Want even tinier chips? Use a particle accelerator • Hacker News Board

Re: Want even tinier chips? Use a particle accelerator

#71

Post by adastra22 » Sat, Mar 22, 2025, 7:13 PM UTC

muhdeeb wrote: post #68

adastra22 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the long run, this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bw6Zi17DBI The story of technological progress is one of shrinking feature sizes in manufacturing. Not just semiconductors, but everything. The Industrial Revolution is really the story of higher tolerance and more reliable manufacturing pins. You can explore the physical limits of technology by looking at what happens when we reach perfect atomic precision--eve…

What’s the plan for dealing with cosmic rays? I worry about when your beautiful angstrom-precision qubit networks encounter a relativistic proton or muon.

The liklihood of a particular structure being hit is very, very small. Negligible over the operational lifetime of the device.

In the long-term vision of scaled-up nanotechnology, there will of course have to be redundancy and mechanisms for disabling, removing, and recycling (or incinerating) mechanisms destroyed by cosmic rays.

But in the near-term, it is an ignorable risk.

Re: Want even tinier chips? Use a particle accelerator

#72

Post by adastra22 » Sat, Mar 22, 2025, 7:15 PM UTC

defrost wrote: post #69

muhdeeb wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s the plan for dealing with cosmic rays? I worry about when your beautiful angstrom-precision qubit networks encounter a relativistic proton or muon.

At near surface level ( 80m above ground in clear dry air ) 42 litres of doped Sodium Iodide scintillation crystal will experience ~ one to two thousand gamma events a second .. most of relatively low energy (and ground sourced). The fall off from low orbit to surface is substantial in both event numbers and energy level. The higher energy cosmic sourced events at surface level are down in the hundred or less a secon…

None of that is needed. You're talking about surface events per square meter (roughly) and we're talking about a device with total dimensions smaller than a single TSMC 2nm transistor. The cross section is so small that the chance of it being hit over the lifetime of the product is ignorable. There are way bigger operational risks to worry about.

Re: Want even tinier chips? Use a particle accelerator

#73

Post by defrost » Sun, Mar 23, 2025, 2:59 AM UTC

adastra22 wrote: post #72

defrost wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At near surface level ( 80m above ground in clear dry air ) 42 litres of doped Sodium Iodide scintillation crystal will experience ~ one to two thousand gamma events a second .. most of relatively low energy (and ground sourced). The fall off from low orbit to surface is substantial in both event numbers and energy level. The higher energy cosmic sourced events at surface level are down in the hundred or less a secon…

None of that is needed. You're talking about surface events per square meter (roughly) and we're talking about a device with total dimensions smaller than a single TSMC 2nm transistor. The cross section is so small that the chance of it being hit over the lifetime of the product is ignorable. There are way bigger operational risks to worry about.

I provided real data about gamma events.

You're welcome.

I trust you can do the math scaling from events per 42 litre volume to the volume in question here.

The altitude and air density factor in, any LEO applications have an increased risk, etc.

> The cross section is so small that the chance of it being hit over the lifetime of the product is ignorable.

Always a possibility under consideration: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qantas_Flight_72#Potential_tri...

Re: Want even tinier chips? Use a particle accelerator

#74

Post by adastra22 » Sun, Mar 23, 2025, 6:48 AM UTC

defrost wrote: post #73

adastra22 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of that is needed. You're talking about surface events per square meter (roughly) and we're talking about a device with total dimensions smaller than a single TSMC 2nm transistor. The cross section is so small that the chance of it being hit over the lifetime of the product is ignorable. There are way bigger operational risks to worry about.

I provided real data about gamma events. You're welcome. I trust you can do the math scaling from events per 42 litre volume to the volume in question here. The altitude and air density factor in, any LEO applications have an increased risk, etc. > The cross section is so small that the chance of it being hit over the lifetime of the product is ignorable. Always a possibility under consideration: https://en.wikipedia…

> I provided real data about gamma events.

At an irrelevant scale. The cross sectional area of these devices will be 18 - 20 orders of magnitude smaller.

> Always a possibility under consideration...

We're talking about the cross section of a macro-scale (visible with the naked eye) chip vs. a cluster of a few dozen atoms. Certainly you can understand the difference of scale? Cosmic ray induced bit flips are extremely infrequent events at the datacenter scale.

What's the frequency at which a single, specific transistor will be struck? Not that a bit flip occurs somewhere in a large datacenter, but the chance of just a specific transistor being hit. Now reduce that 100-fold. That's the base rate we're talking about.

Re: Want even tinier chips? Use a particle accelerator

#75

Post by russellbeattie » Sun, Mar 23, 2025, 6:35 PM UTC

JimBlackwood wrote: post #70

russellbeattie wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lead is cheap, right? Very cool you visited ASML. Anything exciting/interesting you'd be willing to tell the class?

Hah, I think there’s two things that stand out in my memory. - They need 3 Boeing 737’s to ship an EUV machine. - We talked with one guy who’s responsibility it was to design one of the calibration points the machine uses to find it’s zero position. This left me amazed that they’re able to ship a machine halfway across the world, re-assemble it and calibrate it again to such accuracy. And! On top of that, make it rep…

Oh, I've actually seen that in videos! If you Google it, there's tons of pics showing the loading/unloading. They're not one-offs either. TSMC may order 80 at a time.

Hadn't thought about calibration afterwards. Crazy.