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That is a really cool video, thank you!

Maybe the high water usage is at some other stage? Or intermediate preceding stages? I'd love to understand more end-to-end, as surely it isn't as easy as popping a wafer in a semi-truck trailer sized lithography machine.

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Check out the Branch Education channel, they have a series of videos that explain how the underlying transistors are made in 3d space with multilayer exposures etc.

One thing to understand is that you’re seeing an accumulation of over 50 years of incredible engineering and cutting edge science, these things were invented incrementally.

Lithography is one of many steps, but probably the most important one. You use it to expose a photoresist to create a mask for further processing. After exposing the photoresist you need to develop it, remove either the exposed or unexposed photoresist. The remaining photoresist then is the mask and you either etch or dope the surface that is not covered by the mask or you deposit material on top. And then you need to remove the mask and start all over again for the next layer. The high water usage comes from repeatedly needing to clean the surface to remove chemicals and photoresist.

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