Step 1: Put the helium in a blimp Step 2: Fly around the straight and over to Taiwan Step 3: Pump it into the chip factory There you go, solved it.
How do you get the blimp back?
Hydrogen
Qatar helium shutdown puts chip supply chain on a two-week clock
311–320 of 675 posts
Re: Qatar helium shutdown puts chip supply chain on a two-week clock
#312Earlier quoted context omitted.
Living in developing countries taught me to never plugin expensive computers without a surge protector UPS.
Lightning can mess you up in every country lol. Had to replace a PSU because of that, thankfully it was just that and minor damage to GPU.
Where I live it's not an issue.
Re: Qatar helium shutdown puts chip supply chain on a two-week clock
#313Helium output from the Persian Gulf is about 5 million cubic meters a month. Which (liquefied) is about 40 truckloads a week
This article is just hysteria
Re: Qatar helium shutdown puts chip supply chain on a two-week clock
#314Helium output from the Persian Gulf is about 5 million cubic meters a month. Which (liquefied) is about 40 truckloads a week This article is just hysteria
Removing 30% of the supply of a very important, and completely irreplaceable for most of its uses, resource isn’t hysteria.
Re: Qatar helium shutdown puts chip supply chain on a two-week clock
#315Re: Qatar helium shutdown puts chip supply chain on a two-week clock
#316Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hint : GE Force Now ssshhhhh... do not tell anyone I told you...
It's horrible. Bad quality, bad latency, can't mod the games etc. And worse you have to pay for it when you already have a more than capable computer.
I used Shadow PC for a long time. Never any issues over several years. Lots of reasons in preferred it over GeForce. I can expound on that later if needed
Re: Qatar helium shutdown puts chip supply chain on a two-week clock
#317Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lightning can mess you up in every country lol. Had to replace a PSU because of that, thankfully it was just that and minor damage to GPU.
Lightning damage is mostly an issue if the last-mile power lines are above ground. In my experience, power surges in urban areas with a decent grid are so rare that people generally don't bother protecting their devices.
I have lived in the DC metro area inside the beltway or in Sillicon Valley my entire adult life and have only had above ground power wiring. Despite tree ordnances and wind storms and a grid so aged if we see lightning we lose power.
Re: Qatar helium shutdown puts chip supply chain on a two-week clock
#318Earlier quoted context omitted.
Living in developing countries taught me to never plugin expensive computers without a surge protector UPS.
Commercial uses layered surge protectors (Type I, II, and III), which is also recommended for other users but rarely followed. In surge prone areas, at a minimum I would have good quality whole-house surge protector (eg Siemens 140 or Eaton 108), and a good quality surge protector strip for any computer/TV/phone charger. I also put surge protectors in front of expensive white goods like the fridge, washer/dryer, dish…
> Nothing (reasonable) can protect against direct lightning strikes
Belkin make a number of surge protectors which offer a connected equipment warranty in the UK. Admittedly: financial protection, not data protection, but I felt it was worthwhile for the peace of mind.
https://www.belkin.com/id/p/6-outlet-surge-protection-strip-...
Re: Qatar helium shutdown puts chip supply chain on a two-week clock
#319Earlier quoted context omitted.
Balloon gas is ~20% oxygen, so your kids don't go unconscious while doing the funny voices.
People commit suicide with it because it's supposedly painless and quick.
Same applies to every gas that isn't carbon dioxide. Your body only cares about expelling CO2, it hasn't evolved a way to detect oxygen in the breathing gas mix. Divers know all about this.
Re: Qatar helium shutdown puts chip supply chain on a two-week clock
#320Earlier quoted context omitted.
The big problem is purity. Fabs use grade 5 and 6 helium where contaminants are 1-10 parts per billion. The infrastructure to get it that pure becomes very specialized and any time the helium goes through a process it picks up so much contamination that recycling it would require the entire purifying and quality control infrastructure for pressure or temperature swing adsorption. Some fabs are starting to reuse heliu…
From the article I thought the helium was used mostly for cooling (where I imagine the purity wouldn't be that important) But what other processes do the fabs use the helium for then?
It is used a lot for cooling but in many systems its used without a classical heat exchangers where the helium is isolated from the workpiece.
Helium is pumped beneath the wafer to keep it cool so any impurities can leak through the chuck seal into the chamber above and disrupt the process. It’s also very precisely controlled so impurities change the uniformity of the thermal conductivity of the gas, creating hot spots on the wafer.
In EUV it’s used to both to cool the optics and as a buffer gas to manage debris from the plasma so any contaminants can deposit on the optics. At 13.5nm even a single layer of hydrocarbon molecules can create problems and the light bounces many times between mirrors so the error compounds.
There are many places where helium doesn’t have to be as pure but contamination events and surprise maintenance are so expensive that it’s not worth the extra savings (or the risk of mislabling and using dirty helium in the sensitive parts).