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Applied Materials Is a Major Reason Computers Keep Getting Faster

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Re: Applied Materials Is a Major Reason Computers Keep Getting Faster

#11

Post by paxys »

raziel2701 wrote: post #4

When I finished my phd in materials science I interviewed and got an offer at applied for $120k/yr in 2019. No thanks. Throughout my time in grad school I saw leaders in the semiconductor industry talk to professors and complain about how they can no longer get the best talent and that every one is going to software. Well, have you looked at what you're paying and what you're asking to get for that money? And then th…

This is the sad truth about the industry. The EE/CE department at my university was world renowned. Groundbreaking research being done. Professors who defined industry trends. Everyone I knew in the program was a genius and truly wanted to move the world forward.

Upon graduation the smartest in the class got $70K offers from Intel. If you had a PhD then maybe $80K. Today they are all working at FAANG or enterprise SaaS companies.

Re: Applied Materials Is a Major Reason Computers Keep Getting Faster

#12

Post by highwaylights »

11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #7

I doubt there is any man-made object more complex than a state of the art semiconductor. The amount of science and engineering that has gone into the evolution of the fabrication should not be taken for granted. Exotic is an understatement. Just for a sliver of insight, take a look at the ASML lithography tool and how it generates the light that exposes the nanoscale circuits on the chip: https://www.youtube.com/watc…

I'm a bit confused by this.

The video was posted to YouTube in 2021. It looks like a video shot in 2021. It has a copyright notice at the end that states 2021. Yet it's talking about a then-current 193nm wavelength lithography, which according to this post from ASML's newsroom was the then-current process for producing 100nm chips at the end of 2000:

https://www.asml.com/en/news/press-releases/2000/asml-announ...

According to the reporters comments at the start of the video, this would have been a current process when he started at Intel 21 years ago, but he's talking about it as a current process?

I'm sure I've missed something simple in the video but I don't know what it is?

Re: Applied Materials Is a Major Reason Computers Keep Getting Faster

#13

Post by j7ake »

raziel2701 wrote: post #4

When I finished my phd in materials science I interviewed and got an offer at applied for $120k/yr in 2019. No thanks. Throughout my time in grad school I saw leaders in the semiconductor industry talk to professors and complain about how they can no longer get the best talent and that every one is going to software. Well, have you looked at what you're paying and what you're asking to get for that money? And then th…

Do you think it is the difference between hardware vs software?

The competition for hardware is fierce, so margins and profits are low.

Re: Applied Materials Is a Major Reason Computers Keep Getting Faster

#14

Post by 4gotunameagain »

raziel2701 wrote: post #4

When I finished my phd in materials science I interviewed and got an offer at applied for $120k/yr in 2019. No thanks. Throughout my time in grad school I saw leaders in the semiconductor industry talk to professors and complain about how they can no longer get the best talent and that every one is going to software. Well, have you looked at what you're paying and what you're asking to get for that money? And then th…

Is it their fault that VC goes to SaaS and pointless startups as fast as flies go to shit ?

$120k/yr is a very good amount of money. The problem is the inflation of the tech sector because the second dot com boom we are experiencing

Re: Applied Materials Is a Major Reason Computers Keep Getting Faster

#15

Post by ThrowawayTestr »

highwaylights wrote: post #12
11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #7

I doubt there is any man-made object more complex than a state of the art semiconductor. The amount of science and engineering that has gone into the evolution of the fabrication should not be taken for granted. Exotic is an understatement. Just for a sliver of insight, take a look at the ASML lithography tool and how it generates the light that exposes the nanoscale circuits on the chip: https://www.youtube.com/watc…

I'm a bit confused by this. The video was posted to YouTube in 2021. It looks like a video shot in 2021. It has a copyright notice at the end that states 2021. Yet it's talking about a then-current 193nm wavelength lithography, which according to this post from ASML's newsroom was the then-current process for producing 100nm chips at the end of 2000: https://www.asml.com/en/news/press-releases/2000/asml-announ... Acc…

193nm is the wavelength of the light used. The single digit nm fugue you're probably familiar with is the size of the features on the chip.

Re: Applied Materials Is a Major Reason Computers Keep Getting Faster

#16

Post by hnfong »

raziel2701 wrote: post #4

When I finished my phd in materials science I interviewed and got an offer at applied for $120k/yr in 2019. No thanks. Throughout my time in grad school I saw leaders in the semiconductor industry talk to professors and complain about how they can no longer get the best talent and that every one is going to software. Well, have you looked at what you're paying and what you're asking to get for that money? And then th…

As I see it, it's not so much the fault of research institutions and hardware companies that salaries are not competitive with software.

It's that the software industry has too much money. The economies of scale of the software industry allows excess central bank printed money to flow predominantly towards software companies and VC backed mega startups. You can be speculative in software startups with the standard VC formula: pump a couple billion into a company, get a couple hundred million users (just scale with AWS, no problem!), and then dump shares on the stock market full of investors holding free stimulus cash and looking for an alternative to their (used to be) Hardware companies just can't scale that way. (How's the Arizona plant going, TSMC?)

