Live data from Hacker News

Apple A19 SoC die shot

chipwise.tech

61–70 of 80 posts

Re: Apple A19 SoC die shot

#61
post #50
post #9

Missing Anandtech.com right about now

Just in case you didn’t know, dude works at Apple now! (For about ten years now..)

Anand was involved in a scandal recently there [0]. Is he still in that job?

The driving force behind the reviews for mobiles and related topics at AT was Andrei Frumusanu. His reviews had a level of depth very few even on AT could touch. But he left to work for Qualcomm so that ended his reviewer stint.

[0] https://www.tweaktown.com/news/70653/anandtech-founder-sent-...

Re: Apple A19 SoC die shot

#62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a mind blowing achievement, nothing below sorcery if you think about it. ASML machines are hitting tin droplets with 25kW laser 50,000 times a second to turn them into plasma to create the necessary extreme ultraviolet light, and despite generating 500W of EUV, only a small fraction can reach the wafer, due to loses along the way. I believe it was like 10%. Here’s an incredible, very detailed video about it: htt…

That is a really cool video, thank you! Maybe the high water usage is at some other stage? Or intermediate preceding stages? I'd love to understand more end-to-end, as surely it isn't as easy as popping a wafer in a semi-truck trailer sized lithography machine.

Lithography is one of many steps, but probably the most important one. You use it to expose a photoresist to create a mask for further processing. After exposing the photoresist you need to develop it, remove either the exposed or unexposed photoresist. The remaining photoresist then is the mask and you either etch or dope the surface that is not covered by the mask or you deposit material on top. And then you need to remove the mask and start all over again for the next layer. The high water usage comes from repeatedly needing to clean the surface to remove chemicals and photoresist.

Re: Apple A19 SoC die shot

#63
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's definitely an "on the shoulders of giants standing on the shoulders of giants" thing. Insane breakthrough technologies on top of other insane breakthroughs. Firing lasers at microscopic molten drops of metal in a controlled enough manner to get massively consistent results like what??

It’s a mind blowing achievement, nothing below sorcery if you think about it. ASML machines are hitting tin droplets with 25kW laser 50,000 times a second to turn them into plasma to create the necessary extreme ultraviolet light, and despite generating 500W of EUV, only a small fraction can reach the wafer, due to loses along the way. I believe it was like 10%. Here’s an incredible, very detailed video about it: htt…

Thanks for this! This must be the best video on EUV lithography that has ever been made.

Re: Apple A19 SoC die shot

#64
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just in case you didn’t know, dude works at Apple now! (For about ten years now..)

I wonder if Anandtech would have lasted longer if that hadn't happened.

Probably not. The market moved on. Giving such involved in depth articles for free was no sustainable compared to clickbait random articles.

Re: Apple A19 SoC die shot

#65
post #61
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just in case you didn’t know, dude works at Apple now! (For about ten years now..)

Anand was involved in a scandal recently there [0]. Is he still in that job? The driving force behind the reviews for mobiles and related topics at AT was Andrei Frumusanu. His reviews had a level of depth very few even on AT could touch. But he left to work for Qualcomm so that ended his reviewer stint. [0] https://www.tweaktown.com/news/70653/anandtech-founder-sent-...

He’s still at Apple as of last year. https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/an-anand-has-been-sight...

The “scandal” was unsubstantiated assertions in a Nuvia legal filing. Basically Apple accused Nuvia of poaching employees. In responding trying to show they were good guys, Nuvia said Anand sent them powerpoint slides marked confidential, but they responded that the communication was inappropriate. The case ultimately went to nowhere: https://www.theregister.com/2023/05/01/apple_nuvia_lawsuit/.

This doesn’t mean anything other than some lawyer thought it would be a good optics. I bet Apple’s default powerpoint slide template has confidential headers. And Nuvia would be right to cover its ass by responding the way it did—they don’t want anything marked Apple confidential in their possession even if the actual content of the slide is public information. Inclusion of the correspondence in the Nuvia legal filing could even have been a prophylactic measure, intended to get out in front of the evidence before Apple seized on it to show Nuvia did anything wrong.

Just don’t believe stuff in legal filings. It’s not that they’re untrue, it’s that they’re definitionally self-serving and selected to paint the other side in the worst light possible. That’s a byproduct of our adversarial system.

Re: Apple A19 SoC die shot

#66
post #5
post #4

It’s still my strongly held belief that things like this are one of humanity’s grandest achievements.

It's definitely an "on the shoulders of giants standing on the shoulders of giants" thing. Insane breakthrough technologies on top of other insane breakthroughs. Firing lasers at microscopic molten drops of metal in a controlled enough manner to get massively consistent results like what??

I think this clockwork-in-a-vacuum was preceded by eidophors: a projector with a spinning disc of oil that has an image drawn by an electron gun, that is then illuminated by an arc lamp.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5783jPTKzjk

Re: Apple A19 SoC die shot

#68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a mind blowing achievement, nothing below sorcery if you think about it. ASML machines are hitting tin droplets with 25kW laser 50,000 times a second to turn them into plasma to create the necessary extreme ultraviolet light, and despite generating 500W of EUV, only a small fraction can reach the wafer, due to loses along the way. I believe it was like 10%. Here’s an incredible, very detailed video about it: htt…

That is a really cool video, thank you! Maybe the high water usage is at some other stage? Or intermediate preceding stages? I'd love to understand more end-to-end, as surely it isn't as easy as popping a wafer in a semi-truck trailer sized lithography machine.

Check out the Branch Education channel, they have a series of videos that explain how the underlying transistors are made in 3d space with multilayer exposures etc.

One thing to understand is that you’re seeing an accumulation of over 50 years of incredible engineering and cutting edge science, these things were invented incrementally.

Re: Apple A19 SoC die shot

#69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They might be referring to Substack having a very open policy of having writers of any political (and other) affiliation on the platform, but I don't necessarily see it as a drawback to be so neutral.

[flagged]

If you want free speech, you'll have to have people who have views you don't like, otherwise they might silence you too.

Re: Apple A19 SoC die shot

#70
post #38

Ken Shirriff it's your time

I'm afraid that chip is too complicated for me. I'm still trying to figure out the 386 :-) But I did colorize the A19 die photo with Apple's M1 rainbow gradient, just for fun: https://oldbytes.space/@kenshirriff/115256179526128051

Haha no sweat I'm be waiting for your 386 series
Post reply on HN