Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Learn how chips are made with this Rollercoaster Tycoon-inspired animation

laurentiugabriel.github.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 73 posts

Re: Learn how chips are made with this Rollercoaster Tycoon-inspired animation

#21

Post by j_walter »

kridsdale1 wrote: post #12
j_walter wrote: post #10

This is pretty good...simplifies the process and some of the items are out of order, but it describes the process pretty well. Keep in mind, even 20 year old chips have 6-700 steps in their process...it's a giant loop of Etch, Photo, Implantation, Furnace, Chemical Vapor Deposition, Physical Vapor Deposition, Chemical Mechanical Planarization, etc...don't forget the measurement steps and defect scans. State of the ar…

A miracle masterpiece in every device and we throw them out in 3 years.

In some cases yes, in others no. As much as I love my new electronics I still play my 14 year old Xbox One, read on my 2012 Kindle Paperwhite and use multiple 5+ year old laptops that function almost the same as they did (running Linux helps). 3 years is not really the lifetime of most consumer electronics anymore...at least outside of the latest GPUs.

Re: Learn how chips are made with this Rollercoaster Tycoon-inspired animation

#26

Post by bluezly »

mcphage wrote: post #4
laurentiurad wrote: post #2

I created Chip Tycoon as an animated visualization of the semiconductor manufacturing process, inspired by the classic isometric style of RollerCoaster Tycoon and Zoo Tycoon. Rather than reading through a long article, you can watch silicon move through the major manufacturing stages—from wafer fabrication and lithography to packaging and testing—in a miniature factory. My goal was to make one of the world's most com…

It's neat, but I'm not entirely sure what the animations contribute. What's neat about games like RollerCoaster Tycoon is watching this entire map full of things happening without needing to be controlled, but this doesn't really have that. There's your vehicle moving around, and there's people wandering around, but they're not doing anything. It doesn't feel like a factory of connected components.

I had the same feeling. I think it would click more if the cart visibly changed after each station — add a layer, change color, get cut into dies, etc.

Then the animation would be doing some of the explaining instead of mostly being scenery.

Re: Learn how chips are made with this Rollercoaster Tycoon-inspired animation

#29

Post by nazgu1 »

washadjeffmad wrote: post #7

I'll be honest, as someone who enjoys industrial food science, I felt a small pang of disappointment when I realized this was about integrated circuits.

Same here, I scratched my head for couple of seconds after seeing that first step is "Sand" thinking "maybe it starts with planting potatoes" :D
Post reply on HN