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Comment by heavenlyblue | Hacker News Reader

> Innovation happens on the factory floor.

I don't particularly miss the day of colonialism, however I just don't see innovation happening on the floor at a chip fab.

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It's got a stronger chance of occurring in the chip fab than in the CFO's office.

Practical experience matters even with high tech processes. People who live out in the abstract design space miss small but important details.

There are many more layers of engineering in a modern CPU than designing the ISA, the hardware layout, and even the initial mask. Core designs can be licensed. The process is a big part of what makes a processor perform well.

People engineer the cleanroom, the litho, the straining, the insulator layer, all sorts of things individually. Every part of a fab can be reengineered towards making a better, more consistent processor with better yields.

Are you implying these are local people making these adjustments at the fab?

Are you aware what sort of businesses Global Foundries, TSMC, and even the fabs of Samsung and TI are? Every part of the process has its own engineers. Some of them design the chip. Some of them design the fab. Some design the equipment in the fab. Some tweak the settings. All are willing, or should be, to take feedback on possible improvements and do small test runs between large batches. Anything that raises yields is a welcome improvement if it works.

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