This is a fascinating story about how Samsung set out to build a state of the art chip fab (fabrication facility) and the problems that bedeviled it. Without the chips this factory was designed to build, AI is nowhere.
Timestamps:
00:00 - $50B Chip Nightmare
18:26 - Where Everything Went Wrong
29:58 - The Twist
Like building a golf course. How to make a hundred million into fifty million.
ReplyDeleteLong and detailed article re the intense engineering needed to build a chip fab.
"How to Build a $20 Billion Semiconductor Fab
Brian Potter
May 03, 2024
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"Many of the chemicals used in the fab, such as phosphine and arsine for doping, are highly toxic. Others, such as the silane used in some CVD processes, are pyrophoric (meaning they ignite spontaneously with air.) One chemical, the chlorine trifluoride used for cleaning CVD chambers, is so toxic and so prone to spontaneous ignition (it's capable of setting wet sand on fire) that some chemists refuse to work with it. These chemicals require special handling and leak detection systems, backup power systems, and specially designed fire protection systems due to the hazard they represent.
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The sub-fab is also where many of the chemicals required for process tools are stored and routed (although some chemicals, particularly highly toxic ones, will be stored within the process tools to minimize the risk of leaks, while others will be stored outside the fab building). A semiconductor fab uses a wide variety of chemicals, ranging from nitrogen (used for purging and cleaning FOUPS and process tools), oxygen (used in oxidation furnaces and abatement equipment), argon (used in plasma reactions), hydrogen (used in EUV machine cleaning) and others. The volume of chemicals and gasses used, and the amount of exhaust generated, requires an enormous amount of piping, with some pipes reaching up to ten feet in diameter. And these chemicals must be extremely pure, in some cases 99.9999999% pure.
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"Many of the chemicals used in the fab, such as phosphine and arsine for doping, are highly toxic. Others, such as the silane used in some CVD processes, are pyrophoric (meaning they ignite spontaneously with air.) One chemical, the chlorine trifluoride used for cleaning CVD chambers, is so toxic and so prone to spontaneous ignition (it's capable of setting wet sand on fire) that some chemists refuse to work with it. These chemicals require special handling and leak detection systems, backup power systems, and specially designed fire protection systems due to the hazard they represent.
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"Intel boasts that its fabs use twice the concrete as the Burj Khalifa, and five times the metal used in the Eiffel Tower.
Putting this material in place at the necessary level of precision requires thousands of specially trained construction workers. Intel’s new fab in Magdeburg is expected to require over 9,300 workers at its peak, and TSMC’s new fab being built in Arizona is using 12,000. Workers must follow specially-designed “clean construction” protocols to keep materials clean, minimize particle intrusion
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"one of ASML’s advanced EUV machines “ships in 40 freight containers, spread over 20 trucks and three cargo planes.” [$400m?)
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"US fabs are also more expensive to build than in other parts of the world, with estimates ranging from 30% more expensive (per Intel) to up to four times as expensive (per TSMC).4
"Cost breakdown of a fab
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https://www.construction-physics.com/p/how-to-build-a-20-billion-semiconductor