How to Build a $20B Semiconductor Fab (2024)(www.construction-physics.com)
13 pointsby Bluestein7 hours ago4 comments
  • bob10294 hours ago
    > When semiconductors were being researched at Bell Labs in the 1940s, mysterious component failures were eventually traced to researchers who had touched copper door knobs; the tiny number of copper atoms that migrated from the door to the workers hands was enough to ruin their work material.

    Copper is incredibly destructive when it's in the wrong part of the fab. It's such a problem that most manufacturers typically separate it across physical cleanroom boundaries and use things like skybridges to move the wafers from one to the other. Once a lot touches the copper area, there's no coming back. It's basically a zombie virus.

    • Bluesteinan hour ago
      Amazing and my further question: What degree of scientific discipline and/or stubborness would it take for the Bell Labs folks to actually get to the bottom of this and finally trace it back to the copper and the door knobs?
      • skyberrys13 minutes ago
        One of my professors in college was telling stories about finding out the reason yield dropped after lunchtime was someone eating salty potato chips and then going back to work.

        The motivation seems easy though, wafers cost a lot of money! No one wants to see low yields. They are constantly testing and measuring everything to try and find root causes. Look at some of these diagrams if something can be isolated they try to do it.

  • ninju4 hours ago
    Impressive level of engineering for modern fabs
  • morninglight3 hours ago
    Ireland doesn't offer the political roadblocks that the US currently faces. Until that changes, progress will continue to be slow in this country.

    https://spectrumnews1.com/oh/columbus/news/2025/02/28/intel-...

  • LoganDark4 hours ago
    Atomic Semi used to be working on at-home semiconductor production, but it looks like they got investment to pivot to something else. Oh well.