The salaries in software are abhorrently inflated (and I'm speaking as a beneficiary to this phenomenon). It's "unfortunate" that most people with technical degrees have a relatively easy career option to switch to software, if we take that out of the equation, $120k/year doesn't sound really that bad TBH.

Re: Applied Materials Is a Major Reason Computers Keep Getting Faster

#17

Post by thfuran »

highwaylights wrote: post #12
11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #7

I doubt there is any man-made object more complex than a state of the art semiconductor. The amount of science and engineering that has gone into the evolution of the fabrication should not be taken for granted. Exotic is an understatement. Just for a sliver of insight, take a look at the ASML lithography tool and how it generates the light that exposes the nanoscale circuits on the chip: https://www.youtube.com/watc…

I'm a bit confused by this. The video was posted to YouTube in 2021. It looks like a video shot in 2021. It has a copyright notice at the end that states 2021. Yet it's talking about a then-current 193nm wavelength lithography, which according to this post from ASML's newsroom was the then-current process for producing 100nm chips at the end of 2000: https://www.asml.com/en/news/press-releases/2000/asml-announ... Acc…

I haven't watched the video yet, but most things don't need state of the art process—that's pretty much just for the main processors of phones and computers. There are fabs still running much older processes for everything else that just doesn't need the smallest possible transistors—toasters, industrial equipment, etc.

Edit: watching the video though, it's about an EUV machine, which is definitely recent tech. The 193 nm figure is actually referring to its predecessors. It generates 13.5 nm light.

Re: Applied Materials Is a Major Reason Computers Keep Getting Faster

#18

Post by highwaylights »

ThrowawayTestr wrote: post #15
highwaylights wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a bit confused by this. The video was posted to YouTube in 2021. It looks like a video shot in 2021. It has a copyright notice at the end that states 2021. Yet it's talking about a then-current 193nm wavelength lithography, which according to this post from ASML's newsroom was the then-current process for producing 100nm chips at the end of 2000: https://www.asml.com/en/news/press-releases/2000/asml-announ... Acc…

193nm is the wavelength of the light used. The single digit nm fugue you're probably familiar with is the size of the features on the chip.

Yeah I’m assuming that’s what it is due to the reference to a 13.5nm node later. Thanks for clarifying.

Re: Applied Materials Is a Major Reason Computers Keep Getting Faster

#19

Post by imtringued »

hnfong wrote: post #16
raziel2701 wrote: post #4

When I finished my phd in materials science I interviewed and got an offer at applied for $120k/yr in 2019. No thanks. Throughout my time in grad school I saw leaders in the semiconductor industry talk to professors and complain about how they can no longer get the best talent and that every one is going to software. Well, have you looked at what you're paying and what you're asking to get for that money? And then th…

As I see it, it's not so much the fault of research institutions and hardware companies that salaries are not competitive with software. It's that the software industry has too much money. The economies of scale of the software industry allows excess central bank printed money to flow predominantly towards software companies and VC backed mega startups. You can be speculative in software startups with the standard VC…

>. The economies of scale of the software industry allows excess central bank printed money to flow predominantly towards software companies and VC backed mega startups.

I don't know why people keep saying this. The central bank doesn't do this. It doesn't hand over money to investors. I don't like saying it but this sounds too much like a conspiracy theory to me. I mean, the pathway for why exactly this is supposed to happen is not explained at all.

In reality commercial banks create the money and they don't give a damn about small or medium sized companies. The central bank is just there to make sure the money system doesn't collapse in either direction. This means they do tend to support commercial banks with excess reserves but those banks make the decisions based on the expectation of getting that money back, which is in stark contrast to the free money rethoric. If someone is doing something it's not the central banks.

Have you tried working with hardware by the way? Anything related to hardware has a huge capital intensitivity and this means more of the money is going into paying interest or capital returns to investors instead of employees. If the earning potential of a software and hardware developer are the same but each hardware job requires $400k in capital then just the usual 8% return expectation would cut the hardware developer's salary by $32k. Meanwhile the software guy needs a laptop and monitors on a desk in an office. None of this has anything to do with central banks. If anything cheap central bank money would disproportionately benefit the hardware guy.

Re: Applied Materials Is a Major Reason Computers Keep Getting Faster

#20

Post by tester756 »

11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #7

I doubt there is any man-made object more complex than a state of the art semiconductor. The amount of science and engineering that has gone into the evolution of the fabrication should not be taken for granted. Exotic is an understatement. Just for a sliver of insight, take a look at the ASML lithography tool and how it generates the light that exposes the nanoscale circuits on the chip: https://www.youtube.com/watc…

That's why semiconductor engineering is current "rocket science"
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