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Comment by 0xff00ffee | Hacker News Reader

I had no idea he started work on FinFETs in the 90's. That's crazy because I worked on them at Intel during the first process (which was an absolute beast to bring up), and I just assumed they were a new tech. Funny that often the people on the cutting edge don't get a chance to appreciate the history.

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>"That's crazy because I worked on them at Intel during the first process (which was an absolute beast to bring up)"

Could you elaborate on this? Do you mean bringing the the process node/fab online? More so of a beast than other other nodes? Cheers.

No, I can't elaborate because I wasn't on the process team, I just used their parameters. I watched the agony on faces of friends on-call 24/7 who owned the yields... that was close enough for me. :)

Yes, I meant bringing up the process node.

Yes, more so than other nodes, but for context I only go back to p854, so earlier might have been worse.

Were you in charge of the models? If so, any resources you could share? Conferences, books, whatever.

Oh hellz no! I was just a consumer. Lots and lots of people use the process files for all kinds of modeling (hundreds of models). And every time a new one comes out we all spend a month switching over to it... and another month explaining to our bosses why everything got worse!

The people in charge of the model need to be very smart, very diplomatic, and very thick-skinned because every release they have literally hundreds of managers and project leads screaming at them.

I know what you mean. Designers are more worried about simulation results not changing, than they are about matching reality better :)

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