Operating a FAB requires employing PhDs that are willing to work 8 hours shifts with no breaks (each removal of a bunnysuit is an expensive exercise), and there’s no reason to believe SpaceX is capable of hiring such people.
There was a point made recently by Musk that the whole clean room idea is outdated if you can just ensure the path the silicon takes from wafer to lidding is clean. Seems solvable to me, but leaves me wondering why it hasn’t been done before. I assume there is no human handling of raw/etched silicon now anyway, so why does the whole room need to be clean?
The semiconductor fab process changes dynamically to manage yield. It is not a static environment, automating with robotics is fine when things are static like a automotive assembly line, but high end semiconductor fabs are a different beast (The analogy I heard was repairing a plane while in flight).
Robots are not purely clean as well they shed contaminates as well, which must be managed too. Entropy is the reason why we still need humans in the loop.
We don’t know if SpaceX’s plan will actually work, they announced it this year and it is a long-timeline Musk project. These have… mixed results.
You've got to wonder why. It makes no sense for xAI to make their own chips.
The "integration" of SpaceX/xAI is just standard Musk-move-losses-to-the-company-making-money-at-the-moment bullshit.
Apple actually have the runs on the board, xAI has Musk-BS.
yeah. right after tesla self-driving.
that's crazy. Looks like Intel is part of this https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/intel-...
Part of the trump bullshit that the USGov has taken 10% of Intel.
It's actual corruption and the standard fascist model of corporate takeover by the state.
They can’t.
Operating a FAB requires employing PhDs that are willing to work 8 hours shifts with no breaks (each removal of a bunnysuit is an expensive exercise), and there’s no reason to believe SpaceX is capable of hiring such people.
There was a point made recently by Musk that the whole clean room idea is outdated if you can just ensure the path the silicon takes from wafer to lidding is clean. Seems solvable to me, but leaves me wondering why it hasn’t been done before. I assume there is no human handling of raw/etched silicon now anyway, so why does the whole room need to be clean?
The semiconductor fab process changes dynamically to manage yield. It is not a static environment, automating with robotics is fine when things are static like a automotive assembly line, but high end semiconductor fabs are a different beast (The analogy I heard was repairing a plane while in flight). Robots are not purely clean as well they shed contaminates as well, which must be managed too. Entropy is the reason why we still need humans in the loop.
hmm yeah. its cool that musk knows more about this than the entire industry
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