reSee.it - Tweets Saved By @CatSupremacy9
@CatSupremacy9 - CatSupremacy
How are we able to poast fizeek, cat videos, and racist content online? Microprocessors. I’ll explain how they’re made. Enter “photolithography” - the most complex process and the most complex machine man (not woman) ever made. Watch this short video https://youtu.be/h_zgURwr6nA?si=NwsJphyjcjIJXG82
@CatSupremacy9 - CatSupremacy
The semiconductor chip in your iPhone contains 50 billion transistors within the size of your fingernail. How are these “made”? They’re printed. With light. Enter ASML - the makers of Lithography machines. They hold the monopoly on EUV (extreme ultraviolet) lithography https://t.co/3SkwxpEgoX
@CatSupremacy9 - CatSupremacy
EUV light does not occur naturally on earth. The ASML machine generates EUV with a laser fired at a small droplet of tin. The laser fires 50,000 times per second and strikes a droplet of tin twice. The tin explodes and produces EUV light. The light is reflected thru the machine. https://t.co/m1oPyCVKS2
@CatSupremacy9 - CatSupremacy
The light is reflected by a mirror which is the smoothest surface on earth. If the mirror was the size of Germany, the highest anomaly would be 1 millimeter “high”. We can’t comprehend this level of precision. The mirror reflects the EUV onto a reticle (photomask). https://t.co/LPnKyFFBtd
@CatSupremacy9 - CatSupremacy
The reticle is a “negative” of the chip design. This way, a chip can be copied and printed millions of times. An advanced chip contains 80 layers of transistors and conduits (“hallways” for moving information). The various layers are connected through vertical corridors, “vias”. https://t.co/OFg8fYu6QE
@CatSupremacy9 - CatSupremacy
The lithography process only prints one layer at a time. Meaning, the silicon wafer of chips must pass through the lithography machine 80 times. Each of these layers must be PERFECTLY aligned. To an atom’s degree of accuracy. (Remember, those vertical vias must connect properly.) https://t.co/5FdTz2Tb2q
@CatSupremacy9 - CatSupremacy
The EUV ASML machine is a dual scan machine - which means it can align the wafers perfectly for each stage of printing, and actual print the reticle design. The machine prints 180 wafers an hour. This is a wafer every 3 minute. A wafer contains up to 200 chips.
@CatSupremacy9 - CatSupremacy
That means a layer of a chip - with billions of transistors - is printed every second.
@CatSupremacy9 - CatSupremacy
This is the most fascinating human process we’ve ever achieved. And something nearly every human on earth utilizes in every aspect of- and nearly every moment of- our lives. The TSMC-manufactured chip in your iPhone is printed with EUV lithography. I encourage you to learn more.
