine ever built? Hanford alone had more than 50 000 people working towards it, at Oak Ridge the K-25 building was 1,640,000 square feet... Although we could mention the B-29 which actually cost 50% more than the entire Manhattan Project -- or, to be closer to present day, the F-35.

Interesting question, maybe relative to the tech at the time it was. But in absolute terms I don't think anything comes close to 'hitting 25 micron molten drops of tin that are moving at 70 meters per second with two co-ordinated lasers in a vacuum 50,000 times a second'. And that's just the very first part of what the machine does.

Re: Two startups tried to catch up to makers of advanced computer chips, and failed

#93

Post by chopin »

kodemager wrote: post #34
bfung wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect some or most of this secret sauce is more like institutional knowledge and not one single person knows how the whole system works (to produce high quality chips at scale). Or maybe there IS one person, but that’s the CEO/founder, haha. Regardless, it’s similar to software companies claiming to run agile, but always reverting to the “get it done, waterfall deadline” mode. It takes good effort and detailed kn…

> Agile’s been around for over 10years and people still don’t do good versions well) Agile software development has been around since the early 90’ies. Scrum is from something like 1995. The reason people fail to implement it so often is that project management sort or doesn’t work in software development, and it doesn’t work because you can spend two hours looking for a spelling error or a missing semicolon, and you…

In my experience agile mostly fails because of unrealistic management expectations: Deliver a given set of features in time and quality. Especially C-Suite and one level below has this expectation with no idea what agile really means. From there, it trickles down...

Re: Two startups tried to catch up to makers of advanced computer chips, and failed

#94

Post by amboar »

bsder wrote: post #51
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #4

Economical and performant chip and jet turbine production are two areas where China can't really take any shortcuts. They have to put in a lot of time and resources to rediscover closely guarded secrets that are almost impossible to reverse engineer. They are dumping in the resources, so I'm sure they will eventually get there, but it might be a few decades (in both fields, they can already do performant or economica…

NO manufacturing line is easily transplantable or built from scratch. This is not limited to semiconductors. My favorite story about this is a paint manufacturer building a brand new, state-of-the-art manufacturing facility to increase their capacity. Everything was controlled, monitored, etc. to the nth degree. Only one problem--paint from the new line no longer stuck to anything. Cue a crash debugging with all hand…

Ah, here's the circuit design equivalent of that story: https://twitter.com/dave_universetf/status/14734753486542684...

Re: Two startups tried to catch up to makers of advanced computer chips, and failed

#95

Post by jhgb »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #61
0000011111 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China launched more rockets to orbit than any other country last year. They make not take short cuts. But they do catch up quickly in terms of development.

Rockets are pretty simple compared to jet turbines, rocket production doesn't have as thick of a moat as jet turbine production. > Developing jet engine is not an easy game unlike rocket engines as it's comparatively very compact in size & it requires advance engineering to develop it's crystal blades technology & maintain it's thrust to weight ratio & that's what make jet engine technology one of the most complicate…

Rocket engines are to jet engines basically what paper utensils are to porcelain. But with transition to reusable rocket stages, chances are that the "disposable" designs will get more complex if that extra complexity gets justified by not throwing away the whole unit after several minutes of operation.

> Developing jet engine is not an easy game unlike rocket engines as it's comparatively very compact in size & it requires advance engineering to develop it's crystal blades technology & maintain it's thrust to weight ratio & that's what make jet engine technology one of the most complicated technology.

That's a terribly worded and nonsensical claim (and almost reads like it was written by a ten year old). How could someone claim that rocket engines are "not very compact in size"? The RD-180 turbopump for example generates 170 MW of mechanical power, much more than any jet engine in operation, and in a smaller package to boot. Likewise, the HPFTP on the RS-25 generates around 50 MW of mechanical power, and does so in a package sized 0.55m by 1.1m or something like that.

Re: Two startups tried to catch up to makers of advanced computer chips, and failed

#96

Post by bsedlm »

jhgb wrote: post #40
bsedlm wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why would a company share its trade secrets? indeed, I wish I could answer this. > Not to mention the national security arguments. it is an inteserting excercise to consider this from the rival's point of view

The rival's point of view is utterly irrelevant.

that's a terrible tactic. consider as an example playing chess while disregarding what your opponent may do.

Re: Two startups tried to catch up to makers of advanced computer chips, and failed

#97

Post by TMWNN »

908B64B197 wrote: post #73
ChuckMcM wrote: post #72

I would not be the least bit surprised if it cost $150B to $250B to capitalize a new 'state of the art' semiconductor fab. I'm a bit surprised they didn't shoot a bit lower and just try to replicate ASML's machines. Those are one of the unobtainium pieces that cost so much in a new fab. In my experience the only way to compete with a long established player is to learn the business from the ground up and expect a loo…

> Invest in university programs to train process engineers, physicists, and circuit designers. "Seed" several universities with small 300mm fabs to give students real experience rather than just "book learning." Aggressively weed out people who cheat to get through school. This requires a deep cultural change. Because of high pressure cramming exams that favors rote, Chinese students are incentivized to just cheat fr…

>Also, keep in mind that no matter how much you invest, studying at an American university opens the door to working in America and getting a western passport, something more and more Chinese are desperately trying to do.

I'd heard the opposite; that in recent years fewer Chinese studying in the US are staying, and that more who had stayed were returning to China, because of greater opportunities.

Re: Two startups tried to catch up to makers of advanced computer chips, and failed

#98

Post by webmaven »

webmaven wrote: post #79
AceJohnny2 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and it doesn’t work because you can spend two hours looking for a spelling error or a missing semicolon, and you can create Godlike code in half an hour, and you never know which mode you’re going to be in when you get up in the morning. That's ADHD (maybe modulo some external factors like scattered meetings)

> That's ADHD (maybe modulo some external factors like scattered meetings) That doesn't seem like ADHD to me. Getting to a super-productive flow state is notoriously difficult to do reliably for everyone, and getting stuck on a stupid typo you can't find even though you know it is somewhere in the 50 lines of code you're looking at is likewise a fairly common experience. Folks with ADHD may actually be better at achi…

Coming back to this comment after a few days, I find that what I was trying to say with the last bit is that yak-shaving can be either intrinsic (ADHD) or extrinsic (badly architected, deeply intertwingled code with leaky abstractions).
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