the equipment...when you spend 50million or so on a litho scanner and the associated track, plumb in the chemicals, the support equipment for the chemicals, etc. it adds up fast. Remember they aren't setting up one line they are setting up many because the economics only work at scale. If I need to do 40+ litho layers with 60k wsw you need probably a dozen or more litho tool sets. That alone is over a billion dollars.
You're right. That's what I haven't considered! Something like an offset printing press. You can do all four (or more) layers with only one machine/press, but most machines have 4 layers/presses inside them in order to expedite production.
If you forgive the shameless self-promotion, I did a talk on the scale and economics and so forth a while back you might find interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGFhc8R_uO4 It has been posted on HN a few times before...the technology still puts a tingle in my spine
[insert critcism of how I need to be a better public speaker here]
By the powers bestowed upon me by hacker news user account creation, I absolve you from your sin of shameless self-promotion. Seriously though, I am as remote as possible from that industry (film and TV content creation!), but it absolutely fascinates me. I devour all and every article and paper (that I can understand) about this and HPC as well. You did well in video, we should do a documentary together on this theme!
I attempted to Google and figure out what you meant by "...with 60k wsw". Sorry I'm not versed in the terminology of chip fabrication, so I was curious what wsw means. What does it mean?
After all the advances that are on the way with ICs(5nm, 3D chips, different semiconductors) I wonder if cheap, small batch production that can be done by hobbyists and small businesses will ever be a thing.
