It's the Most Indispensable Machine in the World--and It Depends on This Woman

[CousinIT]

Scary and fascinating!

https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/asml-euv-machine-lithography-chips-967954d0

FREE to read at archival link: https://archive.ph/1i4JW

I got a rare look at the one tool responsible for all the tech in your life. It’s made by a company you’ve never heard of. And it’s maintained by hidden figures like her.

. . .

The piece of equipment that the entire world has come to rely on—and she is specially trained to handle—is called an extreme ultraviolet lithography machine.

It’s the machine that produces the most advanced microchips on the planet. It was built with scientific technologies that sound more like science fiction—breakthroughs so improbable that they were once dismissed as impossible. And it has transformed wafers of silicon into the engines of modern life.

Even today, there are only a few hundred of these EUV machines in existence—and they are ludicrously expensive. The one that Hall maintains cost $170 million, while the latest models sell for roughly $370 million.

But maybe the most remarkable thing about these invaluable machines is that they’re all made by the same company: ASML. ...

[Hotler]

1. Cool. Thanks for sharing. nt

[lapfog_1]

2. which is why I actually laughed out loud

when the idiot ( Sam Altman ) in charge of open.ai was running around talking around raising over a trillion dollars so he could design and fab his own AI chips and that he would produce the chips needed in a year or two.

ASML only has capacity to make X number of chip making ( at the extreme feature size ) machines per year. Creating another ASML or the chip making companies like TSMC or the chip design companies ( like Nvidia or AMD ) is just really really difficult.

[dalton99a]

3. Kick

“There’s a hose that isn’t doing what it’s supposed to,” she declared.

A blockage in the water line meant the hose wasn’t cooling properly—and now it was having some heat issues. When she touched the hose, Hall could feel a minor distortion. Which had the potential to be a major problem. Even this barely perceptible warpage could bring the whole machine down if the hose burst. That rupture would activate the leak sensor and trigger an immediate stop—the equivalent of smashing one of those red emergency buttons.

ASML’s engineers knew this circuit was under strain and had a plan to address it during the next scheduled down. But that was still three weeks away.

They could wait until then. Or she could just solve the problem now.

Hall laid out the situation to a Micron official and he authorized her to proceed with the repair on the spot.

And that’s when she reached for two Home Depot buckets.

She needed the orange pails that cost $3.98 at the hardware store before she could fix a machine that sells for a few hundred million dollars. To swap out the hose without spraying water everywhere, Hall drained the water line until both tubs were almost full. She carefully replaced the Teflon hose, attached thermal sensors for monitoring and shut the door behind her.