Eufalconimorph

@Eufalconimorph@discuss.tchncs.de

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Eufalconimorph,

You mean SNI, not ESNI. ESNI is the Encrypted Server Name Indication that gets around that, though the newer ECH (Encrypted Client Hello) is better in many ways. Not all sites support either though.

At what size of transistor does semiconductor manufacturing become practical for independent manufacture?

Currently, only one company in the world – ASML – has the technological capability necessary for the creation of photolithography machines which are sufficient for the production of modern semiconductor devices. What I’m wondering is at what point does semiconductor manufacturing become practical, or even feesible for...

Eufalconimorph,

Also bleeding-edge processes mean smaller, thinner gates. That’s what gives them the fast switching speeds, but it reduces the max allowable voltage. For parts that need to handle more than 1.8V or so a modern 5nm process will just end up using bigger gates than the process is optimized for. May as well go with an older process (bigger minimum gate size) that’s better suited to switching the voltage needed. For Bosch (automotive parts, power tools, etc) they’re making a lot of parts with really big output transistors (switching 14V, 48V, etc) and not super high-performance processors.

The big disadvantage with particularly old processes is that they used smaller wafers. So fewer chips per wafer processed, meaning lower overall yields and higher price/chip. The switch from 200mm wafers to 300mm in 1999 meant the wafer area increased by a factor of 2.25! 300mm wafers also required fully-automated factories due to the weight of a wafer carrier (a front opening wafer pod, or FOUP, is 7-9kg when loaded with 25 wafers), which save on labor costs. So processes older than 1999 (around the 180nm node) are sometimes not worth it even for power electronics.

Eufalconimorph,

We’ve had open-source chip design software since the 1980s. Magic VLSI, for example. There are quite a few OSS tools for various parts of the chip design process.

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