Forgive my ignorant question, but if it's that sensitive why not automate it with robotics and vacuum seal it?
I understand that this is a sensitive process but so is surgery which robots are able to do with remote control.
I understand that this is a sensitive process but so is surgery which robots are able to do with remote control.
Robot surgery is tolerant of a much greater length scale of defect than a modern IC chip and is orders of magnitude fewer process steps.
Try to watch a youtube video or something but even then you won’t see the full picture. There are so many layers and the wafer passes through different flavors of the same processes over and over.
Manufacturing is a game of yields and margins. When you have thousands of operations and inputs, small changes have big effects. TSMC and Intel both have access to the same machines, it's what they're doing with them that differs.